10:29 p.m. - 2004-06-04
Tara
Roller coaster ride today. Got in early and started the usual preparations. Candidate due at 9:30 am and boxes of Voter Information Cards for 105 polls to go to the post office. Then the handi-bus pulled up. Two middle age workers of mine are both on disability. They arrive when the bus does. We have a rule about not opening the office more than five minutes early because we just can't get all the work we need done, but this was an exception. They had to accept whatever time the bus offered or miss out on a days wages. The next batch of VI Cards for 79 polls weren't due until after lunch so I put them to work validating the nomination papers we had received the evening before. While we prepared we talked about how difficult their living conditions were. Frustrating to know but not be able to help.
The candidate was late so paperwork was substituted until he arrived. I've known both the people who arrived to file the papers for a very long time. They were both were stone faced and very tense - almost as though they were afraid of something. Can't be political issues but I couldn't get them to open up at all. Too bad. Got the next team going on those papers. They had just left when the next candidate arrived. Spent a pleasant half hour with her discussing the legislation. Questions were left for her to respond to with respect to some minor details in the paper. Another team for verification was found and it was already 1 pm.
Strange bits and pieces all that time, called to get toner for the photocopier, redid an oath sworn incorrectly. A threatening phone call from the rep of one political parties whose candidate had filed. He blew up over one of the questions - get a grip man. Then there were the calls from different Returning Officers.
My supervisor from my downtown job called too. He had read my e-mail and wanted to know if I could attend a planning meeting on Monday. No, that is one of two days when I can't - by law - leave the office. We chatted a bit about the issues both with our liaison, A, and with the next phase of the work. Set a time for later in the week. He also asked if I could complete the spreadsheet of anomalies for tomorrow so he could work on it on the weekend. I tried to explain how much more information needed to go on it but I'm not certain I had his full attention. It was apparent that he was travelling - likely in a car - and may have had other people with him. He was almost giddy - this is a guy who is usually stone faced by habit, I think - just chortling away because he had been cut loose to go play golf with his buddies. I'm glad he's happy, he kept commenting on how tough work had been the past while - I kept acknowledging that I understood given the incident that had occurred just before he called.
Back to the Voter Information Cards. Around 1 pm when I emerged from the marathon with the candidates, which is given priority over everything else, I heard our receptionist tell someone who had walked in the door that they weren't needed to put labels on the VI cards. I stopped the receptionist to point out that delivery was promised shortly and that it didn't make sense to send people home. One of the other team leads said she wished I had been at the staff meeting this morning where the decision had been taken to cut the staff in half. I asked why a meeting had been convened during my inability to attend and who had decided they could ignore or over-ride my instructions. We have a non-negotiable legislated deadline that could only be met by a large work crew concentrating on that task. I had no intention of missing it and would not approve the change that someone else had implemented.
Apparently, the two people who I have had concerns about with respect to hiring were at it again. They had only called in their children and friends. I guess they felt there was more money for them that way. I called the one woman aside and asked where she felt she got the authority to put us at risk of not meeting our deadline and she said that she just felt it was for the best. The other woman arrived and complained about the cost in hours. She said felt I wasn't using "her" resources the way she wanted them and so she had changed the schedule I had set to suit herself. It would be the same if shorter hours and more people, or longer hours and less people - the only difference was whose pocket the money went in. They both started to argue and complain and I finally lost my temper and told them to undo the damage they had just created immediately and to get as many people in the office as possible. I also told the rest of the staff to start calling too. They had no problem with that and expressed relief that the other two staff had been over ruled.
As soon as the calls went out the workers started pouring in and the deadline was met with an hour to spare. In addition we had the training session for the advance poll staff right after the work bee concluded. It was good to see that dealt with since that voting is about 10 days away. I thought I was starting to see daylight when the woman who had clued me in to the problem with the Voter Cards came in. She asked if I knew that the receptionist was rerouting my calls from Ottawa to one of the phones in the back of the office - the farthest end away from me. The call had come from Ottawa and was from one of the highest level of command. It was obviously deliberate so I removed her from the desk and put someone else on. The call from Ottawa seemed to be tied to the issue that had occurred earlier. A demand for an accounting of how staff time was being spent on door to door registration. It took about an hour of my time plus the resources of three other of my staff with respect to pulling stats to confirm that we were on track and actually ahead of the game considering the volume of work required. In the meantime my two oldest sons arrived and started working to help me gain back some ground.
Next up one of my key staff came in to show me what had been done with one entire poll's worth of Voter Information cards. The labels had been placed in a way that they were not mailable. She was really upset since a batch had gone missing yesterday that also had been damaged. She felt it was deliberate. I don't know how I'm going to handle this one - it felt as though the whole day had been planned to go awry. I'll think about that tomorrow, said Ms Scarlett.
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