Sit and spin...

Okay, so we had a coup in the office and one despot got thrown out and another was shoved into his position pending, I believe, closure of the office altogether. Anyway, the new despot is far away in the big smoke of Sydney and to him Cairns is a humid outpost of annoying people who are paid far less than him. He, let’s call him Wayne, only ever answers emails to me with no more than one to three words. No. Yes. Thinking. Approved. Send it. Fax it. You know, stuff that requires no manners whatsoever because getting paid a shite load of money means you don’t have to be either business-like or polite. Anyway, I like to reply with longer, involved wording in my emails to do his head in. 

Hi Wayne

Thank you so much for your response. I now understand the streamlined direction we are to take and I thank you for assisting me in my ongoing endeavors to make our office a more efficient and precise place where concise methodologies are enacted to the betterment of all. Please advise if there is any way I can assist you in our efforts to increase productivity and workplace harmony which benefits us all.

Kind regards
Amarinda Jones

All the time I’m thinking why don’t you just sit on something sharp and spin, sunshine. 

Exploding heads...

 So, I sat back, after reading the most anal series of emails from an accountant at work and I said to myself oh my god if a stick ever gets lodged that high and hard up my bottom as this twit who is sprouting off so many archaic rules - about what you shouldn’t do and what happens if you do and did you read paragraph 73a clause 12 about following rules, Amarinda,  and don’t do this that or the other thing – particularly the other thing which we all know you just did because it’s wrong, not right, bad, naughty and worlds will collide and it will be all your fault Amarinda -  then I swear I will give away all my Docs and become like a dull, colourless and boring accountant and buy a special chair with a hole in so the stick in my bottom is catered for.

Rules are meant to be twisted and bent and bashed around a bit. How do we change things if we don’t apply sledgehammer to things that need it?

Accountants - except you Jules - can’t work with them, but you can work against them to make heads explode.   On to plan B tomorrow...exploding heads...

Wonderment…

I had two people respond to my general posts about sponsoring our team on Relay to Life where the donations all go to cancer research and aid for sufferers. Now, if you want to sponsor us – fantastic – if not – that’s fine. It’s your choice. In life we strive for freedom of choice, association and to be.  

Back to those two people – the first sent me a long winded email which essentially said that all charities are bogus, cancer didn't exist because it's all a conspiracy and they sent me a bunch of internet links to verify what they were saying. I filed it under d for delete – your choice to believe, mine to delete. Then I had a person from the US who said they would not donate to help an Aussie – or any other nationality for that matter – because that took away from curing people of cancer in the US first. Riiight...clearly, global issue is not in this individual’s repertoire of thought.      

Have I mentioned choice in this post? Why yes I have. Email me with neurotic ramblings? Save yourself the time and just delete after you write it – it’s just the same as me doing it.     

Now look here, insignificant author type person…

This is a mass email to the mass of you author people. We have no idea who you are but we figured you may write for us or have written for us or looked sideways at us so basically we include the whole world in this email. That includes you Obama-dude. We want to apologize for our slack-arseness in responding. We have been…tick the applicable…

- drunk
- hiding out

- in deep do-do

- bitching about whiny authors

- in Tijuana
- lost in the infinite corridors of time.

This is to let you know that you have emailed several times and that you’re annoying as all hell but we figured better to answer and try and fob you off so you will shut the hell up. We are trying to summon the interest level to care and answer your email. We plan to have responses to everyone whenever or the 12th of never whichever is sooner.

Sincerely,
Heaving Bosoms Publishing

In accordance with our star signs, religious beliefs, medical conditions, the waxing moon and on the off chance we all get captured and experimented on by aliens, this message cannot be sent to anyone living, dead, kinda dead, stoned, drunk, in a ménage, living with a vampire or a werewolf or under the influence of chocolate and or the sniffing of laundry powder. So be a good, scared little author and do not distribute, copy, post, share, do a sock puppet play or do an interpretive dance to the contents of this email otherwise we will not be happy campers and will stamp out feet. A lot. No really. We will. I’m not kidding, Amarinda.

Miss Jones....

“For god sake isn’t every single bloody ménage ebook the exact same? Its fifteen thousand words of in-out, three up two down, Baby oh baby I love you and you and you – please save me from the evil-doer then please shag what little brains I have left out. All of you. Harder. Faster. Now. Yes, bring the horse along too. And we’ll all live happily ever after. It’s like the seven dwarfs discover Snow White’s a girl with whorish tendencies. Yes, yes by all means email me if that upsets you as a writer.”

http://amarindajones.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/rate-it-write-it-trash-it

So, I got an email from…well, let’s call her Lottie Lust. She’s an author who writes ménage and she was kinda pissed at the comment above.

“You have no idea what you are talking about. Not all ménage is the same. Mine aren’t. Miss Jones ménage means sex. I write erotica. Erotica means sex.”

First up – thanks for the email. Secondly, it depends what day of the week it is as to whether I know what I’m talking about. If it’s after boot camp then never. And no, of course your book is different to everyone else who is writing ménage…if you say so. Miss? I prefer Ms. And ménage means sex? I would say bollocks to that. Actually bollocks is as close to sex as ménage is…maybe closer...

menage - a social unit living together;
family, household, home, house
broken home - a family in which the parents have separated or divorced
conjugal family, nuclear family -
a family consisting of parents and their children and grandparents of a
marital partner
extended family - a family consisting of the nuclear family and their blood relatives
foster family - the family of a fosterling
foster home - a household in which an orphaned or delinquent child is placed (usually by a social-service agency)
menage a trois - household for three; an arrangement where a married couple and a lover of one of them live together while sharing sexual relations
social unit, unit - an organization regarded as part of a larger social group;

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/menage

bol·locks
n. Vulgar Slang
1. The testicles.
2. Nonsense.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bollocks

But hey, opinion is good and if we all agreed on everything there would be peace in the world and that would be bizarre.

As always, I stand by my words.

Things of interest from the email…

…sent by All Romance ebooks, which from what I can work out is overtaking any other non publisher site.

All Romance eBooks, LLC 2011 Trend Analysis
# Total publishers in 2010 = Approx 4700
# Total publishers in 2011 = Approx 7600

I find this not at all surprising because publishing is no longer an area that a tradition bricks and mortar, we-tell-you-what-to-do-or-else owns. New, more progressive publishers who are staffed by authors or ex-authors or the Indie publishers, like myself, who do it on their own terms are growing in number.

Heat Rating = over 97% of sales are on books rated 3 or higher, of significance is that the 5 and 4 flame sales have see a combined drop of 4% over last year with most of the difference shifting to the 3 flame rating.

Interesting considering daddy-incest-force-the-virgin-ménage sex is considered a big seller. Also indicates to me that most writers are heading back to the traditional romance of the romance novel - sure, they may still have sex in them but instead of every second page it’s gone to every 5th page. Maybe plots will come back?

Romance remains, by far, our biggest seller. Although still popular, the overall market shares for gay fiction, multiple partners, BDSM, and interracial were all down 33 - 67% from 2010.

No surprise on any of that. Gay erotica has been dying slowing in the arse...pardon the pun...for a while.

The overall market share for erotica increased another 22% in 2011 and sales increased significantly for all of speculative fiction sub-genres. In rank order we saw growth in sales of Paranormal, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Vampire/Werewolves/Shapeshifter books. In addition…the Contemporary seems to be making a comeback with a 17% increase following last year’s 55% decline.

In terms of which romance sub-genres owned the biggest piece of the pie in 2011, the top 10 are = Erotica, Vampires/Werewolves/Shapeshifters, Gay Fiction, Paranormal, Contemporary, Sci-fi/Fantasy, Multiple Partners, Interracial, Historical, Time-travel, Drama, and BDSM.

Are the over abundance of multiple partnered books wearing people down? How many ways can three, four, five people have sex without it all seeming the same?

All in all, an interesting report and a good indicator of trends. Food for thought. Thanks All Romance ebooks.

**Yellow is from the ARE email.

Highly suspicious…

So, I was really pleased with the customer service I got at a certain bank. So much so that I bunged a note of thanks, to the consultant, who helped me on the bank’s send a complaint/compliment page. I’m a great believer in people being recognized for doing good and that businesses need to acknowledge that and the fact that their staff are actual people and not just employee numbers. This is the written response I got back.

Dear Miss Jones

RE: Customer Relations Case CR-72891-1A

I am writing regarding your compliment registered with us.

I would like to thank you for providing your feedback regarding the service you received from Louise of the Cairns Branch. This email is to confirm that we have recorded your feedback and Louise’s manager has been notified.

If you have any questions about this email, or wish to provide additional information about your complaint, please contact me on 1800 XXX XXX, Monday to Friday 9:00am – 6:00pm (DLST) or at customerrelationswe’vehearditallbefore.com

Yours sincerely

Cheryl Cyber-Person

Hmmm…’additional information about your complaint?’ I was a tad concerned about Louise until she rang and thanked me for the compliment I put in and that no one ever says, let alone, puts a compliment in writing. Sad huh? We have generic emails back that automatically have the word ‘complaint’ in them and we’re quick to whinge and blame and we’re expected to. But thank someone? Highly suspicious.

Box of rocks….

I got an email from a company about private business dealings between myself and them. No biggie right? Emails are a way of life - but what if you were one of many who were all tagged on the same private email and those people had their private business added in with yours and you could see their private email addresses? What if they didn’t want other authors knowing what they were doing and not knowing their email address? Is that company as dumb as a box of rocks and unaware of universal privacy regulations or as someone said to me ‘maybe they’ve done it deliberately.’ My answer to that is for what? What gain? I go the box of rocks avenue. Business etiquette. It’s lost on some companies.

Initiate emergency shut down procedure…

So, I’m at work minding my own business, cruising the internet…I mean hard at work on stuff that I do when the mood takes me…when the GM emails me from his office which is oh, gee, probably ten paces away and emails ‘we need to initiate emergency shut down procedure. Please ring X now and walk him through it.' My first immediate gut reaction was ‘we have an emergency shut down procedure????’ Next thing I get an email with half the world cc’d on it saying ‘Amarinda will talk them through the emergency shutdown procedure.’ Now, I can talk with a mouth full of marbles while under water but WTF is this emergency stuff and why would I know? I’m not paid to be knowledgeable. I emailed back ‘I have no idea what it is. Sorry, can’t help.’

The GM then emailed back ‘You can do it.’ I think it was like a pep talk. I emailed back ‘no, really, I have no bloody idea whatsoever what you are talking about and if this is an emergency I would think emailing back and forth isn’t helping.’ So, he came out of his office and looked at me. I looked at him. He then said, ‘Well, I guess I’ll have to go find the emergency shutdown procedure and read it to them.’ I nodded and said, ‘Yeah, might be an idea.’

Twenty minutes later, emergency shut down procedure was initiated 10-4 over and out. The GM said 'do you want me to explain what it is?’ I indicated that it sounded like something a high level executive should have knowledge of. It sounded better than ‘oh god no, I’m not paid enough for that.'

The moral of this story is don’t rely on anyone in my workplace to initiate anything other than ordering food in, making coffee or knocking off bang on 5pm.

Spak out…

Angry emails from colleagues at work are always enjoyable. I have to admit I enjoy it when someone loses the plot and spaks out and sends a ‘are you taking the piss????’ email to fellow co-workers. We had one at work. Let’s call her, Gwendolyn, typed out a furious email that was fueled by hormones and tight knickers and indicated in not the slightest bit polite terms that we were all stupid and trying to drive her mad. Ah - so she worked out our fiendish plot and one would suggest after reading Gwendolyn’s spak out that the ‘drive’ would be a short one.

Here’s what I think – yep, I absolutely agree you should say what you think about things. Nothing ever gets changed until you do – but for god sake, take two, long deep breaths and refrain from swearing in emails to and at colleagues as that’s something no one forgets at work is it?

Loose translations -
Taking the piss = joking around
Spak = sudden anger

Secret women’s business…

While I love email it’s sometimes so easy to misunderstand what someone is saying. That happened today. I sat there and thought - what? What does he mean by that? I fired off something appropriate in response and then thought for a while…hmmm…maybe he didn’t mean that. Maybe I have mistaken male speak for something else. I sent a mea culpa email in response. He had no idea what I was talking about or why I was apologising. I love men. Fantastic creatures but only women can think on 57 different levels, get half of them wrong and then justify it as a ‘female’ thing ‘a man wouldn’t understand.’ Doesn’t that excuse cover a multitude of sins? Women rule.

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book

You’ve got mail because I got the receipt….

When I send important emails that I want to know have been received and read, I tag them for that purpose so I know the reader has it. Pretty obvious, logical stuff right? I even like to forward on the reader’s read receipt to them if they are too pig ignorant to respond to my first email to let them know that I know they have read that email. These are the same people who cannot pay my royalties on time and correctly. A polite where is my cheque email is always greeted with the plethora of silence.

So, reasons why people – usually those in a position of power - do not respond to email…

- Pig ignorance – pretend you don’t have the email and therefore you cannot know anything about it.
- You know you are doing the wrong thing but it’s easier to avoid a response than tell the truth
- Hope that the author will forget and go away. Nuh-uh. Where’s my goddamn money?
- Tell everyone there is a dreadful spam problem at head office with emails and therefore you cannot respond to emails because you’re supposedly are not getting them even though you are reading them. Uh huh…not a great story that one.

Here’s what I think and do. I acknowledge every email even if the sender irritates the crap out of me. It’s the polite and businesslike thing to do. If you are doing the wrong thing then silence makes you look even more guilty. Suggestions for the email responses– please feel free to use them when you get my next email…

Dear Amarinda

Your cheque was sent on X date. If you don’t have it by Y date, please get back to me straight away as we do not want to screw you over when it comes to your money.

Or

Dear Amarinda

The carrier pigeons we use to send cheques overseas are sick. We are awaiting their full recovery before they can have post satchels attached to their tiny, little legs.

Or

Dear Amarinda

The entire office staff was taken over by aliens last week and the green goo they left behind got on our cheque books. We have asked the bank to print more.

See? It’s not hard to write a bullshit excuse to cover ineptitude.

www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book

The Amarinda Code...

I have a terrible habit of doing everything fast…real fast. I talk, walk and write fast. I don’t know why because I’m not built whippet-thin fast. I just do things quickly. I sent this email yesterday to er, let’s call him, Harry, and he emailed back ‘what are you talking about?’ Well, with me that could be anything as my thoughts jump all over the place and once I’ve banged off one email I’ll often bang off another straight after as I’ve thought of something else to say. Consequently people wonder if I ever run out of words. I do. When I’m asleep or very nervous. Neither happens a lot. Evil never sleeps and only one person makes me nervous.

Anyway, I read the email that I sent to young Harry and thought ‘well crap, he doesn’t understand the Amarinda code yet.’ That and the fact he’s a man and well, we all know they take longer to understand basic female-ese. That’s the study of female language. Yes, maybe I made the word up but any woman reading this gets it straight away. You can half say things to women in an email, especially so with friends, and they understand instantly. You can uses crap punctuation, hypens – I’m big on those, lots of “……” which to me means fill and the blanks and draw your own conclusions and you can stuff up the spelling without censure because a woman is reading the substance for meaning and not there to correct grammar. Women look at the broader picture. Women are smart.

That’s not to say men aren’t. Men just look at something and think ‘that sentence doesn’t make sense’ and ‘what does she mean?’ I find you have to be ultra specific when you email the male species and half arsed words and fast writing to impart knowledge doesn’t work with them. They never get the whole female-ese and I must try not to use the Amarinda code with them. Sigh…but they have their good points I believe.

I guess it comes down to one simple fact. We all have our quirks. People who really know me understand I am going to do things fast, fast and manic fast. They excuse my half arsed Amarinda code. It’s not that I don’t care about them – I do. It’s just my brain is wired for speed. Will I slow down? I expect when I’m dead. Until then, it’s full speed ahead.

www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Go Ahead : Live with abandon. Be outrageous at any age. What are you saving your best self for?