22:27 - 19.04.08
Shock treatments
"And with the wind chill, it feels like -20 C", that and a foot of snow was the morning greeting. It isn't even the first spring station of the western zodiac, as mentioned in the excerpt from Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" quoted below. Today is the beginning of "Happy Taurus". Bleagh.
"When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire with flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram - Aries - one half his course has run..."
(trans. J.U. Nicolson)
Two Thursdays ago my youngest and I walked two communities north to do one of the quality assurance assignments I mentioned taking on. Saving bus tickets as well as getting our exercise, which was why my youngest chose to travel with me. Assignments are done solo, you see. What we hadn't counted on was the strength of the wind that blew up for our journey home. Meant, in total, that our travel time lengthened to three hours as we struggled against that blustery wind. Hard to see with one's hair blown into one's eyes. Arrived home to find several phone messages from the one private lending company wanting to fax the agreement they had cobbled together to me pronto. This, after nearly a month of back and forth negotiations. They wanted it signed by that Friday and back-dated two weeks earlier, added into that. My youngest had set up the fax on my printer, but it hadn't been tested out. Called one of my sisters and asked her to send something to make certain it worked. In the interim, the lender called again insisting the faxing had to be done immediately and they demanded I go to a local store to arrange receipt there. I explained that having lived in this community for decades, that I knew people working at all the stores and wasn't willing to have my private financial problems faxed to any outlet, given that this community is like a small town. It would be inevitable that the gossip would start within hours. The caller seemed to think that was funny and irrelevant too. I told him he would have to wait until the test fax went through, since I also didn't want it to go through to some stranger.
When my sister was able to arrange for the fax and it was verified, then I called the lender back to give him the go-ahead. It took them over an hour to send six pages, because, they explained, they were working out of a temporary office set up in another business's premises with almost no technology of their own. They had borrowed what they were using from a previous employee. That information in itself, plus the inappropriate backdating of the documents made me very uneasy. The documents they sent me confirmed my fears about their legitimacy. Basically they wanted to purchase my debts, and loan me $15,000 upfront in exchange for which they would in fact hold title to my home while charging me an additional $40,000, on top of the loan to pay off the debts, for that privilege. They had deeply discounted the value of my home, which is assessed by the municipal government based on market value, as well, so that my total net worth at the end of this year would drop by $100,000 - if they didn't sell my home first, which seemed to be their real intent. I thought maybe I misread the documents, but I had them checked by a couple of local lenders who have a great deal of experience in financing. They confirmed my assessment. One of my ex-banker friends had called the evening before to offer the names of a couple of other people who might help, so I called one of those names to ask for another opinion and some assistance from them, thinking perhaps a local person rather than someone from "down east", might be a wiser choice. Set a meeting for Friday night.
Two of my sisters arrived the next afternoon dropping off some used household goods of theirs for me to have and intending to take me with them to visit my Dad. Just prior to their arrival, the electric company left a notice in my mailbox demanding I pay over $2000 to them by the end of the day or they would disconnect my power. Now I had proof that I had paid up until the end of January and there is no way that I used that much energy over a two month period. When I called them to point that out, the respondent stated that it didn't matter - I had to pay up that day and work it out with them later, or they would follow through on the disconnection. They stated that there had been a notice sent out on Wednesday and I had had two days to respond. I hadn't received any notices at all, so I had no idea what they were talking about. The agent joked that I must be growing drugs "or something". I responded that my furnace wasn't working so I was using convection heaters, but that doesn't explain the excess use either. After all, I've been using those heaters for three winters now. Made me wonder again about the neighbours who run their vehicle all hours of the night - have they been plugging their cars in to my outside outlet that is just beside their driveway??
By that time I was somewhat stressed and suggested to my sisters that they head off for their visit without me. Instead one of my sister's offered to pay the bill so that I had the time to find out what was going on with the power company. Given that I had sent out resumes and was waiting for telephone calls, I couldn't risk losing telephone service or internet service due to a disruption in power either, so we headed off to the bank. Lucky that my family was generous, present and able to help, I was. The visit with my Dad and my sisters was a bit of a blur because of that, as I stressed about even more trouble all in that two days. I did return home with a list of the one sister's family tree on her husband's side, so that by the end of Saturday there were over 400 names now on that on-line genealogy project of mine. Research as therapy,eh. That evening, the friend of my ex-banker friend arrived and we discussed the proposal of the other lender, as well as other options.
Next morning she called and asked to meet again as she thought she had a workable solution for me. Walked over to the coffee shop one community over to meet with her and her husband, who is part of her sales team. Their proposal was much easier to deal with, but required the approval of the company that she works for because it was a bit unusual in it's structure. We spent the balance of the time talking about the renovations on my home. When she had been at my home the evening before she had seen the progress that my youngest and I had made in tearing out the old kitchen, you see. It is almost completed so that the new ceramic tile and cabinets can be installed - those ones I bought over three years ago. Slow business, renovations. I allowed that I had been considering taking in a boarder when my youngest moved out and had been thinking of the design with that in mind. In all honesty I would feel safer if there was at least one other person living with me, you see. We agreed to talk further on Monday.
What got me through the rest of the weekend was the fact that I had received one call on Thursday and one on Friday asking me to attend interviews for work. One for certain on Monday and the other to be confirmed later. I spent the rest of my time researching the one company and fussing over what to wear - the weather being as odd as it was. Monday morning a second call from the one placement agency confirmed the second interview. That meant that I ended up agreeing to attend two interviews that afternoon. The first was near the Stampede grounds and was for a company that is in the industry I usually work for downtown. A maternity leave placement. It was actually a good interview with the three of us - me and two interviewers - laughing with each other over various female/family type issues. The one concern they seemed to have was that I might be "too qualified" - as in would I stay for the entire term. Sigh.
When we finished, an hour later, I walked back into the downtown to catch the train south to the next interview. Walking through the underpass under the railroad tracks, I found myself followed by a couple of young men. I had opted to wear that Italian-made sweatercoat because both sun and snow had been forecast, but it was so warm I had taken it off. Just dressed up in my interview clothes I guess I was a little more conspicuous. One of the fellows had a mohawk and an east coast accent, while the other young man was dressed in skin-head fashion; tattoos all over both. They might have been in their late 20's. They were bragging to each other about their prowess with women. I ignored as much as I could, given the increasing volume of their voices. They seemed to think I would be interested in their exploits too, I guess. As they passed, Mr Mohawk looked directly at me and said, "I do love me my women - all women". I laughed and said he reminded me of one of my sons. End of that discussion. Called the placement agency shortly after to get the final details on the next interview then headed for the train platform just as it started to rain. The two young men waved at me from the sidewalk as the train pulled out, both of them gobbling down ice cream cones as the rain turned to sleet. I had put my sweatercoat back on by then, of course.
Arrived at the next train station in the south of the city - the one that I described a few months back as being in a deserted and desolate part of the industrial area for that part of the city. Even in daylight, with a lot of other people around, it wasn't a comfortable place to be. No signage to direct one to the bus stops for the connector busses either. Oi. Followed some other fellow travellers - all males in work clothes - to the one stop that I needed to find, after dodging two trains going in opposite directions. The bus was already at the stop and I didn't want to miss catching it, you see. Now it was snowing. Brrr. The driver was a bit brusque, but nice enough when I asked for help finding the stop for my next destination. Being it was in an industrial area there were no sidewalks. Great. Picked my sandal-footed way through the snow, across newly cropped grass and concrete driveways to the office building two blocks on. The receptionist made certain I had hot coffee immediately, so I felt a little better about things at that point. Turned out one of the interviewers was a fellow "Community advocate/volunteer" from long ago although she represented an area about half a city away from my area. We chatted about old battles while waiting for the other interviewer to arrive.
Turned out the position was for assistant to a VP. The requirements of the work weren't all that different than what I was used to doing when working elections. It appeared that the VP was intending to be travelling most of the time and wanted someone to "hold the fort" while he was gone. No problem, but then the interview began to go downhill from there. The second interviewer started trashing the person who had had the position just previous, showing me work they had done that the interviewer said was the reason they had been fired. Firstly, discussing some other employee's work record is not allowed under privacy legislation unless it directly impacts one's assignments. The errors they had made were the kind where I think I would have given them the chance to fix them rather than firing them. Maybe there was more to the story than I was told, but the minutia that was being complained about was no different than the occasional error that every worker makes at some point in time. The only direct question the second interviewer asked me personally was about the jade ring I was wearing. I hadn't even been aware I had it on. It only fits on my left ring finger and the interviewer stopped the interview to demand to know whether I was married or single. Huh? Now I was really not comfortable. His tone seemed to imply I had been trying to deceive them about my marital status - which is something that can't be asked in an interview. What relevance did that have to the issue of working for them anyway?
Left that interview sorry that I hadn't had more time to reconnect with the first interviewer over past projects, but not so certain I wanted the position given all the odd things, as well as the wage mentioned. About the same as flipping burgers at the local fast food joint but with a demand for perfection in a position covering for a VP. Hmmm - did I need or want that kind of stress. Truth is though, that I really need a job whether the work conditions are bad or not given the financial problems that just keep piling up. Took two hours from the end of that interview to travel transit - bus train, train, bus - back home, so that didn't help my frame of mind either. There was a voicemail waiting for me when I walked in the door from another employer wanting an interview, so that did make me feel much better.
I think I'll stop there though dear diary. I think you can see what silenced me for a while. It took a long time for the stress and shock of the two first incidents I wrote about tonight to wear off and I had to focus all my remaining energy on those job interviews instead. This entry is already long and it's late. Need to get up early to get my youngest off to his new job in the morning. Scheherezade will tell you about that tomorrow too. Good Night for now.
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