Bunch of Stuff

I ran into a coworker from my last workplace the other day. I told her that I had been fired, but had been hired inside 15 minutes at the big plant for the same company, doing the exact same job. Know what she said? She said that I hadn't been fired... I'd been transferred. She said they sometimes do this when they need someone with a certain skillset at another branch... Instead of training someone new, they send over someone who already has the capabilities.

I don't know if this is true or not, but I guess it does make certain sense. I still don't like that guy I blamed for my last firing, though.

I don't really want to throw down all my theories about the underground mechanisms of Guelph's savior company from the recession... Since it's all conjecture, I feel I have a right to speak openly, but still... It's not like I think this company has shown me any kindness or loyalty, but if I didn't feel that my life had improved because of it, I would have quit. So I don't see the sense in ragging on them too badly, because they've done me overall good, and also, for the off chance that someone influential might read my ranting.

I'm wondering about the ethics of putting all my experience with this company under one section on my resume. It'll be difficult putting the last two branches side-by-side, because I had the same tasks for both of them, and putting so many short-term jobs in a row doesn't look as good as having one longer, consistent placement.

I've been toggling between $1500 and $2000 in my savings lately... I made it up to $1500 fairly quickly, but I can't seem to get much headway since. I took a look at my earnings... and if I take the net pay of a month as being four weeks of 40 hours of work... And subtract what I spend on rent, phone, Karate, bus, and cab fare... I STILL have more than half what I make! So I don't get it... I don't spend much on myself, and I usually do more than 40 hours anyway... But I think it's all the little things... Transfer shifts and you lose a shift... I transferred three times inside two weeks, so that's 24 hours lost... I had those two weeks unemployment... I had that surprise CWY meet, where I had to spend on Greyhound, and that $9 BURGER!!! I got my haircut... Etc.

I couldn't get my timesheet signed for last week... I couldn't find my supervisor. I found two others, but while the sheet says any supervisor can sign for it... Well, one of them said they hadn't been there all week, so they couldn't verify the times, and the other said that I needed my direct supervisor to sign for it.

This'll be fun to explain to the agency... It's not the first time it's happened. At my last place, sometimes supervisors wouldn't show up for overtime... Happened to me twice. Agency tends to blame you for it, "We'll do our best, but don't let it happen again!"

It's been over two weeks now since the CWY meet, and I haven't been contacted. I think this means that I haven't been set for the default groups headed out in June. It was probably a mistake to put myself as "Open". They try to put everyone where they prefer, so what do you do with your wild card? You hold it in reserve.

June had the second-highest number of groups heading out at once. I figure they might call on me at the last minute as a replacement for someone who got cold feet at the last second, which tends to happen... or I'll be placed in a group for the last month leaving this year... September. If that happens, I'm a little irked, because that college course starts in September, and I don't know how I feel about giving CWY, a shorter, less credited program, priority.

I'd like to say that CWY's participants were a lot more multicultural. There were a lot of second-generation Canadians who were joining because they wanted to visit the homeland of their parents. In the Katimavik application, one of the questions was whether or not you were a part of a visible minority. But when you got inside the program... There were only three people in a visible minority, in all the five groups we'd seen. Strangely, they were all also in the same group, and two of them dropped out.

I won a free coffee the other day. I also forgot my bus pass. Bus fare was more expensive than the coffee, so I lost money overall, but I was so freaking blitzed over the coffee, you don't even know. It's a matter of pride: I won, Time Hortons lost. So there. Pro tip: When you when a free coffee at Tim Hortons, you get the X-large Cafe Mocha. That's the most expensive thing you can get with it. I don't care if you feel like a dandy, or you don't like Cafe Mocha... It's a matter of principle.

Besides, I only had to pay half the bus fare... On my way to work, the bus driver recognized me, and when I tried to put in my change, he told me not to worry about it and let me on for free! That was almost worth the $2.75 overall bus fare I paid that day.

You know what the part name is for the machine I work with now? Driven. Isn't that stupid? I thought driven was a verb, not a noun. I feel like a fool saying "Yeah, I make drivens."

Plus, we have a platform next to us with the unfinished drivens, and it has a big sign saying "Driven Raw". That sounds less like a factory station, and more like a porno.

I think I'm doing all right here. They had me running my own machine the other day. When one supervisor asked me to bring down a couple of parts to gauge, he moaned and said "I came." When another supervisor came by and asked me how many parts I'd made, she clapped me on the back and told me I was beautiful. So I... think these are good signs.