21:56 - 12.09.05
Safety First
I received several responses to my emails to different government agencies with repect to my renovations. So far everything looks fine. Every move costs more money though and that does warrant some caution with proceeding too. This will make life easier in the long run though won't it? Hope so.
The cats were very naughty last night. All started about 5 in the am and just seemed to shift from one set to the next. Two pairs of males decided they would have the contest to decide who is the dominant one. Answer? At that time in the morning it's Me. Took me about an hour to get that point through to them moving back and forth between the two pairs of combatants. One of the "boys" ended up in the bad kitty room for the day though. Tough punishment, I must say - food, water and the freedom to sleep the whole day. Hmmmmmmm. The one senior female wanted access to my work clothes - the best sleeping place is always the one forbidden one,right? Going to work covered in cat hair and smelling of their delicate scents, just isn't happening for me. Between fellow travellers on transit and coworkers, I think I would have some complaints. This particular female is very smart. She has taught some of the younger cats how to charge a closed door so that, if it isn't fully engaged, it will open from their combined efforts. Charge of the Light Brigade. So even though it wasn't my intention, I was up and ready for work well before departure time. Good thing I suppose, since it gave me time to haul in the offerings of the milk man and the newspaper carrier too. Doubled checked the door to ensure it was locked and fully engaged after my little battle with the cats.
You see, there was a car idling out front of the bad neighbours home. Didn't want to leave my youngest and the felines unprotected when he might know I would be absent from my home. I headed in the opposite direction toward the alley, hoping that if it was him he hadn't seen me yet. Just a precaution, but meeting that fellow while he's behind the wheel of a car and I'm on foot isn't really a scenario I fancy, especially when it is still dark outside and the rain is misting down. As I was going through the gate, the car pulled away from the curb. Decided one well-lit street was safer than a dark back alley at that point and doubled back. Extra good thing there was extra time I guess.
One thing that regularly frustrates me and my fellow transit passengers is the poor connection between the bus and the train. It doesn't matter whether the bus arrives early in that 5 minute window of time set for our stop or not. We have a 50/50 chance of getting to the train that pulls in to the station as we are arriving. Half the time it pulls away when half the passengers from the bus are still trying to board. If we were sauntering along I could understand, but it is literally a group sprint up a very long flight of steep stairs, across two bridges and then down another flight of stairs/escalator, if you are feeling lazy. Even though the next train arrives 5 minutes later, it still means we walk in to work 15 minutes later than if we'd caught the earlier one. Commute times have to be calculated on the longest travel time, not the estimated one that is given out by transit schedulers. Sort of like the theory of child rearing versus reality.
I hadn't been at my workstation very long, having missed that first train, but still arriving a few minutes before my regular start time, when in walked the perfumed coworker. Maybe she was told to be present so as to cover the client queries while the supervisor is recuperating from surgery. That supervisor called my supervisor today and said she'd be back beginning of next week. The perfumed coworker leaves for holidays on Wednesday and so does my walking partner. Both going to Hawaii they are. The coworker from the same agency as me called in sick and that was a disappointment. I really enjoy her company and I know she really can't afford the lost wages. Like me, she carries two jobs most of the time too and still has trouble keeping all the bills paid. The mutual friend we have has solved that issue by taking on a third job. I admire her, but I don't think I could manage that right now. Whatever virus has settled in to this department is really entrenched. It seems there is always at least one person off being sick with it. The other reason I was conderned about her absence was probably a moot point, but there was that article about group lottery winners in my post a couple of weeks ago - remember dear diary. The one where a fast food restaurant group of co-workers won $14 million but then turned on each other and said two of the members' money had only been played on the losing ticket - not the winning one. Well. Apparently the group in the work area next to mine - and maybe some others - have a lottery pool. The ally does the purchasing and banking. Last week the coworker from the same agency as me gave her money so she could be included too. I was preparing for my weekly meeting with the second in command and didn't have my headphones on so I heard the ally mentioning this to the perfumed coworker - I think maybe she bought one more ticket as a result. Anyway the perfumed coworker got really angry.You can't do that I don't want her to play. She can't be in on the one - they play several lotteries from the sound of the discussion - in particular because it's worth too much if they win. They ally responded that she had already taken and spent the co-worker's money so she had nooptions on it. At that point the perfumed coworker was so worked up she repeated her comments almost as if it was a mantra. Over and over getting louder and more shrill each time. The ally finally tried her most soothing voice and said that the only ticket that the new coworker would be ascribed to have a share in was the one other game they played. Not the other game the perfumed worker was on about. I don't know anything about the pool the group have together because they've never mentioned it to me or discussed the details while I've had my headphones off so I don't know whether they have entered into one of the lottery contracts offered through the retailers or not. However, accepting and spending money from someone is a contract in and of itself. At that point I was wishing I had my own magic wand or big bank account. I would have found a way of ensuring the new coworker just happened to come into possession of a winning ticket - one that only she could claim ownership of. You know maybe receiving it in a birthday card or as a thank you from someone as part of a thank you card. I know - I'm being a real old bag.
The travel formed part of the discussion with the second in command in this morning's weekly meeting. The two of us will be out at one of the warehouses working through the physical records stored offsite starting in the next week or two. I think a break away from both the virus infecting everyone else and also a break from dealing with our friendly ghost will be a blessing. Add in it is in an industrial area where there is no shopping within an hour's commute and I'm likely going to be saved from my self too. The concerns I have? We discussed all but one of those too. Bus service to industrial areas is even less reliable than to downtown. I've already spent a fair amount of time on the transit website trying to find two or three alternative ways to get in and out. All depends on the work hours set, whether I can even have a plan B or C. Next up was facilities. Does it have a coffee station. Yes blessed be. What about other amenities like a fridge or microwave. She'll check. She said her family drove by there on the weekend travelling back in to town from a wedding. There is a Tim Horton's within walk distance too. Yeah - best chain store coffee there is plus great soup and sandwich offerings too. Perfect for winter and not too expensive either. The balance of the meeting centered around the renovations both of us are contemplating on our homes - she had some great tips to offer - and trying to come up with a logical plan of attack given the volume of boxes we have to work through. I explained about the unmapped records I had come across at the end of last week and she asked for screenshots of those plus the ones of records that consists of strings of numbers and nothing else. Can I have those coded by the end of the week? Don't know. I average about 500 records a day, with no interruptions on regular records - this would require me to double the pace working with challenging records. The one thing we didn't discuss was something I am hoping I took wrong when the second in command mentioned it. She had said early on that there was this one male who was ummm strange. Always trying to look down one's top and that sort of thing. Great. As long as he keeps his distance and his hands and other body parts to himself that is fine. Anything else is not acceptable. I didn't raise it because I have enough free floating paranoia going on for two or three people right now. "Don't borrow trouble" - that was my Grandmother speaking.
Lunch break consisted of going out to buy the mandatory graphing calculator my son needs for high school math - the one where the lowest price is over $100. I asked the clerk if that would qualify him as a theoretical physicist for being able to figure out how to use it. Being very young, I don't think she got my joke. When I was in school only said persons/professions had such things - we used slide rules and pencils, honey. Calculators - yes they were called abaci. There was the feeling of a lot of tension among department staff especially in the afternoon. That was quite demoralizing, especially by the end of the day. I just kept my headphones on and my nose to the monitor trying to get my quotas done. Not much else I could do anyway, although it was hard not to personalize it for some reason. Probably just Monday/budget time blues. Right dear dairy? At the train station on the way home the young male who had been so rude to me last week came bolting up the stairs and across the bridge with a buddy of his. He stopped right behind me as I was waiting my turn to go down the outside stairs. Started cursing and harassing again. "Get out of my way" His friend pulled him back and some of the huskier high school students all turned and stared him down. I don't know what's in my aura that's attracting this kind of behaviour but there is something obviously. I hadn't even been aware of his presence or actions until his buddy pointed out to him that he was the one who had rushed to get close to me.
Got home and found that the wood around the deadbolt on my front door had been chipped away - splinters still evident. Hmmm. My youngest was happily oblivious in the shower in side and the cats had recently been fed, so no one inside my home was particularly concerned. Security stayed the theme of the evening. Did battle with our new security feature on this computer. Finally gave up on the ones offered by our internet provider. They have never worked properly in the three years we've been subscribers. Since the strike that started this summer, they haven't worked at all and there is no tech support of course. Biggest issue for me tonight was that the anti-spam feature for email culled out almost all my newspapers and ezines plus Garfield. It also let through all the real spammers. There is almost something comical in that, but seeing email from the Government of Canada and from a law firm that I receive postings from bounced out was a might disturbing. That is information I do need. The other security work dome was around personnel records for election workers. Got those up to standard - at least until those are changed again. Let's see parliament starts again in two weeks.
Time to go do housework, laundry and cat worship - excuse me - litter box duty though. Good night dear diary.
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