03:12 - 22.10.05
Week end
Good Morning dear diary. I just finished work related email so it's your turn now. Transit has been a bit of a challenge lately because there is a significant amount of road repair occurring right now as well as new underground utility upgrades. That is all to the good in the ong run of course but it means that transit travel forecasts are, at best, guesses. The variance in the time it takes the feeder bus to the train station can mean 15 to 20 minutes difference in time of arrival even leaving at an identical time from home each morning. I catch the first bus of the day at my stop so I can't even adjust that variable to compensate. Today at work several people came in with stories of what happened to them or their family members in the past couple of weeks with regard to breakdowns on the trains themselves. Once a train quits running, the doors do not open. Evacuation of riders becomes a real issue as well as transporting them to a location where they can resume their travel. Usually the transit authorities will just leave commuters locked in those cars until the mechanical problem is fixed. Number one rule for travelling on transit is to ALWAYS use the washroom just before walking out the door. I don't know how many times that has been the only positive thing that has come out of one or more hour delays in getting home. Well ok sometimes it doesn't take a lot to please me.
There was another farewell get together for the one woman changing companies this morning. She is going from contract to full time work. A lot of the other contract workers are actively looking as well and I can't blame them. Even though this company treats its consultants and temporary staff very well by industry standards, staff in the two categories lose significant compensation in terms of the benefits not received and luxuries such as sick time and holidays. There is a lot of handwringing about the lack of loyalty that workers show these days to the companies that hire them but when stories are traded about endless rounds of layoffs that go with mergers and takeovers and even long term employes who have had stellar records are unceremoniously turfed it doesn't take long to create an atmosphere where protection of one's family's income becomes much more important in the worker's eyes. You can't feed your family loyalty nor will one's creditors recognize it as legitimate tender. The one supervisor who moved jobs last week was present and noted, in an aside, after the goodbye speech that she knew that there would be at least one if not more staff leaving the department "soon". I've mentioned that I had found evidence that the second in command appeared to be looking for something else and I think I heard one of the other supervisors congratulaing one of the younger women later in the day for finding something more to their liking. The interesting thing is that except for the woman leaving today, all the people moving on are permanent staff. That is a worrisome issue, or should be for the company. Doubt they'll even notice though.
Lunch time was taken over by a workshop by the marketing and community/government relations department. It was quite informative and lunch was provided in to the bargain. Notwithstanding the staff changes I still thin this is one of the best employers I've worked for in a very long time - the one European company being the other. The discussion swung around to their efforts along the lines of charitable and volunteer programs. Again they are very proactive and thoughtful in how they go about helping build the communities they work in. The presenter asked if any of us had ever done any fundraising. Mine was the only response in the positive. I'm not certain why the question was sasked because it wasn't raised when discussing things like government or community liaison work. After the session I did go over to the presenter to explain some of what I knew about maximizing the effect of donations through matching grant programs. I think because this is a US company that not a lot of knowledge is available in their staff about what is possible or available here. I think I might send the presenter some links to some of the programs available just for her information. Helps improve the community a great deal more with very little extra effort required. Win win all the way round.
That theme carried on in to the evening when I talked to the one friend who is working for a charity in the city. We got on to the theme of community development and involving seniors and youth - hopefully as a team instead of competitors for resources. Up against the bulge of baby boomers it is a natural and necessary alliance I think. The emails tonight were election or job search related. I think I'll wait to calm down before I talk about those. Anyway time for bed once more. Good night dear diary.
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