Postcards

Having a random thought day and not really motivated to do anything else... So, just quick little blog entries for now :)

The Postcard thing is still happening and driving my best friend crazy. The 4 latest countries to send a postcard to him: Kuwait, Peru, Argentina, and Burkina Faso.

Awesome.

In my original post about the postcard joke some 4 years ago, I mentioned a song I was listening to at the time. Here's a version of it:


And yes, he is indeed singing the song in his bathroom. They were practicing some of their songs for a new album and they videotaped all the bathroom sessions and included some of their other songs from previous albums. :)

Impressed

3 weeks are done at work and they've me they're impressed. I came onboard during a major deadline crunch and got to work right away --screw training and orientation. I learned on the fly.

3 weeks, 150+ hours of work, later and they're impressed. Good! I'm tired, but I still have a bounce in my step as I head to the office.

Train Hottie's around, but she's returned to sitting in another area where she originally sat when I started sitting in that car. Train Hottie was actually the 3rd woman I'd noticed on that specific car (nice car!), but took top status because she's, well, the hottest. :)

I need a life.

But even her reign may be over as there's yet another hottie frequenting the train. Nope, never sat close to her, but she's walked past a couple times and I've sat with her on the rapid transit afterward, but.... wow.

Hehe. On a side note --of sorts-- my nickname at my job previous to this one was "Ol P.", which stands for "Old Perv" because I'd notice the girls before anyone else. :)

Passed

My wife's grandmother died this past week. She was just shy of her 102nd birthday, so I don't think it came as too much a of surprise that she passed away. It wasn't like she was sick and suffering for very long. Her health was in decline over the past year or so and her mind was slipping as well. But no one can deny she had a long and good life.

She had 4 daughters and 3 sons, one of which died in infancy. Each of the surviving 6 children are still with us and have gone on to have large families of their own. It isn't until you get to our generation that the number of children declines from 3-4 to 1 or 2. For the most part, anyway. Some have had 3 or 4, but others are more urban in their thinking and don't have space for large families. Needless to say, the last family gathering at Christmas had 70+ people there and that was just the offspring of her children. 5 generations in total, celebrating Christmas. That's a good life.

There are some taking the news of the matriarch's passing pretty hard. At first I had difficulty understanding clearly why they weren't more prepared for this. To me, I saw it as an inevitability.
A woman over a century old should be expected to pass away and the blessing of having her in fairly good health for so many years beyond expectation should just lead to a time of "this is it." Her latest great-grandchild was born at the beginning of February. Everyone expected it, why can't they cope with the passing of a family member?

Seems harsh, I know. And I'm not trying to detract from her passing in any way. She'll be missed and missed greatly by a huge number of people. She had a huge, loving family that extended throughout the church family as well. A church she helped establish. She has a huge legacy she's passed to her family and that family is now spread across the globe, working in basically every continent doing missionary work.

A huge family. With no death.

And that's when I clued in. The family's taking it hard because the last death in the family was in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Her husband died of a heart attack while gardening and the family took it hard. Death is not a common factor in the family, despite it's size. To think some of her grandchildren are away at university without knowing a death in the family shows that.

But this could be a bad year for the family. And that's where the coping really hits home. See, her oldest 2 daughters, both in their 80s, are watching their husbands' declining health. It's likely both husbands will not see 2009. One for sure, the other it's hard to say.

She had a good life and we get to celebrate that on Tuesday. I'm not sure where we're going to put everyone though. She's touched a lot of lives.

Cars

I gave my parents my car. That's the easy way of putting it. Their car has a wonky transmission, their truck is a gas guzzler, and my car is barely being used with me switching to mass transit for my work commute.

So, the car stays under my name, but my parents can drive it for the next 6 months. And pay the insurance too. :)

I have my parents' vehicles too, now. The truck is in the driveway and the car in the garage. Everyone hates driving the truck and I'm annoyed my Dad turned down a $5000 offer for it because he wanted $5500. Now he'll be lucky if he can get $4000 for the stupid thing.

Somedays we have to juggle things around here if I'm forced to drive to work. The truck would cost me about $70 in gas to get it there and back and that's not worth it for anyone.

Pressure

I do like this job, don't get me wrong. I just had bad timing for my arrival. I started during a 2-week deadline crunch, which meant instead of 2 full days of training, I got 5 days of spotty, a-minute-here and a-minute-there 'orientation' to my new job. It's similar enough to my last job that it's fairly easy to pick up, but the pressure's on for deadlines, one of which was supposed to be yesterday.

Add to this problem that I'm taking the train almost everyday, except days when I can use my wife's car (more about that later in another post!) and come in for overtime. And, due to some funky labour laws for the entertainment industry, overtime does not mean I get paid extra... In fact, I don't get paid at all as we're all on salary.

Part of our job performance, I've been warned, is based on how much overtime you put in. And therein lies the problem. I can't put much 'OT' in as the train has a very specific schedule and if I stay too late, it definitely becomes TOO LATE. Fortunately for me, coming in early is actually a benefit to the team as I can prep 70+ people on their tasks before anyone else arrives.

So, today I'm waiting by the phone for them to ask me to come in. The only big issue is that they'll expect me there quickly, but driving a car takes 90 minutes.

Lots of pressure.

Shock

I started the new job this past week and I'm in total shock after 5 days of work. My commute is beyond stress-free and has become a breeze. I still leave home at the same time, but I'm at work in no time and never find myself running to catch the various modes of transit I need to get me places.

My big concern was having such a set transit schedule might be seen as 'risky' to the company, as I wouldn't be available for much overtime --and this industry loves overtime! I'm making the arrangements to crash either at my sister's place, or at a friend's place in-town, if need be. I am willing to go the extra mile for this company because they're treating me so well.

And, thus I'm shocked. Here's a list of things in my first week:

1. 15 minutes after getting my photo taken for the internal website, I'm greeted and taken on a tour of the company. During the tour, I meet the CEO who remembers me from a presentation back when I was in school in 2006.
2. I run into a few other people I"d worked with in the past and they all tell me how great it is here.
3. Despite 2 days of catered lunches, and free food everyday, the team still takes me out for an official "welcome" lunch on the Friday.
4. They're excited that I come in 90 minutes earlier than everyone else (part of that transit schedule again) because I can get the entire team up to speed the moment they arrive to the office.
5. Being so early, the CEO has walked by my desk everyday (he's working on a completely different floor, but tours the entire facility before getting to business) and said good morning.
6. I met my division boss, who then introduced me to all 50 people on the team. I never met the divisional boss at my last job. No idea who that even was.
7. I'm allowed to check email and Facebook at work.
8. I have medical and dental.
9. I get to talk to people on my team as equals instead of part of a hierarchy where everything I said had to be diplomatic.

So, yeah. I'm in shock. I'm being treated well and with respect and it's been a long, long time since I had that.