12:30 a.m. - 2003-12-11
Cross My Heart
It took me about two hours to get warm this morning after traveling to work in the usual way. It was one of those very cold pre-dawn commutes and my hair was still a little damp from my shower. Serves me right I guess. Reason for the comment is the strange behaviour of some males in our community in the past day. Our police service sends out phone alerts by quadrant. It's sponsored by one of the big oil companies in this city. Today there were two for our area. The first was a warning about a male exposing himself to females about a block from where I live. Now think about this - it's about -20 C/ -5 F. This guy is begging for frostbite. How is he going to explain that one to the doc at the medical clinic? The next incident was a male stopping his vehicle by a woman walking home and asking her if she would like to go have some ice cream with him. ICE CREAM? Now admittedly, I had ice cream the other day - in my tea because we'd run out of milk and it was a better choice than cottage cheese, the only other semi-liquid dairy product I had on hand. But to choose it as a treat right now in this climate just doesn't work - what's wrong with hot chocolate or nice fresh baked cinnamon buns. I rarely call anyone stupid, because there are all sorts of types of intelligence, so everyone likely excels somewhere. But really, how stupid are these two anyway?
I received a voicemail from an investigator at my own branch of my bank last night. I returned it today and had a good chat with the woman who will be looking into my problem with the unauthorized bank charges. I guess they must look at your spending patterns on your past statements because one of her first comments was that the one charge especially stuck out like a sore thumb. I don't give out that kind of information over the phone or the internet - never. She said she was going to call the service to find out what they do so I told her about the conversation I had already had with their one agent. I commented that I would be interested to know what data had been registered as belonging to me since I don't own any credit cards. I hope she can persuade the company to divulge that. If they don't I might call the police and provide the information to their fraud department because I'm likely not the only name that has been used by whoever pulled this stunt. I was pleased with the quick attention that was given to my complaint and the kindness of the people from the bank who have spoken with me so far.
Work today continued to be odd. More discussion about added tasks or changes in work but nothing concrete. Didn't hear from my supervisor so I don't know whether R has contacted him or not or whether he is comfortable with what is being proposed. Auditing would be a lot more serious than what I've done to now and I would want some changes - a lockable desk and a computer, so that I can do the research necessary without having to go beg for time on someone else's. That just isn't efficient. On the other hand, there is nothing I enjoy more than working out puzzles and doing research, so I hope this project can be negotiated to each party's satisfaction. The work the scientist asked me to do at the end of yesterday is also something I've been itching to dig into, because of the amount of learning opportunities it offers. With contract work one never assumes anything until the contract is signed and sealed. Even then things can go awry. Cross my fingers, I guess that's all I can do.
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