2:25 PM - 11.09.04
Plumbing the Depths
You know I just don't know what's wrong with me these days, dear diary. Just got off the phone and I was crying my eyes out while I was talking. Wasn't even all that critical when one looks at it rationally. You remember about two months ago I had a plumber come in to fix the leaking taps in my bathtub. $450 and two months later the leaking is as bad as ever and the fan hasn't worked since the day the plumber was there. The consequence today, since it is the hot water tap of course, was that when I opened the door this morning the fire alarm went off and I couldn't get it to stop. I guess the upside is that I know that at least something works properly around here. I was worrying about the neighbours on the other half of the duplex. I'd get pretty antsy if I heard their fire alarm continuing to ring after a few minutes - wouldn't you?
I called the company that sent out the plumber and started to ask them to come and fix what they hadn't done correctly the first time. "Well ma'am we knew it wouldn't work for long and it's going to cost you this much in addition to really get it fixed." "Well if you knew it wasn't going to work, why didn't your plumber advise me at work when he was in my home last time. I didn't authorise anyone to charge me that kind of money for something that wasn't going to work - I'm not that stupid." "Well just turn off your hot water at the source." Right. I am still working two jobs - I'm still trying to get those boxes of work from the election out of my front room without success - and my time for housework is really limited. Truth is I'm so stressed with the current work situation I can't function once I get home at night to even get at that work. Then add in Elections Canada's on-going shenanigans - more about that later dear diary.
So the end result is if I shut off the hot water I'll get even further behind in the clean up than I am now. I can't stand the way the house looks now. When the fellow on the other end mentioned turning off the hot water I started to cry and I didn't stop for the balance of the call, the time between and his next call. The second call he was explaining that the "real" cost to fix the darn things was likely to be the same cost again plus a couple hundred dollars. Well Elections Canada still owes me $2000+ in pay from the election so I guess I can afford it - if EC ever decides to come through with it that is. We've been this route before haven't we. Anyway the poor guy was really flustered and he was trying very hard to calm me down. Wasn't him, it was me. I'm just so frustrated and overwhelmed with all the stupid problems cropping up I can't even control myself anymore. That is ridiculous. I've mentioned before that I hate crying in front of anyone and that includes plumbers. This isn't that big a deal, but it's too much right now.
Work was pretty strange yesterday. Arrived and was just settling in at my station - coffee in hand - when my cell phone rang. It was my financial officer from the election. She had just gotten off the telephone with the head office in Ottawa and she was steaming. She had called them after hearing from some of the staff that hadn't been paid about their treatment at Ottawa's hands. Now, we sent in all the second round of paperwork over three weeks ago and were told it would be dealt with immediately. Right - some people were sent partial payments and some still have none. Only explanations? Wrong paperwork. Right, we sent in identical documentation for everyone. Some people get all their money, some get partial payments and some get none - how does that compute. My financial person blew her stack for a few minutes then asked how I was doing. One of the risks in riding public transit is that it is - well public. Someone she talks with must have seen me on one of my bad days the past couple of weeks. She obviously was concerned and I got the mom talk. I appreciate her concern, but I need to remember to be aware what is written on my face in public obviously. I told her I would call our Member of Parliament's office at noon to update them and follow up on the e-mail I'd sent them a couple of days ago about it on my lunch break.
Tried to log in to my computer and that was fine, but the software I need to use, that was theoretically loaded on to it the day before, still wasn't working. Fine. I had some work to do on the spreadsheets the brother and I use together, so I thought I'd get that done before he got in and needed access to them. Both were locked up - "read only". Well, fine the brother has shown me several instances of tampering going on with them, similar to what my co-worker and I in my first assignment here experienced, so locking them up is a reasonable choice. No option then, but to go log in to his account and PC, since mine isn't much more useful than a paperweight at the moment. Logged in - fine. Opened both spreadsheets in turn to find both of them still locked up "read only". Guess I'll talk to him about that when he gets in. Logged into the scanning/publishing software and it at least opened. Scanned the first document and got an error message that read, in part, that backing out of the screen could cause unexpected results including crashing the computer. Well, truth in advertising is useful now isn't it. The retry option just kept me in the mobius loop of the error message. I finally found a way to get out without crashing anything, partly by closing out of everything else I had opened to do my job. Rebooted the computer and tried opening the software again without opening any other programs. Maybe what locked up the spreadsheets was part of the problem - don't let the damage cross over to other programs - right? Well the next attempt to scan was worse - didn't get past the first screen - just the warning was different. I had managed to take a screen shot of the first warning before everything froze up and I did the same the second time.
Called the consultant that I've been directed to contact and his son allowed he was in the shower. I'm a full hour into the work day with nothing accomplished, so I called the in-house support desk to see if they had any ideas while I was waiting for the consultant to get back to me. The tech - of the same first name as me - arrived about 15 minutes later. The second error message said essentially that the computer couldn't find any of the drivers or the licensed card - check the power and cables - sure. She called the company that supplied the scanner after several tries at different solutions on her own didn't work. They couldn't help her either. At least I didn't feel so bad now - I wasn't the only one who couldn't figure it out. The brother called about then to say he had been held up - did I have enough work to keep me going until he arrived. I explained what was going on and allowed that I couldn't get done even what I had to do. He noted that he had had problems logging out the night before - it wouldn't let him go out of the screen. I recalled then, that there had been some problems with the scanner the afternoon before when one of the staff asked the brother to scan something in to one of the shared drives. Explained that to the tech and went to alert the liaison about the brother being late and the computer problems at his request.
Went off to my station to at least get some sorting and filing done, when the co-ordinator brought one of the staff by. Could I use the scanner at my station to scan some of his personal data on a shared drive. Apparently that scanner has been designated for all the company to use. I'm supposed to schedule my work around that too, I guess. That machine wasn't working either nor could the in-house tech make it work when she came around to help. Peachy. It would have been easy to speculate about conspiracy theories then, but I didn't have that much of a sense of humour left. Hardware and software glitches are always part of the time that has to be factored in when determining how long a task or project is going to take, but this was a little more serious than that. We have a non-negotiable deadline for the end of this month to meet.
Came back to the brother's PC and the in-house tech asked if I'd mind if she called the consultant - not at all. They spent a lot more time on the phone, still with no results - so he said he'd have someone from their company come in to see if the download of software from the day before had corrupted the system. The in house tech insisted it be during the morning - bless her. I was asked to talk with the software company's tech support by phone to see if remote diagnnostics could be applied. No deal, but I sent him the screenshots from the brother's account's e-mail, since I haven't been given e-mail or internet access. By then it ws 10:30 or three hours into the day. The brother arrived and I explained what had transpired. He was most concerned with his sister's responses, but again we can't do more than what our resources will allow. He was very subdued and stayed that way for the balance of the day. Part of it was that he wasn't feeling well and that was what had delayed him coming in. He has a chronic illness and he often pushes himself well beyond his own physical limits just to prove that he can. Problem is that in time it will cost him even more of his strength and he won't be able to override his body's safety shutdowns. He won't let me do some of the heavier physical work, but it's part of my job too. We've had several discussions about that, but I can't push beyond a certain point because it really seems to affect his sense of self-competence. Frustrating.
He went off to do catch up on his tasks, while I went back to my work station. The tech from the software company arrived and recalibrated, or whatever, the brother's PC then came to work on mine. The in house tech came back to watch, so she could trouble shoot in the future. The out sourced tech was a little bit condescending to me at first and talked mostly to the inhouse tech. 'Course that could also be because both were very nice and very nice looking young people who wanted to get to know each other better. Fair game, but I'm the one that needs to be able to keep this project on track, so I need to know what I can do to reduce the number of "house calls" y'all. He finally seemed to accept that I might understand more than he had first given me credit for and did a good job of explaining the technical hardware issues that were at the root of the problem. I walked him out of the office - security don't you know - at about 12:10 pm, because the inhouse tech had had to leave for a meeting earlier.
Called my Member of Parliament's assistant immeidately after - the library was empty for a change, so I had some privacy to discuss the morning conversation with my financial officer with her. She had just gotten back from holidays today and read the e-mail as we spoke. Said she would be careful not to reveal where it came from when she spoke with Elections Canada. We are told that we are not allowed to talk with our elected representatives but we are still citizens and they haven't the authority to deny us the rights of citizenship. My staff haven't been paid and it is now almost three months after the event. They won't listen to me or my financial officer or even report to us what is going on so we can advocate for our staff. What other options do we have but talking to our MPs? I told her not to worry about keeping her source confidential. I want my staff paid. In fact it would be nice if they would pay me what they owe me too. Jerks - right?
Went for a quick walk through Chinatown heading for the river. Didn't quite make it there, because my instincts were telling me to go another way. I've learned to listen to them, but I still don't know why this time. Passed a Vietnamese Pho house that I hadn't tried before, so I popped in and asked for vermicelli and veggies with spring rolls. Served up in five minutes with three staff in attendance even though they were very busy with a large gathering of in house lunchers. I'll be back - with friends next time.
Got back to my station and was about to tuck in when the consultant who was in the shower wandered in with the brother. Tucked the lunch away and worked with them for a bit. Could I explain what the tech had explained to me about the hardware. Was it a test, dear diary? I think I did ok, but sometimes the industry terms used escaped me even though I understand the technology. The two were finally satisfied with what I told them and wandered off to the brother's PC. I scanned in something for one of the scientists to the shared drive, while he talked me through the task. It was the first time I had been asked to scan that way and he was quite patient about it. Nice guy. Next I took the material that the staffer from the morning had brought in and scanned it too thinking I might as well get some practice in. The liaison had said - when I asked her for company policy/guidelines on scanning in personal material for other staff - that it was acceptable for me to do that during work hours at my discretion. Only challenge was the cropping and graphics functions - they weren't all that intuitive or user friendly, but I figured it out after a couple of tries.
Filed scanned data from 2:00 pm until about 3:30 when the brother had caught up with some of his back log and asked me to work with him for a while. He was still really subdued and the flirting was completely stopped. I suspect it might be because his sister had walked by the night before while he was make his last verbal sally. I was getting ready to leave for the day and asked him if there was anything else he needed from me before I went home. Our tasks overlap quite a bit, so sometimes there are bits and pieces of information that I have to make certain he knows before he can do some of his work. He pointed to a spot between his shoulder blades and allowed that it was painful - could I fix it? I laughed and said that I had taken physiotherapy and so was technically proficient, but that it would cost him. So you see dear diary, part of the problem is my fault too, isn't it.
Truth is I took physio because I enjoy giving massages - seeing pain worked out of someone's body and watching them relax. When my guys were small children it's what I did to calm them at night before they went to bed. That calmness stayed with them for a long time and made them less hyper - boys hyper, surely we jest. Anyway, I should have just laughed and said nothing or ignored it, but I didn't. Anyway I suspect that his sister may have told him to stop and she's correct of course. I miss the joking and the sense of comraderie, but this work site does not allow for that kind of exchange - mea culpa again.
Took number three son out for dinner last night. We were celebrating his 23 birthday - July 24. It was just one of those summers where neither of us had weekends free. He played and I was doing election work. We went to one of the really popular and long established steak houses. Usually I can't eat the servings they bring but the server managed to find something for me that I could manage. It was delicious and the conversation was fun too. My sons have always looked a bit askance on some of my interests, I think, but now that they are older they are starting to look a little more closely at those very things. My son was discussing the prophecies of Nostradamus. Now, I read those many decades ago in their original language. I did it for two reasons. One was because it was in the restricted section of the library - I could take out Lady Chatterley's lover without parental permission, but not a seer's work or any book that had information about faith systems other than Christianity. The other was because one term at school I had German, then French, then English classes one after another. I often found my self answering questions in class correctly, but in the "wrong" language. It was hard, because I'd just adjust to thinking and speaking in one when I had to shift on to the next one. Lucky my teachers all had such a good sense of humour, eh? Anyway, I thought reading the prophecies in the original Provencal, which is a mix of French and German, would help me understand the cadence and syntax of the speech better. Reading the words in their original form with the historical notes included to provide the context for some of the seer's comments, also meant that I had a much clearer understanding of what Nostradamus had meant, maybe, rather than a lot of the translations or transliterations out there. Led to a really good discussion last night. My son has more German but less French than me so he allowed he might try reading it in the original form too. Other topic was family matters. Came home and crawled into bed. Didn't wake up until just before the fateful call to the plumber. Which means, I guess I should try to get at some of that housework that's driving me nuts. A demain dear diary.
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