A Perfect End to a Not So Perfect Week

September 3rd, 2010 Thomasso

Well, I am glad that this week has come to a close. Actually, I am very glad, no, make that super happy that this week is over. With a sore foot, tons of preparations to do before next week’s start to the last semester, and some unexpected garbage from an ex-friend, the week could not have come to a close any sooner.

I will embrace these next seventy-two hours. The first thing I am going to do tomorrow morning is not get up.

Here is today’s sunset from my front yard. What a way to end the day with–a warm evening, no flies and a sunset.

Maybe the whole weekend will be like this. Although the weather station said it was going to rain on Sunday, but they are notorious for being wrong!.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Photographs | 1 Comment »

The Seasonal Change – Is it Here Already?

August 31st, 2010 Thomasso

It is cold, damp and miserable today. The last day of August is here, and it seems like the first day of miseryville as I drove into work with pounding rain hitting the windshield. Even in the afternoon it was cool and wet.

The high point of today was getting paid. Yay, the lovely pay cheque. Yes, as a part time employee the few bucks (Dollars) I have earned are long awaited. Playing the role of the struggling student, plays a toll on the mind and soul (meaning my state of mind beyond my inner self, like the need to buy food), so when pay time comes, I seem to be relaxed a little more. Then it starts all over again in two weeks, slowly at first, then the money dries up days before the nest pay time comes, and I wait, again and again, over and over. Soon this will stop as my worth will grow expediently, and I can focus on just work in my life.

I am debating on whether I should turn the heat on. Yes, it is that cold out. It is cold enough that my nose feels cold. I can feel it on my chest. I am holding back turning on the heat because the cost of electricity has jump my more than 30 percent year, and I am not sure if I want to risk a early spike in my electric bill for next month. Money is tight as I just paid my tuition, and most of my annual bills such as insurance, post office box rental, and other such bills.

The glorious back to school commercials are polluting the airwaves as merchants plug their stock to the soon to be happy parents as the state run babysitters start up next week. I know, to my teacher friends, school is not a place to bring your children for daycare while the working class do their thing and go to work. But, most parents look forward to the respite that public school offers them. Public/private school is the perfect solution for that eight hours of work that grownups need to do.

Driving through a school zone I saw the practice run of crossing guards they alert drives that the kids are coming back. There were some kids marching along too. The children are not happy though, as they are marched off to school because they know that this is not only an institution that helps them grow and prosper, but a place where they are introduced to the harsh realities of life. Their eyes look glassed with disbelief that they are being rounded up and herded off to a cell where they will be programed and trained to meet the needs of society.  Oh do they learn.

That is where I got my first lesson in sex education: grade four. Seeing the cartoon hieroglyphs of the female genitalia etched on the metal surfaces of the bathroom stalls was one of the first images of woman that left intrigue and mystery for me. From there my education expanded to unforeseen realms and higher levels of ascension. As my father preached his conservative values to me during my eighth year, dancing vaginas (Vulva) danced around my head as I learned what made girls so different from the boys.

In Canadian terms, we are back to normal. Winter is six months long, and it is an accepted fact of living here: cold is normal. As summer fades, the cold signals the start of the regular season for hockey, school and television. Work becomes normal as businesses gear up for the big spending spree of the winter season—the seasonal holiday period. “Buy, Buy, Buy” ads are already hitting the TV and radio waves.

We have one more shot at the end of summer: the last long weekend of this happy, lovely season. The mad rush to enjoy the moments are being planned out with meticulous care, where one can walk along the shores, bare feet in the sand, and not have to worry about frostbite and snowballs to the head. This festive holiday (BBQs, beer and bathing suites) is only four days away, and only the young will miss the significance of it. The young are so blessed: with ignorance comes the potential of happy memories of the last days of summer. For them, this will be such a glorious time.

NOTE: since the time of the first draft, this post has undergone several revisions: September 1, 2010.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour | No Comments »

Heat Effected Attitudes-the Fake ‘n Bake Rate

August 17th, 2010 Thomasso

If there is one thing that I have learned since working with contractors, it is that laziness abounds. When hard based labour is required, taking the shortcuts usually means “passing the buck” on to the next guy, without any remorse, in spite of their evil hands and minds–they happily go about their day. Harsh is the penalty of insubordination.

These are strong words, especially coming from me, but I have witnessed in the last few days of the heat wave, time in and time out, the level of apathy among co-workers. It is surging beyond belief as each record hot day passes, so does the count for incidence reports, now at five in total.

I have had people dump garbage in my work area, left paperwork incomplete, and have had people say some very hateful things to me because they did not feel that they should do the final leg of their duties. Sure, I could have walk off the job and said “see ya later, you deal with the mess,” but that would have being the cowardly way out. Instead, I have resorted to written disciplinary notices, left unfinished jobs back on their work schedules, and held off on their up coming job until they completed their required duties of completion on their past jobs.

The cries, the whining, the language. Oh my. Poor fools, those foolish fools.

What these people forget is that a pen, and a piece of paper and the words that are written on it, stays with them for the rest of the duration of their contracts. Oh yes, the file. Their file—your file!

The inability of fulfilling their end of the bargain, or a breach of contract, means that the agreement can be terminated if the breach is due to any number of reasons. Lack of duty, derelict of duty, breach of duty, these are very bad things to defend against. Their duty to full fill the requirements of the contract as the contractor, mine is to make sure that the tools are there so they can do that, but there needs to be a meeting of the minds, a single playing field to work on. Without this agreement, nothing could get done, that is fare reasonable. So, a punishment must be enacted. It is a cruel world–yes I know–but “you can’t have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat” and vegetables (Pink Floyd).

Tomorrow will be a new day. But for my friends, the contractors, this new day will be rot with old news from past days that they will be faced with and cornered. The essence of a stain on their file will permeate with the fragrance of a bitter-sweet flower of guilt and disgrace.

Need I say anymore.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General | No Comments »

Overload Circuit 17B: Total Denial

July 9th, 2010 Thomasso

Tonight I am taking it off. I am just going to sit around and rest, have some dinner and not think about anything academic. It has been a week of extremes for me. With a presentation that was delivered on Tuesday, that also involved a day of Hell, not baring the heat wave but a shorting out of an electric forklift, the day ended with myself wanting to hide underneath a rock for the rest of the day. That feeling of loss of control was overwhelming, yet I was in the driver’s seat, and it made no sense to me as I tried to navigate home with only one headlight that was dimmed by a faulty module switch under the hood of a newly acquired Pathfinder SUV.

This week I managed to block most of the daily events of work. The highlight was the rush of last minute requests that came from all directions. Other than the Tuesday forklift indecent, the rush and amplitude of demands were unfathomable. I learned how people change on a moments notice when extreme pressure is applied. I also learned that people developed extremely interesting coping mechanisms when dealing with pressure, stress and fatigue. If the heat did not get you, then the chain of command did. The best anyone could was the best they could under the circumstances.

The “Smother With Kindness Rule,” (SMKR) was used extensively during the peak demands periods at work too. I have blogged about this before, where the more angry you get with someone, the more SMKR you apply to them. One person I remark to when the SMKR counts of the synonym “awesome” hit four words per minutes, I humbly asked if I had done something wrong. The reply was more synonyms of the word “greatness.” I now know that person was pissed!

The presentation from Tuesday was, in my mind, an almost complete disaster. I took the hit on the loss of one complete letter grade because I could not get permission on a graphic I wanted to use in the power-point because of possible legal issues. The graphic had a corporate logo in it, and after I was reassured that it was going to be all right, no permission was ever given, so I took it out of the power-point. Yes, I should have had a back-up plan, but I was given the word on faith that it would be all right. (Never bet on faith alone – it will bite you in the ass.) The requirement of the graphic was a pivotal element in my power-point. Even the most trusted and responsible people you know can leave you high and dry out of the water during your moment of need. For that person, it was not a matter that warranted any concerns because of the philosophy that that person lived by: “if it is not profitable, then my time is not here.”  I guess it was charity to that person? Too bad, I will treat in kind when my time is needed.

Next week will be the homeworkicicus maximus of the semester. Three major assignments are due then.  Tonight I rest, tomorrow and for the next five days I work on assignments for my courses. Two are papers, and the other assignment is my big presentation with a group lasting three hours. This is where taking summer classes hurts the ego; you will be outside enjoying your summer days and I will be inside banging away on this keyboard hoping to create the perfect paper and writing the ultimate theses.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, University classes | Comments Off

When Kindness Becomes a Deadly Tool

May 13th, 2010 Thomasso

There is a new weapon in the work place I found out, and it packs a punch. No, this is not the kind of device that you set and you can then take over the world with and everyone then has to pay you a hundred bucks. No, this is not the kind of instrument the you can wield around and do physical damage with, or take down all of your enemies with in a single blow. This is the “pour it on thick with kindness” if your co-workers are not on the same page with you, and then when their guard is down, you have them in the palm of your hands. This is the tool, intent masked in kindness.

I discovered this truly evil tactic about ten years ago while working for an American Big Box Store where everyone was supposed to play on the same team, work together and we all had the same goal. I noticed that after my eighth year working there that management staff all of a sudden change their way of communicating with the employees. It was not even subtle, but abrupt, and it took everyone by surprise. It was very effective, and it took many who were working there several months to catch on as to what was going on. But the lessons I learned from it were extremely negative because the goal was to foster communications, but instead it became a new weapon in persuasion by the management staff. It was not long after that I quit that job because it was killing me both mentally and physically, but I took a lot of those tools with me when I left.

Today, in my current position, the same tactic is being applied by both management and the workers; however, there is a catch to this new version, it pours on the act of kindness as a well intended method of reacting to a particular situation, then lures the recipient into a sense of hope, but that is only a cover. If you are the person who is acting out, say, requesting a favour then you would increase your kindness if the person who you are communicating to become more negative. Then when you have reached the point of which there is no point in going forward with your request, then you appeal to the next level of management above you and state your case, a now well intentioned case. You now have the one tool in your arsenal that has teeth – you can now say that you tried everything in your power of politeness to achieve your goal and the other person acted out negatively in turn. Who would not be in favour of your argument with your politeness and kindness and none abrasive actions?

Now, everyone uses it, and it becomes second nature. Even the reaction to it has lost its meaning. Emotions are now buried with this mask of politeness and we have devolved into 14 century noblemen with over classed forms of etiquette that now makes the a work a more dangerous place to be.

And I bet you asking yourself why this would make the workplace a more dangerous place to be? Simple, it is the intent. You now have conceived a means of trapping your counterpart into a situation that only leaves two options, yes or no. So kindness becomes a new form of work place violence. Your actions, the act of kindness, now is a tool for acting as a substitute for a wide spectrum of existing workplace conduct that fosters a negative environment. Giving praise now becomes a code for insulting or manipulating someone into doing something, with the cover of kindness. With the use of positive buzz-words, this would ensure that anyone outside the workplace would only be able to take the words into context of what was said, they then would only see what the generalized meaning of it instead of the true intended meaning. For example, “good for you, keep it up,” would really translate into, “you are an idiot, and if you keep that up your job will be toast shortly.”

So, instead of swearing and using demanding vocabulary, you react with praise and well scripted phrases of praise. Like street slang, positive words now have negative meanings within the confines of this small group. Anyone who was looking from the outside would be totally confused to this language, and would probably be confused as to the real under lying meaning of what is really going on.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe | 4 Comments »

Work’n Hard – Just an Update

May 5th, 2010 Thomasso

The Official Announcement: Yes, I’m at work, but I’m on my break – honest.

Now for the post:

If you are sensing a little “ick” in my writing in this post, it is because I am typing it on a Microsoft Window$ Machine, believe it or not, with XP as its OS. I know, why? But most businesses I know are still running this garbage. What can you do, it is their call.

I think everyone is eager to know how I did on my French exam-right? Well, I passed the course, barely, and albeit with an academic pass, I somehow managed to do this on my final. So I did something right. I thought with such a dismal effort on my last mid-term that doom was to be the only outcome I would see on my transcript. This means that I must have gotten somewhere around 70 to 80 percent on that exam. Seriously, this is huge if that happened. We never get to see the exact mark for our finals, and we never know the exact percentage when we finish the course, just a letter grade and GPA. So you can only guess. Perhaps I should email the prof and just check if this wasn’t a mistake?

As for Statistics – Well, my favorite letter was given for that course: an “A.” This is also a pleasant surprise because that should be the course from hell, not French.

A Note to My Mother: Mom, the disk, instructions, and the Monitor are in the mail and are on their way. I know you will probably not be reading this until your computer is sorted out, but I will try and make contact with you over the rest of the week to see what I can do until you are back on-line. Hang in there!

DianeOUtLoud: I will email you very soon for upgrade instructions. Next week I’m back in classes, so we will need to book this soon.

OK, I’m leaving the desk-enclosure and going home.

Posted in Bitching about work, General, Homework and deadlines, Humour, Linux | 6 Comments »

Tom the Hermit Crab – Through the Sand I Go, One more Wall to Climb ’till the Ocean I Go.

April 25th, 2010 Thomasso

Hello. I’m still doing the “loner” gig, staying at home, tucked away in my little room with all of my books, notes and thoughts. One more exam to go then I can rest for a few days before the cycle starts all over again.

The up coming exam is the last bit of first year French I have. But this will only mark the halfway point as I still have another language course to take before I can say – graduate!

It was spectacular day outside! the sun was shinning, the clouds started to thin out and the air warmed, but poor me had to avoid going outside as my textbooks were calling, “read me, read me…”. I’m in worry mode now as the deadline is approaching. I’m going through the guilty phase as I pack on the doubt, even dreamt that I missed the exam becuase of sleeping in! My mind is chaos right now. One part wants to get it over with, while the other knows how important this exam is. I hate living on the borderline of a pass or fail.

Yup, this is funny in my mind. Perhaps when I figure it all out, I will blurb about here to you my dear reader? But then again, don’t we all sit back and laugh about it years later when we reflect about it?

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, University classes | Comments Off

The Knot is Now Too Tight: I Need More Rope.

April 11th, 2010 Thomasso

Exams are now within days, hours and seconds away from starting. Classes are going at a fever pitch, and it seems everyone else around me wants a piece of Thomasso’s time as I struggle to get the last few assignments off for marking.  perhaps the biggest mistake, if you can call it that, was my agreement to help out a old colleague of mine with his legal practice.  No, I am not getting into law, nor am I working as a lawyer – he needs a criminologist. I just happened to be one, and one who is well versed with criminal law. But I didn’t see the time aspects of his needs with his workload, and the amount of research he needs for his up coming cases, coming. Time is one thing that I do not have a lot of at the moment.

Now I have two jobs, and a semester that needs huge amounts of time to finish, so now my daily life is full of new stresses. Sure, there is plenty of money coming in, which is a lot more than I can say for many of my friends right now, but my time is being piecemealed right from underneath my feet, and this is a bad thing.

I took a long walk this morning, to clear my head, and then tried to put everything back into perspective. Work is going to be a tough challenge becuase the changing climate is forcing a whole lot of new dynamics that I never faced before to happen. there is even a power struggle taking place, or the person who wants seems to think so? But this is making for some interesting and weird results at my work. I actually held the pen that could have terminated that person’s job, but I took the moral high ground and push it off in a direction that offered salvation and time to that person. The funny thing is, know one will ever know, but was it the right thing for me to do? This could bite me back?

Money is the root of evil, according to my friend who is in the Bible business. For most people, I can say, is what drive them to do things that they otherwise would never do in their right mind. For these people, they expect me to follow that same edict- never say no to money-it is a rule. Yet I turn it down almost on a daily occurrence. Sure I need money, but if I get too much of it, this will throw my balance out of whack and I then will end up giving too much to the government. I will slowly start the cycle of being lifted into another tax bracket, knowing that in three months I will be at my regular income level again, and my taxes will have tripled. Yes, the money worshippers are blind to this notion, but they believe that no one should have to pay taxes anyway.

I’m on the spot, again. What to do? Ho, heck, I’ve dealt with before, and I’m sure this will not be the last time. I think this little image best sums up my mind right about now. Enjoy the art.

Posted in Art, Bitching about work, Criminology, Diatribe, General, Photographs, University classes | Comments Off

As I Walk Through the Valley of Steel

February 19th, 2010 Thomasso

This is going to be one of those posts where I may regret writing it. Normally I don’t like talking about the personal details of my life in terms of up to the minute details with commentary and graphics, but today is sort of a milestone of sorts. As the title says, “As I walk through the valley of steel,” this means, I am alive and well, and all is going great. Work is going so great too, that in fact, I have surpassed even my own expectations there. The Valley of Steel is all the steel shelving that I see everyday at my work. So, steel shelving is playing a big part in my life right now. Heck, it is even dominating it!

If you have ever worked with full-scale, massive sized warehousing steel shelving, then you will know what I am talking about. I am talking about the big orange and blue shelving that you sometimes see in the large big-box stores where you need a forklift to put things into them, and they tower up to twenty feet into the air. Well, for the last couple of days we have expanded our warehouse and started adding, rearranging and moving our steel shelving around inside the warehouse. I worked with a couple of very experienced and professional guys who know this stuff inside and out. They were worth every penny they asked for.

In the past I had worked with erecting and dismantling large siezed steel shelving myself, and it is not an easy job to do. In this warehouse, we all loath it becuase It is a tough job to do, especially with limited space and poor equipment. But when you have the right guys, the right equipment and lots of Will power, it all seemed so effortless. I am even kicking myself in the butt for not asking the professionals in the first place!

I could go on and on about cost effectiveness and efficiency, and all that stuff, but I am in the moment right now and I am not going to spoil it. In short, get the professionals–it will save you lots of time and money down the road.

But redecorating is like starting fresh again. It is like a second chance. On Monday morning I will walk into a whole new place. I am so looking forward to that. Also, knowing that things are the way “you” want them to be, is also a big thrill. A new desk, fresh coat of paint and a whole new layout, will greet me first thing on Monday morning–now that is the making of a happy worker.

Posted in Bitching about work, General | 1 Comment »

Once Again I am Happy it is the Weekend

February 12th, 2010 Thomasso

I am tired and sore from all the classroom time I have logged in the past week. On top of work, reading over 300 pages of high intents text about statistics is enough to drive anyone into a state of craziness. Between all of my classes I have to deal with work too as we have taken on new contracts that are extremely demanding. But my classes are my biggest chunk of the daily pie chart of time, and the search for sleep is getting out of hand as that part of the pie chart is getting nibbled away. Yes, I complain about this a lot—I know that. What can I say, I’m a whiner when I’m tired.

Statistics is a really weird subject because all most everyone in the class is suffering from denial, or they shutter like it was the new AIDS epidemic, or they complain about it like they are about to be tortured by the rack when they have to show up to class. The language of statistics too is really wired because you are using common words in the most unique way. For example, “mean” is something like average, or “regression” is really predicting the future. The formulas are really algebra on steroids. And worse yet, there are multiple version of the same standard used by the various profs who teach it, just ask about the “X-bar.”

I found myself daydreaming at work too from lack of sleep. It was the weirdest sensation as I was reading my email, and found myself drifting off thinking about taking a trip over to Europe. I snapped out of it when I thought I could taste the salty air off the coast of Italy. Then I starting surfing the net looking for cheap flights right after that. That was bad I tell you—never go on a holiday searching spree surfing the net while at work. Surfing the web while at work is not good if you are back logged with numerous tasks. Though I did find some sweat deals. But I need sleep, and a better schedule to maintain my mental health with.

I got another job offer in the mail today. Last September I attended a trades-fair at the University, and I have being getting a steady stream of replies ever since. This company is located in New York State and seems really eager to take on graduates from anywhere around the world in the field of Criminology, though not in Forensics, but in Psychology which is right up my alley. I think I would have an issue with leaving Canadian soil though, but there was a listing from a European company too that looked very interesting. The European one was looking for researchers/crime experts… gulp…, more Stats, but hey it’s closer to Italy than Vancouver is. I really don’t think finding work is going to be a problem when I graduate.

Well, another Friday night is upon us, so I’m going to read for a few hours then call it a day. I need to get up fairly early tomorrow to do some on-line work with one of my classes—those pesky lab assignments for French. Then later on I have a video-conference with my classmates on Chicago—topic, International Crime between Canada and the USA, which will probably be dominated by the “War On Drugs” that everyone is talking about here in British Columbia.

Posted in Bitching about work, General, Homework and deadlines, University classes | Comments Off