01:28 - 14.02.06
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When I arrived home on Friday afternoon there was a letter from Elections Canada. It stted that if I didn't submit my timesheet for the pre-writ work I had been labouring until mid-November last by Valentines Day, I would forfeit the right to be paid at all. Well let's see then. Parliament was dissolved just as we were finishing up that assignment and I was working at my other job full time as well as trying to get everything in place so I could run the event itself. I didn't have time to submit timesheets for either the pre-writ work or the last week of my job at the other worksite. I finally submitted that about a week ago with nary a murmur of complaint. I understand that a Record of Employment and our tax forms can't be produced without those amounts added in but why not just tell the truth about that rather than threatening not to pay me. I believe under our labour laws that that would be considered a major violation. In the industry I work in I sometimes deal with payroll and it is not unusual to receive personal expense claims until six months after the fact. It is in good part because the documentation takes so long to prepare that a lot of consultants just hate doing it. It is time spent unpaid to make one's living so it tends to be left as long as possible so that it only has to be done once. So.... My weekend project was to pull together the back-up documentation that one other Returning Officer said they had to present before their claims for time were paid out. Over the two days I spent about 9 hours total working between and printing out various documents such as email and diarization that was pertinent. I had already done the diary cull in preparation for my real Report of Proceedings or it would have required a great deal more time. The editing for clarity and for relevance took some time as did extracting the number of hours spent on each of a dozen specific tasks per day over the nearly three months of the project. I didn't bill for the extra time spent trying to get the Elections Canada computer operable simply because I know I won't be paid for it anyway. I'll consider myself lucky if all the regular hours that I claimed for are paid. Often we are told that some of our time isn't considered billable even though it is time we must spend to complete the tasks. If we don't submit all the tasks completed that are set for us we don't get paid for any of the time worked. Catch 22. This time I wouldn't be surpirsed if I get docked for not submitting the one task even though it was because the hard drive was fried and I couldn't extract it to send. If you recall, dear diary, I asked several times if I could load it on to my personal PC to finish with always the refusal to supply a password so I could operate that software on my own computer. Even though I was willing and able to do the entire process a second time I wasn't allowed to carry it out.Still don't think I'll be paid though.
My youngest and I did some house work simply because there were no clean clothes or dishes left. We also had to move some of those stacks of boxes so I could retrieve some more personnel and financial information from them. Ottawa calling with several questions you see. We watched the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland and I couldn't help seeing the local rep everytime the Queen of Hearts showed up in the story - very strong reemblance. It was the first time too that I realized how much I missed some of the cats we had to give to the humane society. Grant you with our very warm winter we have both grass fires and infestations of mice happening all around the city. I guess the timing for those cats to be adopted was the best it could be. Non-toxic mousers that is. Walked over to the post office on Sunday just to find it had been closed early and then over to the Pho house for dinner. My youngest was fnding the chop sticks harder to handle this time but that could have been because of the prety waitress who was distracting him too. Picked up groceries and then headed home to feed our feline family their treats. Salmon and toy mice. They love their mouses. They are all also very happy to have us home on a regular basis. During the election we were leaving at 8:30 in the am and then often not getting home until 10 at night. Even when we were in the house we were usually cleaning, doing laundry, and paperwork as well as sleeping. I was having a great deal of difficulty sleeping at all especially toward the end of the event when there was so much pressure and so little time to get things done. Often all I had were short spurts of nightmare filled naps that left me feeling even more exhausted than when I laid down. Those only stopped a couple of nights ago. Must have been fairly common because one of the Returning Officrs I spoke with tonight said he was still having trouble with his sleep patterns. He doesn't recall nightmares but he can't manage more than a few hours at a time and then he is up and working away at trying to get his paperwork completed too. We are supposed to have our mastercard and cash advances reconciled and submitted by now but we haven't received all the billing or statements that have to gowith them. It is a treasury board regulation but it is unreasonable. 10 days after an event as a deadline while most companies have a 30 day billing cycle just doesn't make any sense. Even though Ottawa tells contractors like me and businesses like our service providers that we must respect their pay cycles they show no respect for the standard billing practices that are part of private business. Oi.
Today was a downtown day for errands. Popped in to see my chiropractor for the first time in about a month. After last weeks' stres and all the lifting and carrying I did I was in rough shape. Immediate relief after his treatment but a bit of a boot psychologically. His comment as he was leaving me was to quit the election work "Too stressful". True but not because it should be. Utopian I know. Met with my tech next pick pick up his keys and parking pass. Needed to drop them off at the realtors today you see. He hadn't really needed them after all I guess but I didn't know that at the beginning of the event. We had coffee together at Tim Hortons and just debriefed about the election and his work for about an hour. That was helpful but again unsettling. "Do what's best for you and tell Elections Canada to ......." I can't even say what's best for me right now. Hiding out in the mountains in a snug weather proof cabin sounds really enticing but it isn't even possible. No money coming in makes survival a questionable endeavour. One of the local wholistic magazines had a story of a pioneer family who survived a winter in an old log shack and I know it reminded me how lucky I am right now. Still isolation and some dream time would be very welcome right now.
The two dreams I've had that signalled a more "normal" pattern. The first was kind of upsetting. I dreamt I had just given birth but for whatever reason I wasn't being told anything about the baby other than it was a girl. No one would tell me if something was wrong with her or why I couldn't see her. It seemed that I had become unconscious sometime during the birth and was only waking up "now" a day after the event. I could feel the milk coming down to feed her and was anxious to take on my duties as a new mom. It seemed I had a husband and two small children at home waiting for me but I couldn't identify where I was at the time. It wasn't a hospital but it wasn't a house either. Seemed more like some kind of hotel. Just odd and the dominant colour was white. The second dream was quite a bit more entertaining. It started with me makiign women's faces from veils and ceramic casts of a face. I would pin and wind the veil around the face then paint the features after. The body would be of soft fabric and I thought they were beautiful. At first I was on my own but I was invited to come work at a craft store where there was all sorts of really cool material to choose from for my creations. It seemed to be a new store and was a joint project with many women being partners. One of those women was Rosalyn Carter - yes than Rosalyn. She was very kind in the dream and also very creative. The entire group of women seemed to be very compatible and I was really happy to be involved where creativity was not only valued but encouraged and supported. Such a concept. I was wakened form those dreams by the cats. They love sleeping with me. When they sense I am stressed they will circle around and on top of me all purring together. After the baby dream that was very strong but even during the happy dream they seemed to feel I needed comfort. Don't know.
Tonight was spent watching Hunchback of Notre Dame - the Disney version - and I can understand why this one didn't become as popular as some of the others - the message was strongly stated and likely unpopular in a lot of ways. The last sentence I think, says something to the effect of "look closely before you decide which person is really a monster and which is really a man" That story about external appearances and place in the world not being the best definition of either manhood or monster like qualities. In it it is the bishop whois the monster and Quasimodo who is the hero. "I give myself some very good advice but I very rarely listen" sings Alice. Wonder who she was referring to.
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