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Double or Nothing
It was one of those work days where the events of the end of the day almost overshadowed everything else. Got on the C-train at about 5:10 pm. Next station up the driver starts talking over the intercom. South route had to be shut down by police and paramedics close to the downtown core. Everyone hoping to get home in that direction will have to disembark next stop and go to a designated area if they want the shuttle bus service set up in lieu of the train. Well that station that was mentioned as being the problem sits right across one key bottleneck out of the downtown core. Doesn't matter whether there are shuttles or not, it isn't likely anyone will get home early on.

Rumours and speculation start flying round the car I ride in. Explosions, bombs, fires and stabbings figure prominently. I feel sorry for people trying to go south - could just as easily be us - sometimes it has been as you know, dear diary. Late night news indicates that there was a domestic dispute and the wife went to sleep under the one bridge across the Elbow river that links up with the major routes south. The spouse came by while she slept and must have used some sort of accelerant when he tried to burn her to death. She was rescued, thankfully, but the structural damage to the bridge itself was of enough concern that it wasn't deemed safe to let car traffic on it until the different engineers could assess and fix what had been damaged. No real movement until after 6:30 pm. Remember what I said last night about peers, friends and family having the same or greater potential for being the real terrorist factor in one's life?

Work today was very tiring. Still a lot of emotional response to yesterday, each person expressing their distress in ways that limn their personalities. When I emailed the new agency for which I now work, I asked if I could pass their name on to some of the staff that I like that are fairly certain their positions will be eliminated. Phone call back saying they would be very pleased to try and help wherever they can. Sometimes, when one part of one's life just disappears, it is difficult for people to comprehend the reality let alone think of how move forward with their lives. Sometimes big opportunities are missed as a result, as people fight to recreate a status quo that simply cannot be resurrected. I talked to each one of the most distressed that I dealt with yesterday just letting them know that there were some steps and options they could explore right away without having to commit to a course of action immediately. Some had obviously gone home and thought things through last night, so they were a little less panicked. Some are eligible to receive packages and you could tell that the smart ones were thinking in terms of how they could use that unexpected cash infusion and the change to move forward with things they wanted out of life. Some not and that was part of the tension today. Grieving and adapting at different speeds.

Talked with my tech just to see if his travel documents had arrived. Yes and online forms comprising about 600 printed pages of material. Well, government, don't you know. He was feeling the stress too and we talked about it being frustrating, but I tried to offer him the same kind of comfort as the other staff who now are on uncertain ground. He was good with that and we moved on to discussing technicalities around the election responsibilities we have. He allowed that he really needed to get away from all the office issues. The training time next week gave him an iron clad reason to act on his needs.

I wandered into the fileroom after that and the creep showed up not long after. Same old behaviour. Trying to find ways to force a close encounter. Not moving from where I obviously needed to work and crowding me in. I'm beginning to think my tech must actively watch for the behaviour. It was only a few minutes - seemed like hours though - before he came walking in to the room continuing a conversation we had already completed, making certain there was no opportunity for the jerk to force himself into the mix. The jerk was obviously quite annoyed. He hit the printer, bit off an exclamation, then stormed out of the fileroom. As I was working between the three filerooms all day, I had to really watch because he kept coming and checking to see if I was alone or trying to push himself in on me again and again. What part of no does he not understand?

There was still something odd about the day though. The receptionist is one of the people who has really changed her attitude toward me since the announcement. When I was working in the fileroom closest to her, she came in and started chatting about the divestment. I said that some of what I had heard led me to believe that the whole story hadn't been divulged yet. I couldn't explain why, but I've been around so many of them over the past decade that anomalies in the regular pattern really stand out when I see them. She startled a bit and said "no, not everything has come out yet". It appears as though there are two or three other twists in the plot due yet. Hmmmmm. She said something about if whether she was required to move to the new owner or whether she was allowed to stay on here would determine her choices. Divestments usually don't mean that the old office is maintained. Hmmmmmm again.

Today was a very physical day because of moving all the indexed collection into the new configurations and locations determined at the Wednesday meeting. I wore my cotton denim dress - still full length with just an unbuttoned white shirt over top so as to stay cool enough, but also to cover up a bit as well. The dress is sleeveless and lower cut than most of what I usually wear, although well within what a lot of women wear to work every day. The new bra has real elasticity in it, so clevage is somewhat more pronounced than usual for me. I noticed a lot of the males spending time in the filerooms I was working, in trying to make conversation at the same time, asking questions about what I was doing. These are the same ones who have acted as though I didn't exist before now. That's why I don't normally show any bustline - changes the way you're perceived. If I hadn't been aware that I would be done work sometime next week at this clients' office, I would have covered up more and just suffered through the discomfort of being heated up with all the lifting and carrying. Better me than an office full of guys right? I know it sounds vain, but at that point the rest of my appearance wasn't even an issue - it was all in the cleavage, man. Men never seem to accept being weaned.

My supervisor called later in the day to find out where I was in completing the tasks I felt I needed to finish and also to talk about the timing of when I would move over. He was a lot more open with me than he has been in a couple of years and seemed more willing to try and actually hear what I was trying to tell him. Active listening is what its called. I know he has to fit what happens in my contracts in around everything else that is occurring, so I think the way I need to perceive it is as a lesson about not ignoring the details of my own staff's jobs while trying to keep the whole wagon train rolling with respect to the election. Just takes one gopher hole to disrupt the whole forward movement, doesn't it. If the timing is unfortunate, for example, when wild animals feel it presents an opportunity to gain a free meal, then that one little detail can cause problems to snowball so fast that soon one is only trying to put out fires instead of moving forward. He offered me two weeks more work at that one place I just loved to be last year - the one I went in to part time during the election last summer. Since he wasn't allowed to negotiate directly with my new supervisor would I be willing to do it instead? Oi. He suggested one day a week back at the old contract and noted that I might need that amount of variety given the task I'm being asked to complete. I agree he's correct and that he understands my need for change and variety - even a little bit of serendipity and chaos. However, I'm not certain my new supervisor will interpret it that way. During elections I leave the door open for staff to continue with their regular work and schedules because it is a short term event. You can't ask people to turn their whole life around for just six weeks. Most downtown superviosrs don't think in those terms, so I'm not certain how to deal with it. I know the proper response is likely just to say I can't do it, but that leaves the unfinished business that I left at the first contract unfinished and when this assignment is over at the end of the year I don't want to be thinking that the dream job I hope opens up in that company for me was lost for ten days worth of work. Wonder if they'd let me come in weekends? As long as the election isn't called before April - April Fools - I could manage both. We'll see. Good night dear diary.

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