10:41 PM - 25.08.04
Best Efforts
Happy Birthday Mr Connery - 74, I think.
Where's Noah when one needs an ark. It poured most of the day. This morning someone had opened one of the overhead windows on the train. Two of the benches and the adjoining floor space were completely flooded. Warring warm and cold air masses meant we had another "head in the clouds afternoon" on our floor. When I walked the block and a half to the train station this evening, I arrived at the platform with sneakers that were soaked through and through. You'd think we were on the left coast wouldn't you? I did check, but the mountains were still standing guard out West despite those prophesies of cataclysmic earth changes impending.
The day at work was quiet - in a wry sort of way. Kept on at the tasks set out the day before. Just after noon, I was sitting and doing some of my own paperwork on my break when the liaison walked into the boardroom. This morning she and her brother had been trying, without success, to determine whose set of initials were on the back of several of the company's documents. She walked in with some more documents and asked if they had initials I could verify. No. Could I go back to the first couple of days I was on site and pull out some of the files I'd worked on then. The tasks at the time were tied up with the work she wants to audit now. Let's see........ that was when I was being ordered not to document anything I did - right? Good thing I do what is required for my own legal protection and complete the work the correct way, isn't it. Within a few minutes, I was able to find and pull some files with the documents under suspicion. It wasn't being presented in that light, the liaison was very careful to verbally imply that she was just looking at a file, rather than trying to contrast and compare two different sets of signatures. She went so far as to print out some specific material as if it were the focus of the search - material that wouldn't point to a signature in any way. When she handed it to me for assessment she gave one set of instructions in a loud voice and a second, divergent set sotto voce. Hmmmmmmm. Extended discussion with the brother later about how to document everything we touch on a go forward basis, so that there is a permanent record tracking the management of the collection.
That seemed to tie into some problems we have encountered and documented - I documented at the beginning of this assignment, that is - that point to a significant amount of information being "suppressed or hidden" by a trapdoor in the software. See Alvin Toffler's "The Third Wave" for a description of how that is done. One of the reasons on-line voting is too risky to undertake at this point in time. The brother was researching it from the database point of view. He thought he might know the mechansism that was being used. Most of the data in question is linked in a series of tables that are cobbled together to make information "searchable". If one of the links is broken or corrupted, then the data is still in cyberspace, but "hidden in plain view". No one can be accused of destroying anything. The only people who can access that hidden material are the ones who know the new links coded in to the software search engine - kind of like the problem I found in the assignment three contracts ago. The brother wanted information from the beginning of my assignment too and commented on my thoroughness. It isn't, but whatever. It was what I could get away with at the time while still not being openly defiant. A lot of the information I pulled out was available, because the written documentation the two were seeing was a mnemonic cue for me - it told me a range of different information not visible to anyone else and pointed me to other locations. I wasn't even going to try and explain that one.
So very short lunch, enough to gobble down a bit of cheese and write a thank you note or two. Then when I wanted to leave at the end of the day a similar pattern of behaviour - this time from the brother. He went over and around the issue of how the software might be failing to link tables and databases for about half an hour - all things that we'd gone over several times. Quite honestly, I was having trouble staying conscious by then. A whole night spent with the grandbabies - human and feline - had finally hit me. This is about the third or fourth night in a row when the brother has come up with some "urgent" issue just around the time I should be leaving. He will do just about anything to get me to stay late and I couldn't figure out why. I may be being a bit of a bag, but I've noticed that the library co-ordinator has been staying late the past week or so, too. Usually we have seen her heels and the back of her coat going out the door before her usual leaving time of 4:30 pm. Now it seems that she is findng reasons to hang around - the brother's work area, that is. Might explain why he's set up that desk in the boardroom for himself and why he wants me to stay late, if I'm correct about her setting her cap for him. I get to be the buffer and it is obvious it is something he is quite concerned about. Having had to deal with "unwanted attention" in another assignment some years ago, I understand his fear. Toward the end of that episode, I asked my female co-worker to never leave the room when a certain male supervisor was present or appearing to intend to show up. I told her that it was because he always seemed to be trying to pick a fight with me, which was the case as well - somedays, but the truth was he wouldn't leave me alone if there was no one else around. The appearance of conflict between us was a way for him to explain to people my avoidance of him and my "resistance/defiance" to and of his authority. Not, I just did't want to be mauled by him. He was so skilled about it, that unless someone was watching him directly they wouldn't be able to see what he was really doing. His verbal obfuscation was very convincing. I really miss communicating with my supervisor right now about what is going on around the database/documents management and the brother's issue because then I feel safer, but I am afraid to bother him right now. I'm not certain he would understand anyway, even if I could get the words right. Sigh.
Anyway I finally excused myself and explained about my evening with the babies. I was afraid I would pass out on the train if I didn't get out of there soon - not a good thing. The cold soggy runners did have value, in that they kept me uncomfortable enough to stay conscious. Arrived at home to find three new requests for information or clarification from three different people at Elections Canada. First up, could I explain why a woman in my electoral district had been hired, then prevented from working by a Returning Officer one district over? Well no, why not ask her? As a matter of fact, when the woman in question arrived at our office upset because of the treatment she'd received in the other ED, my staff went out of their way to get work for her at the polling stations. Not much else we could do. Called one of my staff who had discussed it with me at the time, just to ensure I had all the facts. That was good because I now have a walking partner for evening walks in our community. Yes!
Second question was - could I verify that the person who is now my Assistant, and who took on the post at the insistence of EC when the other ARO quit the day before Election Day, existed. "We've lost all documentation" of her existence. Great - we, she and I have been on the phone weekly with these people for over two months now and they now don't have any record of her. Well, I kept all my correspondence and documentation of the steps and communications exchanged between Ottawa and ourselves, so I e-mailed it all back so they could reconstruct the trail. I guess it isn't just me that they try not to pay. Arggh. Last query was about a complaint from a lady who was "very upset" that she hadn't received her voter information card after being enumerated at her home. We visited just under 20,000 homes in a period of three weeks in addition to all our other tasks. I would be amazed if there wasn`t at least one error made during that time despite the best efforts of our 84 door to door revising agents. In addition, I am still receiving undelivered VICs cards at my home address - the last package arriving last Thursday August 19. Was the elector in question on the voter`s list when she went to vote? That would indicate that her card was generated and sent but not received. Was she able to vote? Hard for me to answer anything when all I'm told is that there is an angry woman out there somewhere. I do understand her frustration. I don't like making even one single mistake, but with the number of staff - times the number of voters, plus impossibly tight deadlines - with software and computer hardware that often crashed - it is inevitable that someone isn't going to have all the material that they need. I'm sorry it happened to her as much as I would be sorry it happened to anyone. Nuff said, I'm not perfect and I've never made such a claim. mea culpa
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