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Preparations
Long weekend in the work sense dear diary. Voicemail left on Friday from the person who was one of my techs last election. If it hadn't been for their work partner and the extra time I invested in doing tech support that part of the work would have been a disaster. Not that they didn't try, but that they just weren't able to grasp enough of the requirements to do the work properly, even with a lot of extra training. After the event I called and asked if he would be willing to go back to doing the revision work. Same pay, more hours and therefore more income. Fine. The call on Friday sounded panicky. They called again early Saturday morning. Wants the tech position instead now. "Why?" Because I want the trip to Ottawa, doesn't really care about the work entailed. Well the trip is a moot point now and I told them I'd already signed their partner from last event to work in that position. They were a bit annoyed. but I don't want to be carrying anyone else's job this time. I'd like to be able to get ore than 4 hurs sleep per night for starters. I also want people I can trust in critical positions, given the secruity issues we've faced the last few events. They were one of the two pople who I thought was the problem with respect to the problems being created for our personnel, but although there was circumstantial evidence nothing was clear cut enough to allow me to determine intent. If they wants to take on the position I've offered, that's fine since I will have others directly supervising their interactions with staff as a precaution. If not, then there is no work for them next event. It appeared the belief was that I am obligated to give them whatever they asks for. I don't see why given that they treated the people they supervised as though they was doing them a favour giving them shifts at all.
Called my assistant after that and asked if we could meet over lunch. Sure thing. What I wanted to do was go through the list of 600+ or so people we had working for us in one capacity or another during the election while we could still remember their performance between the two of us. The intent is to start thinking of how we want the composition of some of our work teams for different tasks set up. It's a bit of a crap shoot because we have no control over the timing of the event and therefore everything is subject to the availability of different people to work. I usually have three people in mind for each key position I fill for that reason. And yes I do have a third person who would be perfect for the tech position should something prevent my current tech from being able to take it on. Anyway we spent about two hours at Boston Pizza working over lunch. Our waitress was great and we wound up asking her if she wanted to be part of one of the teams. No but thanks - she likes her full time position at the restaurant. Fair enough. I handed my assistant the manual I am supposed to work with and told her it was the worst one EC had produced. Not enough specifics in a lot of areas and vague on some really critical points. It is contained in a 4" thick binder, so she blanched a bit at that comment. I explained that reading it would be like reading a book on parenting by someone who has only observed children in a lab setting and then actually trying to do the job of parenting itself. I told her I would send her her own version of the log I've kept in your electrons, dear diary, of the work we did last year during the pre, post and actual event. She wasn't thinking I was so mean to the tech any more I don't think.
Went home and started in editing that 160 pages worth of commentary shortly after. Just finished up now and sent it off to her. She got the 46 page summary. The reason it took so long was that I had to keep taking breaks to do other things. Housework, laundry, final report to my supervisor and my timesheet so I get paid for my regular job. The local Elections Canada rep had scheduled a conference call for this afternoon, but by this morning I had the choice of doing the work I need to get done or talking about it with all the other RO's. I don't want to talk about it right now. After working through all that editing, I think I have enough recollection of the strengths and weaknesses of last event to move on without the chatter. the political party in power had their convention this weekend and it appears again that they have no intention of calling another election for as long as they can hang on to power. Good thing. I'm exhausted just thinking about all the work right now. I just want to start my new job tomorrow and focus on it for a while. One job at a time, one day at a time, right dear diary? Anyway time for bed wish me luck for tomorrow.
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