00:12 - 14.10.05
turbulence
Walking to my new bus stop these mornings, I emerge from my street on to another suburban artery separated from the major road in the community by a heavy duty chain link fence. Stops the big rigs driven by some of our neighbours from driving across the sidewalks and boulevards that the rest of us use as pedestrians in order to shorten their journey home by five minutes and our lives by several years if we happen to be in the way I think. This morning I noticed shards of glass strewn in a trajectory along the side road. There was no reasonable explanation for it's presence so I glanced over toward the main artery. Uh huh. Through that chain link fence I could see the remains of the one bus shelter. Completely shattered and the balance of the path of destruction connected the two roads by that trail of glass. It appeared that a vehicle must have hit the shelter going at a very high rate of speed some time earlier. The one consolation I had was that the first bus of the day for that stop was still 10 minutes away. There was one person standing and waiting calmy enough, so it meant that the damage had been done when no one was standing there. No injuries. The rest of the walk to the next community to catch my bus was done with great attention to traffic conditions. No ambulating on auto pilot for me today.
At work, hurried through the first of the day rituals knowing that the second in command was due in for the first time this week. She usually arrives about an hour after I am allowed in the back of the warehouse. No go though. I got through all the steps to log on to my downtown account only to arrive at that last login screen all blacked out. Called the help desk and chatted about some of the more dangerous activities that occur in our industry, while waiting to cycle the beast through a complete reboot. Still didn't help - that last screen stayed blacked out. The call center tech in the next province over to the east - Saskatchewan, bless you - said he would pass me on to the inhouse specialist and to wait on their call. Fine. About 45 minutes in to the morning she called. We rebooted again still with no success. She said she would go to my downtown PC to deal with it directly. Within 5 minutes she was calling from my station there. In between, the second in command walked in and started her daily routine. It was apparent she was annoyed that I was on the phone, but it is part of my job. Otherwise the onsite computer is no more useful than a paperweight. It took the tech about another 5 minutes to deal with the problem. I asked what the issue had been. She just muttered something about a power problem.
As soon as I hung up, the second in command plopped herself down in the chair facing me and started scolding. Quite wasting so much time on that computer - that's not why we are here. Fine, but I need the software on my own PC account to do some of my work. She pointed at the weekly report I had finally managed to cobble together on my home computer Tuesday evening around the midnight hour. She stated that I had no business wasting the company's time on that kind of thing. Right - at home for a couple of hours on my own time. She then told me not to log in to my work account at all - just to use the desktop. Although I didn't say so out loud, I don't think the company invested the amount of money it did to get access to that account for me if they didn't want me to use it. She then noted that there were more problems with computers than just my own - "you know". She stated that she had been locked out of her computer all of Tuesday, even though she was in the downtown office. She said that she had been told there were problems with the primary software I use in this assignment. She said she was told it took all day before it was fixed. That doesn't explain why she would be locked out of her account though, or any of the other programs. Even today there were a series of emails telling all users to stay logged out of one of the main accounting programs for the same reason - they were still allowed access to all the other resources online.
I wonder if it would have been too much trouble for her to say thank you for the extra effort I put in, to get the report done and in the database so that our Texan counterparts were kept happy. Not only was she angry about my "exorbitant time" on my own home PC, but she also complained that one condition that had changed as of late Friday, hadn't been changed in the report. No comments on all the other work that had gone in to reconfiguring the stats and analysis to reflect the shift from phase one to phase two - the warehouse gig. I know - whine with cheese.
The morning was spent just continuing the indexing of the boxes. There was a lot of activity immediately to the north of us in the warehouse - forklifts moving skiffs loaded to capacity with boxes. The liaison told me, when I had arrived in the morning, that another company in the same industry was sending out a couple of their staff to go through them. He hoped I wouldn't find it too distracting. I bit my tongue mostly, but just noted I was used to working in very close quarters with a lot of women and found the warehouse restful in comparison. That is the truth, although I prefer being on my own as opposed to having to deal with the second in command in a situation where there are no witnesses to her behaviour. There is one of the contracts whose term is done who would make a great work partner, but I've been told that her funding has been terminated. Too bad - penny wise and pound foolish.
Anyway the two people mentioned turned up around 9:00 and started in on their boxes. They were done by noon. I did put my headphones on, partly because they were not being discreet in their discussions about the data they were working with and also because I couldn't cope with hearing them be so reckless with their job. Some of their comments indicated breaches of law or regulations - hope I am incorrect about that. I know - absolutely none of my business nor my responsibility. I love my headphones. Within 5 minutes of their arrival they had needed to borrow supplies and first aid was requested as well. Bandages you know. Uh huh. When they left for their first break, I asked the second in command if it was ok to ask them if they knew one of our supervisors. She had been at that company for several years before joining the one I work for now. As it happened, the two of them came back and asked about that supervisor and her "new" temporary assistant, who was on the same work team, before we opened our mouths to ask. It also turned out that the two of them and the second in command had all worked together at the company they represent now. They appeared to know each other quite well and some of their ensuing discussions seemed a bit staged. That was the third reason for the headphones - can't be pulled into a discussion that isn't what it seems. Paranoid too. All three were on contract at their current company, with the second in command moving to this company after her stint with them. Uh huh. The three of them kept disappearing off somewhere, but I really didn't care. With all the security measures in the building if they were doing anything inappropriate it would have been noted I think.
The placement company that they all mentioned working through is the one that tried to recruit me a couple of years back, dear diary. One of the ones where their interview was inappropriate in terms of the way they interviewed. I had attended their workshop on the new privacy legislation and then they violated a good portion of those statutes with respect to the questions they asked. They also asked for proprietary information that I knew about, even though they would have been aware that I had signed confidentiality agreements. They also told me that I would be expected to do "what I was told, as I was told, when I was told without question" Seig Heil Mein Fuhrer. Funny thing too is that my supervisor from the last agency had left that placement company as project leader to take on the position he had as my supervisor. I certainly would still trade him for the second in command, even if he was a complete jerk some days. At least he never interfered with me doing my job - not until that last contract when I decided that was the last straw in accepting abuse from him.
The two women were quite pleasant throughout, but they seemed to not know how to take me. It was probably my imagination, but it felt as though they had been told about me before arriving on scene and whatever they had heard did not jive with what they saw in person. They were very polite and thoughtful, but they were also acting as though they were a quite surprised. At one point I almost said that I only turned into a bat at the full moon, then thought better of it. With a full moon and accompanying lunar eclipse in Aries this weekend and Hallowe'en not two weeks after I didn't REALLY want to scare them. I did put on my Michael Jackson CD though - I've always loved his song "Thriller". One thing the second in command unwillingly admitted after the two of them had gone, was that the one staff assigned to help the supervisor now on our staff who had worked with the other company's team is quitting to take a full time position - she had announced that on Tuesday morning.
Time for bed now though dear diary, downtown office tomorrow. Could be an interesting day.
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