00:04 - 23.08.05
Machinehead
Thursday, I rode home on the bus with the neighbour from across the street. She and her hubby had been on vacation - family reunions. They had a great time I guess. We caught up on the news we each had about the "bad" neighbour. She had some insights based on some encounters she had had with the females, while I caught her up on the late night dramas that had played out while they were out of province. Lately it's been very quiet next door, so I'm guessing that they may have also gone off holidaying. Nice to be able to walk outside without the barrage of verbiage.
Friday morning I thought maybe I'd walked into the middle of a Bruce Springsteen song. There is one male who has been a regular on the early bus for a while. He travels with a group of men who are obviously in the construction trade. Lots of work in that industry right now. He is always pleasant and quite chivalrous, but there is also always the smell of alcohol about him - at 6 in the am. I sat beside him on the bench by the door and he acted solicitous about my shoes. It was pouring down rain at the time and I was wearing my "walking on air" sandals. He was hitting on me, but only gently so I didn't feel all that uncomfortable. Started telling me his story. That's when the guitar riffs from The Boss seemed to cut in.
"Had a good job with the railway, making $$ dollars a day. Union man;I was looking after my crew all day. Then came the layoffs - four big cuts in just one year. Started drinking;lost my home and family, my job and my way." Railway man's lament. He went on to talk about being injured in subsequent jobs and showed me the latest result from surgery on his arm. Given my background in rehabilitation, it appeared to me that he was in for some rough waters in terms of staying in the workforce in his present occupation. He was going off to the casual labour office. Said disability was paying him less than $600 month right now and he couldn't make ends meet. Had to work, he said, even though he likely realized it would make it nearly impossible for the full recovery of the use of his arm. I told him that the railway was now advertising that they would pay to train new workers because they were so short of labour - maybe he should look into it. A light flashed in his eyes and then a look of loss and defeat washed it away. He acknowledged that his drinking had cost him almost everything and accepted responsibility for the self destruction. Words he said, gave me to believe he might have gotten into the habit when he was required to do the firing and packaging off of his long time workers. Coping mechanism at first, because he felt the pain he was causing people he cared about so deeply himself. Survivor's guilt and then the self-destruct pattern setting in with a vengeance. Spent the morning being thankful for what I've been able to salvage from my own Waterloo and feeling badly for people like this guy, who might not make it back if he can't find a break somewhere soon. People may be the authors of their own misfortune to some degree, but often once the process has begun only an external and timely intervention of fate can help pull someone back out. Hope he gets that break soon.
Lunch with the co-worker from the second time I was at the assignment where I finally had to walk out last October. If you recall my posts, she had been the target of the supervisor's bullying that go round and we had banded together so that we could survive the term of our assignments. She is working for the company that was part of my last assignment, although on another worksite. She said she was going back to Britain next week to visit her parents and extended family. More reunions. We discussed what was going on overseas and then politics back here at home. At one point, I posited that the BSE crisis in Britain was so sudden and widespread that it made one wonder if it wasn't the result of a bioterrorism attack. Her reaction was pretty interesting. Her shoulders hunched up and she said " Well you know we British, we just automatically revert to the stiff upper lip and "carry on" as best one can. We don't see complaining or histrionics as useful for restoring some sense of balance back into our lives. She muttered something about the bombings during WW II - I think as an example of the ideal for the British when they thought of themselves facing adversity. Having known and heard the stories of several of my parents' friends and relatives who were in Britain during that time, it is obvious that there is still that inner core of steel, even when masked by the cloak of technology we have now.
While I was walking about from one workplace to the other at noon, there appeared to be an inordinate number of very well groomed and hollywood handsome men on the street. "Oh no, is that Robert Redford walking toward me?" On the train on the way home one male who came and sat beside me looked so much like Brad Pitt that I was afraid to breathe in case it started a stampede of fans toward him. That and he was breathtakingly handsome. Realized that said star likely wouldn't wear such expensive and unique clothes on a commuter train - he seems a down to earth type who would rather go about his daily life unencumbered as much as possible by such things. It did make me wonder what was going on though. Got home and heard there was an open casting call for Brad Pitt's new movie - The Assassination of Jesse James - this weekend. Those prettied up males were probably hoping they would be "discovered" I think. Thought about going just for the fun of it, but I could only work nights and weekends anyway. I did fit the criteria for the women the casting company was looking for though "women between the ages of 19 - 89, hair at least shoulder length, dress size 12 or less". Apparently thousands of people did line up waiting in the very hot sun for hours at a time just to get the paperwork necessary to have a chance. Me? I coloured archetypes, worked through astrology calculations, read out loud and meditated. Housework on the side. Too hot for anything else, I think.
Today? Fred, the ghost, made his appearance first thing when I logged into the computer. Up popped some bizarre login instructions, followed by a warning that one of the drives had been removed from my account by some strange device. Called the help desk right away. Two reboots of the computer and still the same problem. "This is weird - we'll get someone on location to come look at it". As I was talking with the tech I was pulling out my work materials so I could get on with my day, while waiting for my "house call". Top two drawers - no problem. Bottom drawer? All the paperwork - about 3 inches of it - all soaked. What gives? That darned Fred again I guess. Opened up my email to find that problem from last week - corrupted files - was back again too. It was nearly 8 am, before I could even start on the weekly report and then I had that new weekly meeting with the second in commanded to deal with. An hour later, the onsite tech knocked on the meeting room door, just as we were finishing up our discussion. Half an hour of tinkering with the hardware and he couldn't reproduce the warning/error messages that I had been getting. Of course. He left and five minutes later those problems were both back. Fred is such a joker. Called the tech and told him I would leave everything as is so he could see it for himself - sent screenshots of the warnings/messages for good measure. He came back, opened up the PC and experienced some consternation as he found that the setup was "weird". Noticed the electrician from last weeks' encounters with Fred walking in the department as I told the tech about our friendly, mischievious ghost. That rattled him too. He said he had gypsy blood on his mother's side of the family and ghosts were an all too frequent issue. His mom's house in British Columbia is haunted. We talked a bit about what is known about the history of the gypsies. His mom's family had emigrated here from Britain. I told him some of the things Fred was known to do here. Uh huh. Ghosts in the machine.
It sort of resonated with the account I had read on the bus that morning about Carl Jung's "nervous breakdown" where his family home showed signs of being haunted (outside observers confirmed the activities of his ghosts). As the intensity of his session of nonordinary behaviour increased so did the intensity of the hauntings. In the final stages of that, he wrote some of his seminal work on the collective unconscious. He seemd to have been immersed so deeply in it, that writing about his perceptions from that reality was the only way back into his original or "separate" mind. As he wrote, he said the presence of those souls on the "other side" was so concentrated that it made the air feel thick and oppressive, as though all the "space" and air was being inhabited from this parallel dimension. I didn't tell the tech about it, because he was already pretty spooked anyway. I dealt with the morning's events by climbing the stairs in the building at noon as I had promised myself I would. Felt good. Insteps, ankles, calves and hamstrings got the most workout followed by the lungs. That was what slowed me down - the breathing - or I probably could have done the circuit another couple of rounds.
Back upstairs, that one meeting about getting along in an open office plan. Two supervisors visibly absent, the rest of the staff looking quite apprehensive. The presentation was from a space management consultant who was quite good at presenting the recommended behaviours and strategies for coping in a nonthreatening, nonblaming way. The perfumed coworker was sitting two seats over and kept commenting that she didn't see anything wrong with a lot of the activities that the consultant was recommending not be undertaken. "but I love doing that". When the issue of perfumes came up - it is the chemicals, not the smell - she was quite irritated. The supervisor next to her asked her directly why she was wearing perfume again. The coworker denied having any on, but it was obvious that wasn't true, even though it was much less than she normally has on at any given time.
That session ended and then it was time for the telemeeting between my supervisor, the second in command and our counterpart in Texas - the retention specialist. I really like her as a person and it was interesting to just chat about day to day shared interests or concerns. You know. Family, housework, leisure time, the weather and coping techniques we have for all of those things. She had obviously spent a lot of time going through the material she had requested last week and I updated her on the material that hasn't been released to her in hard copy by my supervisor. That was quite awkward a few times, but I couldn't explain some of the issues without going into that. Our focus was on the legal, regulatory and corporate records this time. Two hours passed unnoticed before we finished for the day. There is such a difference between the way business is carried out in the US and Canada that it takes a lot of work to find common ground from which to build a consistent game plan that fits both parts of the company. It is really interesting to work in a company that values diversity and works so hard to make it work. It is also heartening to work with people who have the patience and the willingness to work through all the hurdles to find the balance. Have I mentioned how much I like working for this company? Anyway time for bed. Maybe tomorrow I'll actually be able to do the tasks that are supposed to be my primary focus, since today was a write off in that sense. Not my fault I guess, but it is still a bit frustrating despite how interesting the time spent was. Good night dear diary.
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