1:17 p.m. - 2004-07-10
Finance
Calgary Stampede started yesterday with the traditional parade. That meant the office I work in downtown was closed - also a tradition here. My supervisor called early Friday morning to tell me he had been able to get half a day's pay from the company we consult for, for my co-worker and me. He probably had to work very hard to convince the company, because they are very stingy with wages and benefits (none) for their consultants while charging our clients about three times what they pay us. I hope that he doesn't end up being penalized for going to bat for us.
No downtown work meant I could spend the day doing election clean up instead, without doubling up at night for it. Went in to the office at about 9 am with my Dad and number 3 son. They had supplied some of the basic electronics - you know microwave, fax, refrigerator - and wanted to pick them up. I was supposed to be decommissioning the financial database, so I did my thing while they picked up and took off for other duties. The fellow who rented the furniture to us came by to take away more of his stock to deliver to new clients. Could he have a key for the building? No. We paid rent for the furniture and gave him free access to remove stock as he sold it. Why is there such a push to get into this office?
Anyway when I started to work on the database after having to reassemble the computer that the furniture guy's people had taken apart without asking. I found that the software would not allow the decommissioning. Called Ottawa. Oh yes there's a glitch having to do with the mobile poll sites. What a surprise - that has been the bane of our existence since they tried to transfer the pre-writ information to the election software. It never did work and was constantly causing hours of extra work. Finally got it all straightened out, copied all the pertinent information to disk then finally pushed to button to decommision it successfully. Yes! Next step? "we'll call you in a day or two to do the purge once we do some steps at head office." Uh huh.
My Dad and son walked in just as I was shutting all the computers down. They helped me load a few more boxes into their car, then we went off for lunch. I was feeling rotten but a social time with family is important too. I'd finally figured out that the reason I'd been feeling so awful before was that I was coming down with the cold/flu circulating in the election office - the one that sidelined my co-ordinator for over a week. I've been flooding my system with garlic and immune boosters since Thursday when breathing really became an issue. Better now and no vampire will get near me for a while - right? Anyway talk over a veggie omelet was just a debrief of the last month for each of us. Some sympathy for my personnel problems this event made me feel better about things too.
An e-mail from my financial officer was waiting for me when I got home. No one was paid although Friday was supposed to be payday. What's up with that? Apparently there were problems at EC with meeting payroll. Just peachy. The phone calls and e-mails started flooding in from various staff almost immediately. Remember, dear diary, that it took from early March to the day the election was called on May 23 to get EC to pay me for two months worth of work and that was only by threatening not to open the office until there was enough money in my bank account so that I could pay my bills? I empathize with my staff but I don't think I'll tell them that quite yet. I'd rather give them the financial department's number and let them take the calls for now. Maybe suggest they write a few letters while their on hold waiting for their answers......? Hmmmmmmm.
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