11:47 - 29.10.05
crash and burn
I'm sure you guessed, dear diary, that my computer crashed again. Not only my personal unit but also the elections one and my computer at work - all at the same time with a deadline for producing and sending several pre-writ assignments in to Elections Canada yesterday. If I had tendencies to paranoia I would have been in a right state on Thursday and Friday. However, one of the things my mind seems to do without prompting if there is an emergent situation is shut down every thought process except those necessary to address the immediate situation. One point concentration I think it's called in some forms of buddhism anyway. It is a good attribute to have at the time but I usually have the related stress reaction some months later when I really can't connect the emotional energy to the source - at least not for a while. I have to try and find the "trigger" incident then follow it back to whaat would have related it to the original crisis. Sometimes that is caled a flashback, but I think most people who experience those have some emotional reaction at the time too - maybe not.
Anyway back to Wednesday I think. That was a warehouse day and it was very productive in terms of capturing a lot of information. Still don't have a laptop so everything is handwritten then keyed in to the computer at the downtown office. Incredibly inefficient, but that's what my supervisor seems to want. Maybe there's a reason I'm not aware of, but it makes the potential for errors, especially when coding strings of numbers, increases with each handling of the record. The liaison at the warehouse met me in the morning and again asked why I had been away so long. The second in command had been quite irate the day before when I had mentioned that I had been asked that by another warehouse staffer. "Well we told them all" Obviously not. I explained what I thought was the reason but I can't be certain either.
The second in command kept fussing over me as though I was fragile again today. My physiological health and immune system are not as strong as I need them to be but I work hard at keeping the physical body strong (muscles and bones) to compensate somewhat. Each time I tried to lift a box one would have thought I was going to collapse as a result. Not. Around the house I do a lot of lifting and carrying - it isn't a big deal. I suppose I should be grateful that someone thinks I need looking after, but it can also convey to others the idea of incompetence or fragility that isn't there at all. Whatever. I found that some of my CDs were missing - Will Smith, Green Day and Smokey Robinson - but thought may be I'd left them at the downtown office. Turns outt that they weren't there either so I don't know how to think about that - things going missing from supposedly secure sites at both workplaces now. That Fred, the friendly ghost, must get really mischievious the closer it gets to Hallowe'en.
When I got home my number two son was calling to ask if I wanted the garbage bin removed yet. Still no call from the renovation place so I said yes and told the bad neighbours to go ahead and toss in whatever material that they had that would fit in. No loss on my part and maybe small kindnesses wil result in detente - or not. At least I've tried. Checked my email and there were a couple of requests from different staffing agencies for interviews on jobs they had available. I had updated my resume on the weekend and that is one of their search techniques - latest updates and key words. I responded to the one that I wasn't available until the end of December but that my coworker from the same agency would be completing her assignment at the end of this week. Asked if I could pass on the opportunity to her. Of course my computer crashed that night, so even though I can see that there is a response for her, the unit crashes whenever I try to open any of the messages in the main folders or evn the subfolders that contain already read messages. My youngest also found that a second sub account I have for emergencies was filled with email messages from some of those subfolders and that they were being sent out somewhere else. Paranoia strikes again. Most of them appeared to be work related. Any way, I could see the email address of the agency that had contacted me so I logged on to their website this morning. My youngest having finally been able to get everything but the email working last night on my personal PC. I called the elections staff and they said they would try to have their unit functional by Monday sometime since they are doing a general maintenance workover this weekend anyway. When I looked at the agency particulars a couple of things stood out. First it looks as though it is a fairly new company and it's focus is simply on records management. The second thing that was interesting was that it is one floor down from the agency offices that I worked for before this assignment. Synchronicity, coincidence or something else. Another round of questions running through my head. I called the coworker and left a voicemail with all the details anyway so maybe she won't have too big of a break in employment this round.
One of the last emails I read from the elections team before their unit crashed was from the finance people. "We have no paperwork for your Assistant, please send all her banking and employment information". Well now, is this the third or fourth time they've "misplaced" it in the past 18 months. Problem of course is that she wouldn't be paid for the week of training she just had unless we resubmit it. I called her to let her know and she asked if she was being singled out for punishment for a particular reason. I reminded her that I often don't get paid for months at a time either often with the same excuse "But madam, we have not received any of your paperwork" even when I have written acknowledgement otherwise. Started in working on the geography/voter list assignment. Realized that one of the reasons that the data they were concerned about was incorrect is that someone without my knowledge or consent had gone in to the database and completely wiped out two entire polling divisions. Not only that they were the ones that have the fastest and newest growth. Right, well then, it isn't surprising that a huge number of voters can't be placed in the database if their streets are "not existing", can they. It was well after the time when their support line closed for the day so I did what I could and logged off about 3 in the am.
Arrived at the warehouse on Thursday and started inventorying all over. Called the helpline at Elections Canada - phone between shoulder and ear so I could continue my indexing work while talking - and found myself being passed from person to person, each saying it wasn't their responsibility. Sigh. One young woman finally said she would create a "trouble ticket" for the correct person and that they would call me shortly. Three hours later no response, so I called back insisting that it was an emergency - a few thousand angry voters is an emergency to my way of thinking - and that I wanted to have the problem dealt with immediately. Under the Elections Act removing the resources to carry out an election or impairing access to them is called "obstruction" and is a criminal offense with financial penalties or jail time attached. To my way of thinking making it impossible for me to register and verify that many voters, other than on polling day - with no polling stations specifically for them - is obstruction. Fortunately for me, I was passed on to one of the front line geographers I really like and who has always been a good advocate for me. Not only did he not dismiss my concerns, but maybe even took them more seriously than I did. He would not, or could not, tell who had authorized the removal of the polling divisions,it had to be someone very high up,but he agreed with my assessment of obstruction and went directly to the head of his division for authorization to restore them.
Would the missing polling divisions be restored to the correct database so I can complete the assignment on time? "No there won't be enough time to do the technical work." Will that be taken into account so that the deadline for me to submit all the extra work is extended. "No that's non-negotiable." Then how can I possibly complete it when it has to have a post mark/date stamp of this Friday? "You can't." Will there be concessions made since it was an issue beyond my control that was the barrier so that the information can be added into the database, since we are being told anything submitted after Friday will not be incorporated in time for the next election. "No" Well then how can I be certain that I can provide the same service to those voters as every other elector? "It will have to be done in the next round of assignments". I trust that this coworker will do his very best to help me as will his supervisor but they were obviously overridden or ignored this time around so there is no guarantee at all then. I guess all I can do is pray that the Prime Minister doesn't call or that parliament isn't dissolved by the opposition on a whim before that time. He did offer me some unsolicited support on a couple of the other pieces of my assignment, just so I could at least finish those as best I could with the missing data still being an issue. Called the city map division and spent more time being passed around to different departments before I could order what I needed based on the requests for extra data from that ally I have in Ottawa. Hope I got what he needed correctly. My son called just after lunch to let me know about the computer crashes. We tried working out a solution to that over the phone since I couldn't leae work early either. All in all I think I lost about an hour and a half of time to those phone calls. Of course I am allowed the usual one hour break for lunch so I could write that time off since I just didn't take lunch. I could also have cited the fact that I don't usually take coffee breaks even though they are guaranteed under our labour act. The problem is in perception, because it doesn't look good if I have a phone attached to my ear for that long, even if I am busy inventorying even as I was sitting on hold listening to muzak. The second in command wasn't in the warehouse at all so I wouldn't have anyone to vouch for the fact that I was able to multitask. I added the phone time in to my lunchbreaks for the other days that week where I had only taken half an hour and made each of those an hour break instead. You never want an employer to think that you've taken time away from them do you? Got home and it was apparent by about 9 pm that both computers were fried and wouldn't be usable that night.
Thought about it a decided that if even one could be made operable by Friday after my regular work I could still meet all the deadlines except for the one for the missing polling divisions. Gave my son my debit card and told him his task on Friday was to find a way to get at least one beast up and running - printer and email included. Think I'll write about Friday - yesterday - later though, I'm already tired out thinking about Thursday. Time to go cuddle cats.
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