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12:28 a.m. - 2004-06-18
Tides
Well the first part of the day went well. I went into my downtown job this morning and was greeted with enthusiasm by my co-worker and the staff that I normally interact with. My supervisor had wanted me to help with the planning and implementation of the next stage of the project and that went very smoothly.

I arrived at the election office just after 4:30 PM to find chaos reigning. The Special Ballot co-ordinator was hopping because he wanted the key to the secure store room and felt slighted because some of the other staff had it in order to work with the material that was stored there. He left shortly after and a voter arrived to cast their ballot. It was a bit of a jolt to find that the last voter had been the first assistant I had hired and his wife. They must have left the office not more than half an hour before I arrived from the times showing up for their visit. Didn't need that stress so I was relieved I had stayed a little later at my contract today.

Then my Automation Co-ordinator arrived and asked me to sign offon the documents she stated EC had demanded she produce while I was away. I looked at them and realized that they had completely undone all the work I had done to fix my mobile poll lists a few days ago. I called them right away to find out what was going on and no one could explain what the rationale was nor who had ordered the damage to be done. I asked that they report back to me when they figured it out. Uh huh.

Next up problems wiith the training. I had asked my regular special ballot co-ordinator to work with my hospital liaison to train the six teams of workers who will go bed to bed this weekend to ensure that patients don't lose their right to vote. He hadn't followed through and I was left trying to sort things out. Staffing problems with a couple of polling day staf issuing ultimatums about their work conditions. One wanting to quit work on tomorrow's vote because his wife said so. Probably a better choiuce eh?

One of my key poll supervisors stepped into my office and I explained that he might be getting the very angry elector I had dealt with - the one who had been making threats - in his station on the 28th. This supervisor was already expressing a great deal of concern about the non-citizens on the list who had been imported from vital statistics databases and the revenue Canada database. It is as if he is aware of some other factors that are making him afraid. I like him because he is so easy going and laid back but he is visibly afraid when he talks about his concerns. I am taking them seriously, but I still haven't heard from EC. Do I refuse to open the polling stations in case there is confrontation at them? I don't know - does someone want to turn Canada into a third world country?

The printer's presses kept breaking down so we didn't receive our paper revised lists until this afternoon. They weren't sorted properly so a team had to be assembled to get that done. The computer kept timing out, getting all the automated tasks that must be completed before noon tomorrow just wan't possible. My Automation Co-ordinator left at nine while I stayed behind to try and get some of the work done after everyone left. No interruptions or distractions - right? At about 10 pm the computer timed out again so I went down to her office to login through the dialup modem again. The access software had been removed from the unit it had been on and moved to another. It wasn't reinstalled properly and wouldn't work. I called the support desk in Ottawa. Talked with Chris. He said that the problem was quite serious and couldn't be addressed tonight. I asked how it was I was supposed to get my work completed if I couldn't even gain access to the tools or information that were necessary to do most of the job. He sounded very sorry and quite defeated in some ways.

My assistant and one of my team leads had remained with me to work and had done as much as they could do without computer access by 11 pm. I came in and wrote an e-mail essay to the hospital contact I had prior to the one who has caused so much trouble. Maybe getting one positive thing going - I hope - will turn the tide around. Hope so.

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