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 | No Comments »

Rush, Rush, Rush-Push, Push, Push-Go, Go, Go!

January 29th, 2010 Thomasso

I love it when all of a sudden everyone around me starts realizing that the deadlines are right around the corner, and they have fallen behind, that they start to pass the buck onto me–do you find that for yourself too? A really good example is when you are part of a team and your project is due, and you have some team members who are “a bit slow,” and when the day finally arrives to submit, they freak out and start blaming everyone else except themselves as they show up unprepared. I have fallen victim to two such scenarios already this month, and my reaction has not being pretty.

First, I had a presentation to do with a five member group of which we were to present findings from our research on “Increases in Crime, Looking at the Correlation Between Policing and the Games in Vancouver for 2010.” We had set up a series of five meetings and only three of us made it to all of them. The other two members seemed to have put their parts off until the very last minute and literally left the rest of use hanging during the presentation. It was awkward! The second project was also class presentation, but this time I got to work solo. I like working by myself a lot more than in teams becuase I can achieve way more in a shorter period of time, and pass with flying colours. But, for whatever reason, the team concept seems to be the way corporate Canada wants to move, so the University pushes us in that direction–it is sad in some respects. I think it is just to match the slow and dumb with the fast and  smart, but who am I to judge the merits of what the world wants? But working solo means that you still need to rely on others during the process to finish, and my problems started from receiving the incorrect information from the library–a honest mistake–but no one wanted to admit that there was a mistake, or pay for fees from the first batch of files I had ordered. I refused to pay for the first set of text becuase they were not what I wanted. For some reason, the customer is always wrong, according to library’s resource department. The mistake was clearly theirs, and the acquisition paperwork clearly stated what I wanted, and it was very different from what I received the first time around. Perhaps this will get resolve soon?

Even my work has this problem too with fellow employees passing the buck and denial of wrong doing when the pooh hit the fan. Sure, this is natural, and every workplace has at least one bad apple in it. I use the “butt-covering” method to combat workplace buck-passers. In my department, I have learned to keep originals and only give out copies of important documents. I have already seen one employee try to “fraud” paperwork, and it did not go over to well for that person in the long run. I also learned not to panic when confronted with accusations by other employees, especially from other departments, but always give them space, let them talk, and allow them to sink their own ship without taking everyone with them. The art of working in teams has no bearing on performance or efficiency, I am finding, but it has everything to do with personal merit and longevity. Workplace attrition is always the best hope for those who are incompetent. So the lesson here is teams and buck-passing go hand in hand–trust no one, and look out for number one!

Now I am rambling.

The last 15 days have flown by so fast. My workload from my classes is incredible in my opinion. French is sucking up most of my time. To do the on-line work takes well over eight hours to complete for each chapter. That is way too much time required for the course. I know that the majority of the class is flying by in the course, but I never had any formal French, so I am aiming for just a pass. Yes, it take a lot longer for me to memorize and learn the spelling, but hey, I am starting from scratch. My instructor has so much patience with me–he deserve a lot more than he is getting credited for.

Statistics, or hard based Algebra? Woo-Hoo! No comment. All I can say here is that I am a SPSS sufferer, and I want to use open source so bad it hurts. Micro$oft can kiss my butt! Whoever thought that a crappy program that is worth $800.00 is a good thing for students to work with–they are sniffing glue. I will never pay for crap–especially $800.00 worth of it! I’ll take “R” any day over SPSS! OK, I am frustrated with SPSS–I admit that–don’t sue me.

At least it is Friday. Maybe I can catch up on some sleep? Naugh… An’t gonna happen.

A bientôt mon amis

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

Post New Years Disorder

January 4th, 2010 Thomasso

Now that everyone is nicely in debt, suffering from the flu, and ready to get back to work, I now must take a step back and see the world that I am part of and ask myself why people do what they do, especially pondering the question of why is everyone so pissed off this time of year? Since the new year has started I have noticed a shift in the people around me, and more so from those who I work with, but this also applies to some of my friends too. However, I think there is more to it than meets the eye?

We just got off of two long weekends in a row with two paid statutory holidays. We went through, for most cultures, the most festive season in the calender; of course, I am the exception as I don’t celebrate the Christian, Jewish or Muslim traditions, but the Season of Tom (sic), which is 365 days per year–I am not a lemming. I enjoy everyday and treat everyday like it is New Years. So most people gave each other gifts and had fun with family and friends, and I am sure it was time well spent, but what happened afterwords, when it is time to go back and renew the year, the week, and continue on with our jobs?

So why does everyone seem so pissed off? Is it becuase the party is over? Hum? No, I think it goes deeper than that?

I think part of the answer is in the frustration that times are leaner, and becuase of the tight economic era that we now live in, people are “taking it out” on the first person that they encounter becuase they are frustrated with themselves . People have over spent. As the cost of living shoots upwards, so does the cost of giving in the monetary sense. So far since I have come back to work I have heard nothing but complaining about how in debt everyone is, and how expensive things are getting. Also, the labourers seem unwilling to motivate themselves as one person put it, “How can I work for this much when it now costs me more to do the job in the first place…” When they complain, the management resorts to apathy towards them. When they come to me, they act sometimes so vulgar and pathetic that I tune them out too.

Take for example the “Coughing More-On.” Today while I was setting everything up to start my day, this one guy comes in coughing and hacking his lunges out becuase he is in the full throws of the flu. First, he shows up at work so sick that he could pass out from coughing so much.  He then starts coughing without covering his mouth. He told me that If he caught it, then it should get it passed around also so he can “give it back” to whom ever he caught it from down the line. Stupendous logic here, eh? I know for someone with AIDS, there is a section in the Criminal Code of Canada that deals with that, and under the Infectious Diseases and Control Act, there are provisions for dealing with those people, but there ought to be something in there to the flu too, especially on the job. But I ask this question, because he is sick, does that mean he must make everyone else around him sick too?

So money and health seem to be the first casualties of the new year. This does not surprise me? I heard on CBC Radio One that the stats on consumer spending surveyed by the Bank of Montreal says that Canadians are confident about the economy. First, a Bank telling us that we are happy with the economy – now that is a joke. But it also says that if the Banks are happy with the way we are spending, and unemployment is still increasing, than that only leave debt as the only logical answer to this social phenomenon. Throw in some flu germs and you now have the recipe for Post New Years Disorder.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, Social Justice, Social economics | 3 Comments »

I had no Idea?

December 30th, 2009 Thomasso

Today sure started off the same as any other average day. I woke up, performed my ablutions, hopped in the vehicle and did the commute to work. Opened up the building, turned on the lights, fired up the Dell, watched Bill Gate’s operating system slowly sputter up to greet me on the login page, and then I checked for incoming emails. In all, a very average start to a average day.

The only real plan for today was a meeting with the some of the top bosses for late in the afternoon. They were scheduled to pop in for a visit so we could brain-storm on setting up a series of changes that would streamline our operation. I decided that when the day started to slow down I would clean up a little more than I would normally. I also prepared a table and some chairs out in the warehouse so everyone could see from my vantage point what the the warehouse and the rest of the building looked like so the brain-storming process would stay on track. The conference call over the phone would not work when describing physical problems that would hinder a new system of operations; only the face to face meeting would work to keep all on board.

Roughly 2:00pm rolled around and my guests arrived. I was actually excited because this was the first time of having all the major players in one room at one time, as this has never taken place since my time at the company, and to have them all at the Surrey operation was, well, a bonus. I was the star of the show. As we talked about what would be the ideal direction to go in, the topic of emails came up.

I restrain myself to the extreme when I type out emails to my co-workers. I always read, think, then ponder before I hit the “enter” button. I have a rule when greeting everyone – always say something positive, and end with a positive note – even when I am writing a letter of complaint. I really try and make a huge effort of making sure my emails are simple, unambiguous, and grammatically correct. I try not to be verbose in my replies, nor do I type out three word cryptic answers that are meaningless and have no bearing on the topic from the email’s header when replying. I also try to sum up in one email rather than fifteen, unlike some members from my group of co-workers who have being given the nick-name, “Email Nazi,” associating to them to the endless email-threads that exceed twenty to thirty emails per topic and giving orders like a drill Sargent. Yeah, following those emails is like reading a harlequin romance novel written by Charles Manson during a parole hearing.

Well, the highest honour that I could possible receive was presented to me today. Apparently my emails are the stuff of legends. My emails have been circulated from one end of the country to other, and have been posted on lunch room bulletin boards, and have appeared in power point presentations; they have being read aloud during meetings, and recorded into minutes from our board members; accounts have been won because of the framing of content of the queries in them, and phrases and content copied and reproduced into other emails as fact. My humour and semantics have garnered me much respect, and a wide audience. If reproduction is the highest form of flattery, then I have a huge cult following of plagiarists.

I wish I had known about this fame long before. No one told me this until today. One side of me feels embarrassed, but the other side of me is honoured, and this proves that the pen, or keyboard, is mightier than the sword. Sure, I can answer the phone, but I prefer the email because it stays, and speaks for itself, where as talk is cheap and is easily dismissed.

Posted in Bitching about work, General, Humour | 4 Comments »

Need to Write a Post Before the Month is Finished: Neglecting the Blog.

November 30th, 2009 Thomasso

I really shouldn’t be doing, but I need to-the need to write something. This is the big week where everything comes to a head for my fall courses, and time is in short supply. There is just so much to do, big projects, research papers, presentations, and then of course the finals.

The last week has being a blur. I actually thought today was Tuesday and was planning my day around that notion. Yeah, I felt stupid when I finally realized that it was only Monday and that I still had four more days left in this week. My brain is in overload right now, so dealing with the bigger things is just not happening in right order.

My friends in my classes are feeling it too. I can see the difference in attitude from all of them. I now know why academics can be so anal all the time – this is where it comes from. You are pushed so hard, and the need to preform with perfection is so great that somewhere along the lines you loose your humanity. This is a dangerous time for students who are around those they care about because at any time they can snap and fly off the handle, or do or say something really stupid.

I think the worse thing that can happen to someone in this situation are those who come to the conclusion that they just don’t care any more.

Well, I have spent enough time here. I have cleared my head enough to continue writing on with my current paper that meeds to be handed in next week. At least I got the final post in for November, before the month is finished. It is these little accomplishments that count too, and I have to learn to recognise them.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Homework and deadlines, University classes | 1 Comment »

Counting Madness – Self-Righteous Resistors

November 21st, 2009 Thomasso

Human nature seems to be built upon some very basic principles like survival for food and shelter, natural selection and achieving the most for less under any circumstances, to mention a few. You will have those who by chance stumbled upon great wealth, or managed to screw enough people so that they are now the dominate forces in their societies. On the other hand you will have those who tried but never found their American Dream, and could never have had the “luck” to reach their dreams. To add some theory to this, I turn to the work of Email Durkheim and Robert K. Merton, who came up with the idea that when you have a breakdown of social norms, and when your personal control and environment breaks down, people then go into a state of “normlessness,” where they exhibit anyone of the following categories called modes of adaptation: conforming, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion (Williams & McShane: 2004).

When I first heard that we were going to start our annual inventory early this year, I was not the least bit worried because we now have the smaller work force (since the recession started), and our inventories  are so little compared to this time 2008 that counting on our part would take less than an afternoon. We were given about one weeks notice to prepare and start out counts. I had posted the information and started personally telling each worker as they came in what was going to be required of them for this year’s inventory count. A series of emails were sent, and some of the higher volume technicians were given phone calls to aid them with there procedures. With a lot less to count and fewer categories of inventory as compared to last year, I figured that this was going to be a flawless count.

As the numbers started roll in on Friday, I started making calls to the employees who I had already foreseen as being problematic and assisted them – like a mother wiping a child’s bib, holding their hands, reiterating what was needed from them, reassure them – just to get the job done. But no matter how much one tries, or prepares, there are going to be those who just can’t get it on the right track, and they continually fall by the wayside.

The majority of the employees are in the category of conforming. They know that these events take place and they offer their full unquestioned obedience to get the job done. Next are the innovation people who see this as an opportunity to do maintenance and clean-ups, while they sort out their equipment and inventory. They see that they have time offered to them for this and they take on a multitasking approach to it. Then we have a couple of workers who are the ritualist’s, who see this as a another job routine, and they blindly go through the motion of counting and sorting, but only putting in the minimum effort and time to get through it. Lastly, there are the dreaded rebellious types who, although they only represent less than two percent of the workforce, they cause ninety percent of the headaches.

Make no mistake that I am comparing criminological theory to the workplace. There are just too many similarities among these two groups to let this go unnoticed.

The inventory was completed, and done on time, but I ended up spending an eleven hour day trying to keep everything together, but still, I had to do some of it from home due to some stragglers being so late, and one not submitting until midnight. The last four hour stretch of Friday was spent talking on the phone, endlessly going over the inventory procedure until I notice that I was loosing my voice.

Source:

Williams & McShane (2004). Criminological theory. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.

Posted in Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, Social Justice, Social economics | No Comments »

Remembering, and Those Issues out of Context

November 11th, 2009 Thomasso

Today I walked by the cemetery along Glover Road where the Remembrance ceremonies were held to honour those who fought for our county and our allies and enemies alike. The turnout was impressive. It hit me that in my old age I can understand that during the time of the two great wars, and subsequent wars to follow, the sky was always blue, the leaves were always green and the birds always sang. Ninety years ago till now nothing has really changed, but only our technology. We are still the same bipedal hairy apes that need to eat, drink and sleep. Perhaps our knowledge has, but only if we have the Will to stop all of this nonsense so that we do not have to have a national holiday to remember those who fought and died for their country. Is it ignorance that we keep repeating history, or is it human nature that we keep on fighting?

The world of work has changed course yet again. Last week I was bombarded with so much chaos that I threw in the towel. Acting on news that I was going to be laid-off, I decided to do the most honourable thing that an employee can do which was quit as a matter of protest. There are some today (mostly employers) who still believe that it is law that all employees must give notice, at a minimum two weeks, or there are consequences. Apparently, news hit like a shock-wave throughout the company. The wave was enough to have the owner call me during the weekend and set up a meeting to find a solution. The three hour meeting yielded many fruits of opportunity and may pave a new path in my relationship with the company.  Already so much has changed as a result of this.

My article that I wrote for the student paper called The Runner is now in print. It is weird seeing your own name printed in a news paper. When they get their web site up and running I will definitely link it here. See full article here.

I have just submitted my courses for next semester. (Actually that was on Monday.) This upcoming semester will be one of the most ambitious ones yet in my quest for completion of the B.A.. My Achilles heal (thanks Diane) is language, in particular French, so guess what I’m talking next semester? Also, quantitative “advanced” data analysis, or what is lovingly referred to as statistics, will be the other major course in my curriculum. Like the little lemming that is about to jump off the cliff, waiting for it causes more anxiety than the moment that you actually reach the bottom. I just want to get it done.

Posted in Bitching about work, Criminology, Events, General, University classes | 1 Comment »

It was the night before Halloween, and all through the town…

October 30th, 2009 Thomasso

Yikes-I have being going like crazy! I lost track of time here. I am so tried, I just got from a nap, and my circadian cycles are shot to hell. An example of how screwed up I am—I didn’t get home from class until 10:45pm. This morning I had to get up at 4:30am, run some stuff, then head off to work which started at 6:30am, then off for a meeting for 3:00pm till 5:00pm.

Last night I had my class after the huge midterm in physics, the 30 percent exam that I dreaded. Just about everyone in the class was feeling the same way. The weird thing about this science class, as compared to most of the classes I normally take, is that the prof handed out the exam right at the beginning of the class so could go through it. In my liberal arts classes, profs always wait until the end so that we are fully focused on the lecture of the day, then dump the final results on us so we can ride the emotional roller-coaster and leave. The prof told us that the class average was very high for a third science class, a whopping 67 percent. Now, I would say that a mark of 67 percent really sucks, but then I sort of felt better knowing that if I did poorly then I wasn’t alone. I was happy that I didn’t fail, but I never got the happy mark I wanted. I was one percent off from a “A-”, so a mark of B+ will have to do for the first 30 percent of the term.

In amongst all of the hours of stuff going in my daily routines I managed to perform the upgrade on my home desktop to the Karmic Koala, aka Ubuntu 9.10 today. Actually it was fast because I was running the Beta for the last month, so the upgrade was only an hour long, including downloading, instilling and the final reboot. I’m very happy with it. I will blog more about it very soon.

Whoa! It just started to rain. It’s coming down in buckets! Might have to order in a pizza.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Software, University classes | No Comments »

COD because it is DOA, not RMA, so ASAP!

October 14th, 2009 Thomasso

I think I just experienced shipper receiver hell today. At my work I have being given the task of running the warehouse. I mean, why not, it is a job, and it fits my hours for classes really good. In fact, now that I have being given exclusive rights to the facility, and life has being an exceptional bowl of cherries with not one pit in the lot. I am, in all its glory, my own boss.

Well, with such privileges come much responsibilities. I am well into my third year of a job that was supposed to be only a seasonal deal to begin with, but that is how the employment Gods work their magic. Sometimes the Gods throw in some challenges, which I am sure is just their way of testing a person out, making sure you still have respect, and are kept humbled and lean before you get to cocky. Since the start of my stint with the company I have gone through many transformation, and somehow I have managed to stay, outlasting all those around me in this stint of employment, but I am a one man show now. I do work alone, and I have to rely on “number one” because help is either through email, or a phone call which is usually to someone who is drowning just as much as I am, or worse.

The Canada Post Mail lady, of whom is drop dead gorgeous, gave me supreme heck because I lock-up so early. I only work part time hours. So she said that she would get grief if she had to “card” our mail box because we were not there to accept parcels. I thought it was not a big issue myself, I mean, I have very rarely received anything substantial through Canada Post ever, so I had a hard time understanding why she was so “upset.” She pulled her car around to the back of the warehouse and there I saw stuffed in the back were over 50 small boxes that she had to deliver to me. This was nuts! An entire pallet of goods was being shipped, piece by piece, through Canada Post. So one by one she off loaded them.

And to make matters worse, as that was happening, another shipment arrived by U.P.S., which was C.O.D.! I had to track someone down at the office with a credit card to pay to for it all. That took nearly a half an hour to get a number and run it through. This was when the circus started. FedEx, and Purolator both dropped in with several boxes of large item stuff that they had for me, and as usual they wanted to get in and out as fast as they can so they can continue on with their routes, but they were stuck in line waiting for me to get through the deluge of cases and boxes being piled in the receiving bay. I just wanted to sign anything and get them out of there.

The next thing I knew when I finally stuck my head up to see how everyone was doing, I saw all four drivers standing in a circle talking about how bad their day was and reminiscing about some of their worse deliveries they ever had. Both Purorlator and FedEx got out first, then U.P.S., but the poor drop dead gorgeous mail lady was still going through her stuff, one box at a time, then waiting for me to verify it on the packing slip.

With a half smile, and huge tired eyes, she finally left to finish the rest of her route. I turned back and there on the floor was over eighty boxes that needed to be received, and then followed up with the paperwork.

That was only the first half of my day. I am not even going to type about the rest of it.

Posted in Bitching about work, General | 4 Comments »