11:21 PM - 23.11.04
Timeout
Not a good day today. Sat waiting for the plumber to arrive all day and he was a no show. Apparently a lot of furnaces are crashing and not restarting when there are power outages. Yes, they do need to be put first given the weather right now. However, if they'd just been honest with me I could have at least gone out and done the errands that I had put aside to be available when they came. You know like getting groceries and taking my records of employment into the local office. My claim doesn't get processed until they have the originals.
Next up a call from the IT people at Elections Canada. Why did you use your personal computer to do some of your work? Well a) the EC computer I had been given was "locked down" for the whole of the event plus a few weeks after and most of the time I couldn't get to the computer work necessary until after I arrived home at office closing at 9 pm. A lot of nights I didn't finish the documentation required by them until one or two in the morning. A couple of times I literally fell asleep on the keyboard. Number two) during half the event the office computers were crashed as well - the only secure place that I could be guaranteed that I would have access to the information and work I was required by them to do was my own computer. Number three) the Elections Canada computer was on dial up and when it did operate we were only allowed 20 minutes a night - I needed three hours of clear time to get everything done. Not only that, but restrictions on the Elections Canada computer were such that I couldn't even access a lot of the websites I needed to use like the city's demographic pages or the realtors for lease pages - they wouldn't even load. "Well why didn't you call us?" I did - you refused to reactivate the home account, troubleshoot the existing problems in the office, or do anything that would have provided secure access on the computers in our offices let alone in my home.
It's all documented in the entries I posted to you during the event dear diary. I suppose I could cut and paste all of those comments and send them forward to the techs, but that's a lot of hours of editing with no pay and likely no help forthcoming either. "Well in future do not use your personal computer to do EC work" "Are you going to change or improve the current access we have?" No of course not. So let me get this straight - I'm supposed to meet legislated and operational deadlines but I'm not supposed to have the resources necessary to do them? That's correct. And in addition I'm going to be penalized financially when your systems crash because I can't get the information in to you that only resides on the Elections Canada server? That is also correct. I think I commented earlier that one of the criteria for workplace violence is deemed to be withholding the resources necessary to do the job. I admit I finally lost my cool which isn't cool. Because I was raised at a time when females were not allowed to show anger (I got more swats for saying I was angry) the only coping skill I've ever really developed to deal with the frustration is to cry. I learned not to do even that when my ex was around because he really punished me for that response. Not a pretty sight today - oh no.
I think it's time to just go to bed and hope tomorrow will be better.
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