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11:54 p.m. - 2004-06-15
Exhaustion
I've had a lot of trouble logging in to the new entry screen lately dear diary. Last night it was just too much to handle. I crashed atabout 11 pm and slept through the night. Part of it was directly attributable to the stress of the day.

We started up a new team yesterday to help with communication with our field (polling station) staff. Everything hinges on their performance on election day even though that is the denouement to everything else we undertake in the five or six weeks prior. Starting out the team is the woman I want to take the lead in that area. She has been a provincial Returning Officer. She caught sight of the woman we have been having a lot of difficulty with. She made a point of saying that she will go out of her way to be trustworthy, because of her experiences as an RO. The next point she mentioned was that the hardest thing she found to deal with on her watch was the "back stabbing" and "undermining" that people she had thought were friends were capable of doing. She was referring directly to that woman. Funny how one person can disrupt a whole office of about 80 people just by constantly causing conflict and bullying through others.

After I got our newest team member oriented we went into our morning meeting. Before we could even start the problem person started in aabout the young guy they had been harrassing accompanied by the support of my office manager. It was difficult to absorb how easily she had been sucked in to the behaviour. Next it was unbelievable that a personnel issue stated in the form of "how are we going to get rid of ....." would even be raised in the group. I cut off the tirade that was building and asked the assistant to the automation co-ordinator to explain what he had learned as a result of the retraining. His matter of fact recitation of the minor nature of most of the errors and the highlighting of two key points where there were problems helped shut down the attempt to expand the bullying in the larger group better than a direct confrontation. Education of the whole reduces the opportunities for more of the same action since it is called by it's real name. Secrets are harder to enforce.

After the meeting my office co-ordinator did buzz into my office trying to reopen the issue insisting that the young man was intractible. I went back to the report of the AAC and pointed out that one of the major problems that had caused critical damage was the one female who refused to key in postal codes. Postal codes are what is used to determine the polling division of an individual. It determines where they go to vote. Her persistence in that behaviour cost three of us - team leads - six additional hours of work each before we could meet yet another statutory deadline - that of printing the advance poll (revised) electors list. I noted that if any draconian steps were going to be taken to deal with the young guy for having done his job 95% correct then the penalty for the young woman would have to be considerably more severe in order to be fair. I don't think that ever sunk in. I told her I would not tolerate any more bullying behaviour from anyone.

Next up, a male called demanding to know why his name was on the list. Elections Canada imports that information from several other government databases such as vital statistics, drivers registration and revenue Canada. He was livid and threatening all sorts of action if he wasn't removed and if he didn't get an apology. He had kept my staff on the phone for nearly an hour before he got to me. I've asked them not to deal with difficult callers because they don't get paid for the distress. I don't really either but it is part of my job. After I finished talking with him I called our head office and asked to have the incident recorded for future reference. None of his personal information was passed on but the seequence of events and his behaviour was noted. Ec took it very seriously and said they would be following through on the issue. I finally got approval for the translation I had made for one of the statutory documents that I had to produce. One week in the making. Made it up on the wall just in time.

Still was having trouble with the database in that it would not "allow" me to move some information to the correct spot nor woule it let me create the polling divisions I need. I had been trying to get someone in Ottawa to help me resolve the issue for over a week. It was to do with mobile polls again. Finally one woman called me and started walking me through some of the steps that were necessary to fix the problems. She reached a point where she didn't have the expertise so she said she would call back. Finally was called by a second woman later in the afternoon who was able to complete the walk through the rest of the issues. Yeah!

In between was a visit from CBC francais. Apparently, several Returning Offices in the north and south part of the province were not even trying to offer assistance to voters in French. When they called my office my one on site translator did a great job of providing all the information necessary. The upshot was the visit by the cameras of the media in "friendly territory. When I watched the news tonight I found the story focused on the "bad" offices with just the commentary of our local rep as a response. One voter decided he wanted some air time so he tried to pick a fight with a couple of my registration people while they were helping him. when they didn't bite he came back into the reception area and started to throw a tantrum about the maps we have on the wall. He was complaining about the fact that some streets shown don't have any electors on them. That's entirely right. Some have businesse and some even have farms. Some don't have anything. Some of the streets are pending as well which makes sense since I use the City's planning base maps. They show approved as well as developed infrastructure. At the speed this riding is growing it is critical that that information be incorporated as soon as it is made public. It is often less than six months before full development is well on it's way. No wiggle room really. I pointed out that anyone trying to register at addresses that might not yet be habitable would be required to prduce ID that proved they lived on the site in question. A lot of the staff were nearby watching the whole exchange. I think he finally realized that the media were long gone and every one else was looking at him as though he came from a different planet. He gave up the tirade and went home.

Negotiations around the rental of cell phones were undertaken in the afternoon and the work with respect to ensuring everyone hospitalized in the facility in our ED could vote. A series of phone calls back and forth between Ottawa and myself occurred trying to ensure that all the details were correct. A request from the media consortia for someone to represent them in our office polling night. One of our young registration people is taking journalism in college so I offered him the chance. He was quite pleased with that. More recruitment and training occurred. Supplies arriving. Then the phones quit ringing. A call to Telus rvealed that there was a breakdown in key parts of their infrastructure meaning we might not get service until tomorrow. This at a time when our phones are usually ringing off the hook.

During the afternoon, another round of bullying by the problem person. This time one of the female data entry people. I didn't hear about it until it exploded becasue because the man who called the day before demanding his name be taken off the list had called back. He was angrier and more threatening than the night before. He said the provincial reps had told him that his information had not been released by them. He felt I had mislead him. I explained what I had been told again and gave hime the phone number of the fellow in Ottawa who was in charge of such transfers. Better from the horse's mouth than me. After the man called there was a series of calls and conferences with Ottawa staff trying to resolve the problem and de-escalate this man's rage. I just noted I didn't want him to come to the office in the state he was in. The Ottawa staff were taking it even more seriously that I had and a stray comment indicated they knew more about this man's story than I did. Something said gave me to understand that there was grave danger. Hope I'm wrong.

Anyway just as I was finishing up talking about that man, I was informaed that the woman who had been bullied unbeknownst to me had just left the building distraught. The information I was given was that she had made some mistakes in the morning that were a bit serious but fixable. She had not been instructed by the same problem person on how to do the work so she wouldn't have had any way of knowing the correct procedure. She caught herself early and asked for help to fix the errors. What she received instead was a lot of verbal and psychological abuse. Nex t she was told that the hours that were allocated to her for the week were cut. That was when my assistant and two of the other team leaders realized what was happening. I called the AAC in to my office and asked again about performance and work attitude as a generic question. Was any of the team underperforming - no; was any of the team demonstrating attitudes of behaviour that was a barrier to getting their work done - no. He left and the person being bullied was asked to come in to my office. She broke down completely. I just talked and signed paperwork until she managed to get back on track with her feelings. I told her there was nothing wrong with her performance and that everyone ther had made mistakes - myself included. Given the enormity and complexity of what we are trying to accomplish it is nearly impossible not to. Did she deserve to be treated badly when everyone else was not? No of course not. Was she the only target of the person in question? No to that either. The behaviour that is a problem has absolutely nothing to do with her. She is not provoking it nor does she deserve it. I sent her home but told her to bill to the end of her shift. She now reports to me only. So will the rest of the registration staff shortly. Time to remove that one last vehicle of attack I think. Tiring.

Other issue of the day was a call from my co-worker at my downtown job. He was runnig out of work to do because some work the company had to do first hadn't been completed. What would I suggest. We ran through several options and finally found one that worked for him. He said he would call our supervisor and suggested that I do the same a bit later on in the day. It was 3:30 pm before I was able to get near the phone to do so and I stiil haven't heard from him. Don't think I'll go into work unless he calls though. I won't go to a workplace to sit and charge for my time unles I am doing something useful. I also don't want to take away work from my co-worker. He needs his paycheques. I think my supervisor mentioned last week that he would be away until tomorrow and both the liaisons within the company are also away. I hope that ther isn't another series of crises heading my way because of that. One day like today was enough thanks.

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