A shorter, more honest Twilight
A shorter, more honest Twilight
( Henry Cavill )
I don't think anyone has a good work story from the last year. The recession has been difficult for everyone and I know, I know I should be very happy that I have a job, that I got a raise, and that my performance reviews are merely opportunities for my manager to heap praise and thanks on me. But, that said, things at my company do not seem to be improving. Last winter, as the shock of the recession was hitting, the company made siginifcant cut backs and did so in an unprofessional and poorly communicated manner. We weren't even that upset about the changes themselves - we were upset at how the company was treating us and how disrespected we felt.
The economy may be improving, but my company's attitude is not. My department has been under-staffed since the spring. Throughout the summer, when we asked management when we would be getting some relief, we were told to wait until the restructuring was complete in August...which then became September, then October, then November. My work group is the most poorly staffed within the entire department - several days this month (and we're only 10 days in!) I have been the only person working. A year ago, there were 5 people, down from the ideal number of 6. With the new reorganization, we are supposed to have 3 people only. Even my manager thinks this is a joke and has been petitioning the higher ups for the reasoning behind this decision, trying to determine how we can get extra staff allocated.
I suppose I'm just really frustrated by the lack of communication and the lack of reasoning behind decision making. Everyone in my department is frustrated and increasingly bitter. I know a large number of them are sending out resumes already, which, if they leave, will create an even more difficult situation for those of us who remain. We're the lowest down on the totem pole in the company and are treated as such but we are also one of the only departments classified as essential services within the company. You don't need four years of HR training (training which has been going sadly to waste) to know that the longer an unhappy worker remains, and is in daily contact with customers, the more potential there is for damage to the company.
I would not be surprised to see 10+ people quit in the next two months. We are, for the most part, young and have no mortgages or families to tie us to a salary at a job we dislike and at company where we have limited prospects. That's the real issue for me: in March, my commitment to my current position will be up and I will be able to apply to other jobs within the company. However, new jobs aren't opening up. And with nothing to move on to, you stay where you are. I find that idea terrifying.
The current game plan is this: come March, I start applying for jobs. If there are good opportunities within my company, excellent. That would surely be the most convenient option and I think my resume would benefit from showing that I could progress within a company. If nothing is available internally though, I'm applying for jobs in Vancouver, speeding up my "Go Home" timeline by a year, but always, always making sure I have something lined up before I quit.
A new idea (or, rather, a very old one) has surfaced recently, complicating these plans further - I see that there is something called the Youth Mobility Scheme (replacing the holiday maker visa) that would allow me to live and work in the UK for a full two years (being, thereby, infinitely superior to the holiday maker visa). At University, I had a burning desire to run away to Edinburgh after graduation but my practical side said no, since, at that time, the only visa I could get only entitled me to work for up to a year. But with this new scheme, with a two-year permit, I could actually be hired into a real job, something relevant to my career. The mind boggles, though the scariest part of this option is that I'd have to move without a job lined up - can't really justify a $1300 return trip flight for interviews.
And then my father reminds me of how many are still unemployed, how tenuous the job market still is. It was so easy for me to find a job two years ago and it has been easy for my classmates over the last year, even those who were laid off, to find jobs as well, that I forget the realities of the world at large. He has always been so sympathetic about all the awful things at work so to hear him tell me today that we should all stop complaining and be happy we have jobs when so many do not, was rather upsetting. That said, I do think his comments were influenced by the fact that he's been in California for the last three weeks, in a state, in a country, that has suffered far more than anywhere in Canada. But I still can't discount his comments completely.
No harm done, but still, it has not been a promising start to November, between this and the insanity at work.
It's 5.26 in the morning but it's already 10 degrees. I've spent the last month bundled up, shivering at the bus stop in negative temperatures but not today!
I love chinooks. However, I hate that they never last for long. It supposed to drop back down to -3 (and that's before wind chill) by tonight.
Have a great Friday everyone!

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Lazy Sunday, content with the knowledge that tomorrow is a holiday and I don't have to go to work, spent entire morning curled up in bed reading,
Would roll over, only to find myself faced with a couple of books lying on the bed next to me. That I had completely forgotten about and thought were in an entirely different room.
Ridiculously typical of my life. No room for a man, too many books in the way.
And, as always, we rely on beer advertisers to pin down with alarming accuracy our national traits:
( For further insight into the Canadian soul... )
So now I officially declare that it is time for me to re-enter the world of lj:
Does anyone have any new fandoms they've discovered that I should be exploring?
Any fic ideas for fandoms I'm already involved in?
Any scolds for having abandoned this journal for so long?
Any advice on how to remain an active, engaged fan girl?
Alas, being a poor young person far from home, I have no cabin to go to. Instead I have spent the day dismembering a chicken (not a live one, don't worry) and baking an apple bundt cake (part in tribute to the House of Hanover, but mostly tribute to my love of apple cakes).
Life is good.
Here are the rules:
1.Put your music player (iPod, whatever) on shuffle
2.Write down the first line of the 25 songs, no matter how embarassing
3.Mark them off when people get it right
- When the bells all ring and the horns all blow and the couples we know are fondly kissing, will I be with you or will I be among the missing?
- When I saw you at the grocery store, you were sharing a shopping cart with her.
- You left in the morning, you left without a word.
So, if you ever want something, you’ll call (call) and I’ll coming running to fight.- I tried again, I went last, another date was just not right.
- Smile like you’ve got nothing to prove.
- At 1 am she’s just waiting like a shadow
- I would climb any mountain, sail across the stormy seas if that’s what it takes me to show how much you mean to me.
- Last night we went to bed not talking ‘cause we’d already said too much
- I wanted so badly somebody other than me staring back at me but you were gone, gone, gone.
- Standing at the door of the Pink Flamingo crying in the rain, here was a kind of so-so love
- I’ve got a hunger twisting my stomach into knots that my tongue was tied off.
- Your crowbar swung through the restaurant, more like a pub
- I could hang about and burn my fingers
- Why does Saigon never sleep at night?
- I’ve got an aching in my bones, I’ve been exposed to what I want to see
- Operator, well could you help place this call?
It’s true! It’s true! The crown has made it clear: the climate must be perfect all the yearIf I ever write this letter, all the pages I could write but I don’t know where to send it- I was quiet as a mouse when I snuck into your house
- Loves not a savior when you’re messed up
- I am just a poor boy though my story’s seldom told
- Maybe I’m not ready for this and you know it
- Strange things are happening every day
Wanted single F, under 33.
To all my UK flisties, I hope you enjoyed your snow day! I certainly got a disproportionate amount of emails and Facebook posts from my friends in London and Edinburgh, all vastly amused by the chaos caused by a little bit of snow and thrilled to have a snow day off that they could actually enjoy (seriously, you do not what to know what kind of weather it takes to get a snow day off here in Canada). However, being a born Vancouverite and not a true winter-weather Canadian, I understand the UK perspective on this issue better than the majority of hardy Canadians so rather than mock, I will just express my extreme jealousy.
Clearly the illiterate masses are finally winning: Birmingham City Council has decided to remove apostrophes from road and street signs. Though, as most of the articles point out, this change comes in part because the masses have been illiterate for quite a while and current signs make rather free and easy with apostrophes. Still, it’s a little extreme, though is does provide me with my favourite headline of the week: Apostrofkatastrof i Birmingham
The New York Times published an article on Sunday about Michael Ignatieff, newly crowned leader of the Canadian Liberal Party (which is, as the article points out, Canada’s ‘natural ruling party’). Filled with gems such as “Now, he joked, he was stuck in the pedestrian life of a freshman civil servant – in Canada no less”, it was clearly not meant to win over any Canadian readers. The article is fawning though it does point out that “he has a number of other traits that probably wouldn’t play on an American stage.” Other articles make insulting, and frankly ridiculous, comparisons between Ignatieff and President Obama; while both men are clearly confident in the public eye, that is where the comparison ends. Obama, whatever his gifts may be, cannot be accused of being an intellectual figure while Ignatieff has little experience being anything else. Anyways, foreign readers might want to check this out as, in all likelihood, Iggy will be the PM within the next few years.
Rules:
> Pick your birth month (see the list at the end of post).
> Strike out anything that doesn't apply to you.
> Bold (or italicize) the five-ten that best apply to you.
> Copy to your own journal, with all twelve months under a lj-cut.
> Anyone who would like to do this, feel free!
FEBRUARY:
( Other months behind cut )
Top Five Non-Contemporary Novels
A particularly challenging list to make since non-contemporary novels make up the bulk of my reading (supplemented mostly by non-fiction).
- Long Summer’s Day (the first in R F Delderfield’s A Horseman Riding By trilogy)
I can never decide if this or The Green Gauntlet, the final book in the series, is my favourite. While these books may not be the most literate efforts, they are certainly compelling and have a very dear place in my heart as I was named after one of the main characters, Claire Craddock (nee Derwent) – I continually thank my mother for her good judgement, since my father’s second choice was Fleur, from his other favourite series The Forsyte Saga.
- Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman
I’ll admit now that my knowledge of medieval Welsh history was lacking before I started Sharon Kay Penman’s meticulously detailed novels. Falls the Shadow and The Reckoning complete this trilogy but, in my opinion, it is this first book that is the best and the one which I come back to reread time and time again.
- The Diary of a Provincial Lady by EM Delafield
“…Lady B amiably observes that I, at least, have nothing to complain of, as she always thinks Robert such a safe, respectable husband for any woman. Give her briefly to understand that Robert is in reality a compound of Don Juan, the Marquis de Sade, and Dr. Crippen, but that we do not care to let it be known locally.”
- Vanity Fair by William M. Thackeray
I’m sure some people would expect to see Jane Austen on this list but, while Emma will always rank in my top 10, nothing by Austen has the complexity to entertain quite so well as Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, famously “a novel without a hero”. It is a wonderful thing to not like a book’s main character, but to be enthralled by her nonetheless. Becky Sharp is, was, and shall probably always be one of the most fascinating and compelling characters in English literature.
- Leave it to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse (frankly, anything by Wodehouse though I am particularly fond of Psmith and his straightman, Comrade Jackson)
“…I forgot to mention, when asking you to marry me, that I can do card tricks.”
“Really?”
“And also a passable imitation of a cat calling to her young. Has this no weight with you? Think! These things come in very handy in the long winter evenings.”
And, because I am so fond of extra details, quotes as well! These may not be the most faithful adaptations (especially #5), but they're my favourites regardless of how faithful they are to their source material.
for
1. The Princess Bride, which, frankly, was perfect
Westley: I told you I would always come for you. Why didn't you wait for me?
Buttercup: Well... you were dead.
Westley: Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.
Buttercup: I will never doubt again.
Westley: There will never be a need.
2. Primary
Susan Stanton: Isn't that the thing experience teaches you? Not to get burned?
Henry Burton: Does anyone ever learn that?
Susan Stanton: Not the best people.
3. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Tomas: I must go.
Sabina: Don't you ever spend the night at the woman's place?
Tomas: Never!
Sabina: What about when the woman's at your place?
Tomas: I tell her I have insomnia... anything. Besides, I have a very narrow bed.
Sabina: Are you afraid of women, Doctor?
Tomas: Of course.
4. The Quiet Man
Michaleen Flynn: Is this a courting or a donnybrook? Have the good manners not to hit the man until he's your husband and entitled to hit you back.
5. Mary Poppins
The moment that (I kid you not) made me desperate as a four year old to go out and open a bank account (I wasn't allowed to open one until several months later, when I was five):
