10:44 p.m. - 2003-03-20
Trains, Planes, and Automobiles
A new server being set up for Diaryland meant a break in entries for the past few days. Change of routine is always healthy.
Yesterday was my first full lunchtime walk by the river in a long time. Bliss. The river never froze completely over this year, which is very unusual. Not even the cold snap the past few weeks made a difference there. That being said, it was obvious that the ice that had built up in the water is deep and solid. One just had to watch the water flow around the built up ice to see that. The sight was quite beautiful - a photographer's feast. Unfortunately, I manage to take photos that look like my drawings - "early stickman", usually with portions of the subject just out of sight of the lens.
Usually, no matter what the weather conditions, it is possible to see the bottom of the river wherever you look. Right now there is a thick, murky quality to the water,in places, that obscures that sight. Apparently, the building boom has made some developers believe that the laws with respect to environmental protection do not apply to them. The Provincial Government has issued several warnings to the City government to rein them in or face the fine for environmental damage to the tune of a minimum of $1 million per day of inaction. About time. There have been stories about water quality problems downstream for well over a year now.
At work yesterday both C and I continued to find that the new material we were adding to the files was being isolated and pulled out by someone. Some material is going missing and other data is being inserted without being recorded. It's frustrating and time consuming to fix. I'm not certain who organized the packing up of the records we are now trying to take out of storage, catalogue, and place on the shelves, but is obvious that the distribution of information was random throughout the boxes. Means between us, we often go back to a file several times before all the information that belongs in it is complete. That's why we're noticing all the disturbances. I've suggested several times that we dump out all the boxes, sort by file then do the culling, cataloguing, and record maintenance just once. It would probably reduce the time required to do the job by half and be considerably more effective. For some reason B is reluctant to go that route.
This morning the bus and train rides into town were eerie and a bit disturbing. Both types of transit were carrying only half their usual number of passengers. Even nearing downtown there were still seats available. There are seven stops beginning with mine at the most northerly end of the train line to downtown. Usually there are no seats after we reach the next stop on the line. The riders missing? Well, given the diversity of our communities, about half the ridership are from visible minorities. There were almost exclusively caucasian faces on the bus and train today including the ride home. Rush hour in the afternoon was a little heavier but only because the high school students swelled the ranks a bit. The other odd thing was that there was no increase in people using their vehicles instead. Usually the buses leaving the train stations to take us to our communities are caught in a bottleneck at the station that takes 15 to 20 minutes on average to negotiate. Tonight there was no wait at all.
This is what happened during the first Gulf War too. The last time, it took about a week before non-white Canadians felt safe enough to travel as they normally do. I didn't see any evidence of recriminations or harrassment last time, but given what a lot of new Canadians have experienced in their countries of origin it would be reasonable for them to expect the worse and to avoid the risk. For a lot of them, working in entry level, very low paying jobs the loss of income is truly punishing, but I guess that their rationale is that the alternatives might be even worse.
At both D and C's urging yesterday, I let B know about all of the discrepancies we had been encountering, including files and records that had been completely emptied with only the folder left sitting on the shelf. She talked to T2 about it this morning and was told that the only problem was that C and I weren't doing our work properly. C and I have survived in the work we do for a very long time because of our attention to detail. We do make mistakes of course, hundreds of documents are moving through both our hands daily, but what we are observing goes well beyond random error. C backed down under T2's pressure this morning. We aren't really seeing what we are seeing. That's fine T2 is the boss, as long as it doesn't interfere with due diligence responsibilities on our part - think Enron - it gets done her way. As I've noted before though, her way changes hourly and continues to do so. Right now I'm just turning up the volume on my discman and concentrating on the music.
�
�
