1:54 a.m. - 2004-06-12
Eternally
Checked my email as soon as I woke this morning. Permission granted to start printing the ballots from Ottawa was there. I called my printer, who was very happy with the response, then started preparing for the day.
I took a cab to work this morning - my assistant's second day off. I could have been picked up by several other staff or taken the bus, but I wanted some solitude in the office. The cabbie had a book by von Daniken on the dash and we got in to a discussion about time and eternity. Very centering that. The title of the book was likely something to the effect of Gods Among Us, but since it was published in Hungarian I can't vouch for that.
My Office Co-ordinator arrived around nine with a surprise for me. My oldest son and his partner had bought a bouquet of a dozen stunning roses for me and sent it in with her. Their scent filled the office and attracted a stream of admirers all day, just on that one attribute. I was floored. I love flowers, but I don't usually seem to receive them unless I'm getting out of hospital. Next up one of the staff arrived with a couple of boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Battle of the waistland/wasteland coming up. Three or four good things in a row.
The tone of the day for me was steady and intensely focussed. I just moved from getting one essential task done to the next. There were three calls from different people in Ottawa in the early stages of the morning asking how I was getting on with tasks they had assisted in completing. I did the idiot thing with my user id/passowrds this morning. There is a different one assigned by Ottawa for each piece of software I use. About 10 I think. I couldn't get in to one program this morning, so I called the help line. Security issues meant the staff couldn't provide any information to me directly, but they gave me enough hints that I finally realized I had fixated on the wrong password for the program. Duh. I don't know exactly why every one is being so kind or tolerant lately but I think I'll take that advice about not looking a gift horse in the mouth and just savour it.
Leases were completed for the Public schools but there was an oddity in the Catholic schools' database that I just couldn't seem to get around. I'll leave that until tomorrow. I did talk with both rental managers just tidying up details for both groups. Got the notices for Mobile Polls produced finally. What took the time was verifying the details with, and getting the co-operation of, the managers of the institutions involved. The delay meant a lot of anxious calls from seniors and their families. Votig is a very important act of citizenship in their eyes.
Our first training of regular polling day staff began with a full house. A lot of familiar faces there, but some fresh, eager newbies as well. The only sour notes in the day involved damage to a table that one of the staff brought in for when we were labelling Voter Information cards. From what we can discern so far there was no problem when we left last night - several people saw it intact. But sometime in the morning one of the collapsible legs was bent so it is now unusable. Not certain what to think, only staff were in the building.
Then there was the strange incident with my cell phone. I turn it on when I arrive, then set it near my computer each day. I checked at about 11:30 am to see if I'd missed any calls while I was out roaming the office and it was still on. I commented to one staff member during that ramble that I was keeping it close, because she had asked if she could have someone call me for a reference on it. It was on when I returned to my desk. At about 2 pm I checked it again, because I had been away and about doing work in other parts of the building again. It had been shut off. Now it isn't an easy thing to do - the button has to be pushed down hard and held for a few seconds. That's the second time some thing strange has happened with it. The other day it had been reset from ring to vibrate. Again it takes some work to change that setting and it happened sometime in the early afternoon too.
The other irritant was some of the attitude by potential workers. We aren't set up to parent them. Several wanted to vote by special ballot after training that ended just before 9 pm. They had been told to come in before class, but hadn't bothered. Their expectation was that we would extend office hours until they had done their voting. We had already been working for more than 12 hours and I made it clear that they would have to come back another day. I asked a couple of them if they would remain until midnight in their polling place for tardy voters on election day and they finally took my point. Long day.
Ended with the news that Ray Charles had died and that made me sad. Thought back to the conversation at the beginning of the day with respect to eternity and realized that nothing is ever lost. A guitar solo by Eric Clapton (Cocaine) was playing on the radio when my son was telling me the news. Bliss and the quiet reminder that music is forever. Time to go dream of better times or no time - right?
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