I graduated highschool for a reason, and it wasn't to go to college.
November 14, 2007
Schedule my lunch at 10:30, will you? I'll show you...
Ha. Got this call at 10:25 or so, and have so far managed to streetch it out to 11:00. Hopefully we can hit closer to 11:30… y'know, the actual lunch hour. And then I'll only have 3.5 hours left of my shift. Suh. Weet. Who says I don't know what I'm doing?
The walk and subsequent bus ride to work, that is. Uber, freaking, cold. Somebody must hate me. It's not even January yet, either. Ladies, gentlemen, and people of indeterminate genders, I officially hate winter in Canada. And it's neither snowed nor actually become winter yet. Bloody hell times 6. I wanna go home…
Required dose of optimism: I think the Leafs play tonight. That means pizza. Which means I don't have to cook. I like this arangement.
And like anyone on any friday, I find myself very, very reluctant to actually go to work. Is that bad? Survey says… signs are hazy, ask again later. Ah well, at least there's an interest there I might be able to catch for another little conversation before my shift starts. I shall leave the rough translation to your imagination–specifics from me you will not get. Deal.
Wednesday nights/Thursday mornings are perhaps the worst nights to be working. There's 36 people on the floor, or there abouts, and enough calls for maybe… uh… I'm gonna be generous and say 25. So at any given time, after about 3:00 in the morning, I get to sit here and go *twitch* until I get a call. Which could be half an hour… could be an hour. At least I used to keep myself entertain keeping track of people's stats and the like–but we're apparently not doing that anymore. So now, it's *twitch, twitch, flop* until someone goes and calls me. And with 20 people waiting for calls… I could be waiting a while. Just another day at the office, and another dime earned. Can I go home yet?
Getting things done on my own schedule could be a bad thing.
I tend to take my time doing it. Example: it's quarter after 11 and I'm blogging. Meanwhile, there be dishes in the sink, vacuuming that needs doing, and eventually, garbage that needs to be going out. Could be an all day event at this rate. But at least I can drown out the neighbors doing it. Yay for decent music! … I have too much time on my hands. Somebody stop me.
I always thought the walk from my place to work and back was actually kinda nice. Even when it was upwards of -25 degrees and I'd spend 15 minutes after getting here bitching to no end about the cold. But it actually *is* rather enjoyable, in spite of that. Perhaps one of the most enjoyable things about working here. I'm all for just randomly going for a walk wherever… I mean, it beats the hell out of sitting at home watching TV, and it's apparently doing me some good. But until this week or so, I've always been tossing around the idea of cabbing it instead. Of course, taking the bus and the resulting necessary walk to the office wins out always anyway, both for the cost and… well, because I'm doing something. Today, though, I actually enjoyed my walk home this morning. At least, I think I did–by the time I got home I was probably too whiped to really care. I know for sure, though, it was relaxing making the trip to work tonight. Not for any one particular reason… except that it's actually above freezing, and I'm not spending longer putting layers of clothing on than actually getting out the door. It probably hellps that for the second time this year I was able to open every window in the place. Summer's fast approaching, and that means lots of baseball, pizza, caffinated cold beverages, and leaving that apartment as wide open as I possibly can without making it a security risk. How can you possibly go wrong with a plan like that? Too bad it's only for a couple months out of the year. But, what're ya gonna do? I'm sure not complaining.
And from the "You're just realizing that now?" department...
The shocking discovery that people pay way too freaking much for rent in Ontario. I mean, I probably don't have much room to complain–I can still aford the not quite modest amount I pay on a monthly basis to the folks who keep a roof over my head. But still. Without getting into specifics, I make per month more than enough to get me by on a day-to-day basis. But that having been said, nearly half what I make per month is sucked up within 2 weeks when the rent's due. Again, I'm not complaining, but if I didn't have a job that pays as well as it is, I'd still be living in Pembroke. Why? Because rent anywhere else is freaking insane. Hell, rent in Pembroke borders on insane some places. If you're lucky, in Ottawa, you can probably get a room for $300/week (I've seen it). Per *week*. That's less per month than I pay and considerably more than any sane person should pay. You almost have to hook up with a real money maker just to get your foot in the door if you can't land a job that isn't in fast food or retail. Not that I want some 18-year-old with a Mcdonald's paycheck and a partygoer personality like I've never seen, but hey, I've been there. I thought about moving out a couple years ago, except… yep, you guessed it. On what I was making, rent per month would kill me. But that's a whole other rent I might get into on a day off when I can devote the whole day to writing said rant. Suffice it to say, though, if they want people to actually be independant, and be contributing members of society, they really should make it a bit easier for people to do so. But then, I never claimed to be able to understand the government. I just pick certain aspects of it and tear into them. Frequently.
A whole shitload's happened since I last had time to breathe, let alone post here, so I'll try to squeeze it all into the half hour I have to write before my shift starts. Lessee… where to start.
It would have been so much less confusion with a phone call. But, o'course, Purolator doesn't think quite that far in advance. So they showed up with one of my presents to me from me on Saturday morning, presumeably between 9 and 10. When, of course, I was already on my way here. Which meant now I had to reschedule the delivery. Good job, morons.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. An average of 30 minutes of downtime may be boring, but one call after another non-stop except lunch break and meetings? Brutality. All manner of brutality. Breathing time would be awesome.
And again, at least one bus driver needs to be educated on how to follow instructions. I think I end up getting dropped off at the wrong stop more often than not lately. Ah well, on the up side if it happens a couple more times, I'll be able to walk home from any nearby stop on Baseline.
Ladies and gentlemen, even if you do not like the Bare Naked Ladies' music, go to one of their concerts. Tickets for the Wednesday night show cost me $60 a pop before taxes, and I'm telling you right now the crap that went on between songs was pretty damn near worth the money by itself. Or maybe that's just because they made fun of Ottawa a little. That's always good in my books.
And again, to the individual(s) who decided to turn off my hot water, can you pretty pretty please go right to hell? Thank you and goodbye.
There was more, but I forget. If I think of it later it'll get posted. Maybe.
Yes, I know, calendar-wise it's Tuesday. But so far as my work schedule's concerned, today be Friday, folks. And it didn't come a moment too soon… this week has been completely and utterly insane. And it's still not over yet. I start work again in 10 minutes, and I'm expecting to have just as much relative overall insanity to go through. If I'm lucky, I may get 15 minutes to half an hour today to breathe… between phone calls, I mean. When I get home and subsequently have more time to actually do things, I'll summarize my week. Which translates to there will be an essay. And now, I get my crap together 5 minutes before my shift starts.
I've been here since 9:30 or so. I start at 11. 'Nuff said? I think so. Don't get me wrong, I love the play time… but, um… that's way too early for my liking. Particularly since I leave at 8:30 to get here, give or take walk time. Um, eww. I want 2-11 back, dammit to hell… Or, at least, a bus that doesn't give me the choice between here way too early and here just barely on time. *shakes fist*
I've said it before, and probably on here, but it deserves being said again. It's a *really* good thing it's just me living here–I couldn't come up with the time to clean up after anyone else. I got home again today at about quarter to 6, or there about, which is pretty much the usual for me now. That gives me just over 3 hours to go through a to do list of varying lengths depending on the day and what I didn't get done the day before, and then it's time for bed, and we do it all over again the next day. Don't get me wrong, I like what I'm doing–at least I'm never bored, but if I had roommates, knowing my luck they'd be lazier than I ever used to be, and well, like I said I just don't have time for that. My day starts between 3:30 and 4 usually, except for this morning but we'll just ignore that because well, I was dead tired coming on noon. And unless it's a weekend, my day ends at about 9. I dunno when it'll end on the weekend, because I haven't actually had a weekend to myself since I moved up here, what with Christmas related things having gone on.
Ottawa's bus system's apparently running some kind of new schedule, so I'm left to figure out a whole new set of drivers. And I was just getting used to the newbie with the accent, too. Ah well, these ones at least give the appearance of being fairly decent, so we'll see. I'm usually an extreme critic of people in general, so I give it maybe 24 hours and I'll have an entry brewing about how brainless at least one of them is. But for now, they seem fairly decent. One even borders on cool… impressive for a bus driver in this city. He will never actually *be* cool, though, until he can magicly remove the need to wake up insanely early to get to a less insanely early but still insanely early shift.
I probably shouldn't complain too much about the shift I've been stuck with for training–I mean, yeah it's early, okay… fucking early, but then again, I get home between 5 and 6 too. If I had a typical 8-5 shift, I wouldn't get through the door 'til about 7-ish, give or take… maybe closer to 8. Suddenly, a quarter to 7 shift isn't so horrible. But I still don't wanna wake up at 3:30 to get there. As I've said often, I love the job, I hate the shift. But I should probably clarify… I like the shift, I hate needing to take a bus to that shift. But, I bus, so I shall now move my lazy self to bed, so the wake-up call doesn't kill me. And… hey, I actually managed not to jump all over the spectrum of thought in this entry, as opposed to the one at dark o'clock this morning. Go me.
