quite a lot of things to go over this morning. Yesterday was busy. Anne had bought me some new sneakers. I sort of turned my nose up at them because they were so white looking. We got into a bit of a fight over that because I asked if they had them in a darker color. But I think Anne figured out what I meant. I tried them an and they fit great. Then she went and got me a couple of dress pants and gave me about $10 so I could use for odds and ends. That was actually Thursday afternoon. From Thursday afternoon/evening:

ok, I leave out of here just after 4pm Thursday afternoon and had a nice Indian summer ride into work. No hanger’s on, beautiful. I got into work and nothing. No bank report but I heard one of the staff say Rob will release it on tomorrow. No encounter with melody either, thank God. Ok, I got adjusted and settled in and had a coffee. Round 4 of CPA. I had a slow start and I knew I wasn’t going to get the same kind of totals that I had been getting earlier this week. No way, when I got to $300 the first hour, I felt better. I ended up with $800 when Will did his afternoon kick-off. That’s when Anne called and I hadn’t got my cheaque yet. Will brought them around about 8:30pm. $197. I got $45 from my stat pay and a $10 bonus in there as well. I had J the nice fellow from India sit beside me. He’s getting paid $11/hr but he has to work like a dog to get it. He’s having all kinds of trouble with immigration lately. But he told me that about these new kids that have been with us for about a month, Rob started them off at $10/hr. They’re lucky between all I think 5 of them they can write $1000/month little alone bank $1000/week. Rob’s starting new people off at $10 bucks an hour. So, I’ve got to get out of there after the way Xl treats me. So, when I get that $55 It’s going towards a security clearance and happy be the day when and if I get sc checked out and I can get the ideal guard job, If Rob can’t match my $12 hour ask then I’m done with Xl. Simple as that. I mean I’ve been with Xl for 7 years now. I Haven’t left and this is how they treat me?

I had a pretty good stint of rewriting the first scene this afternoon. I’m almost done about 70% of it. Scene 1 that is. I’ve tightened up all the language and cleaning up the parts in the story that won’t work or don’t seem very believable to work. I’ll be identifying those within the 2nd rewrite and making an attempt at fixing what works and what doesn’t. In the 3rd rewrite, I’ll be working the stimuli and response and the thematic elements in the overall story. In the 4th and finale rewrite is the polish, making sure everything flows evenly. And as wishy washy as this sounds I’m still going to work on that short story TS.

Yesterday Anne had let me sleep up until 1:40pm. Yikes. I slept an hour more then usual. And she bought me a nice pair of genes from Walmart plus extra socks and shorts, which I badly needed. I haven’t worn genes in years. I mentioned this too here when she bought the pants Thursday. Yesterday then I left out of here at my normal time, 4pm (I don’t see me keeping up with this routine much longer--sigh.) Here I was, new sneakers, genes feeling pretty good.

I got into work and Rob even posted the bank report: $1901 for the week, (well, for two weeks because of the Labor Day weekend) I was satisfied with that. I had a great week, writing some awesome totals, $2,200 Monday, $1700 Tuesday, $1500 Wednesday, $1078 Thursday and $920 bucks last week in credit cards alone (that’s unheard of for me or for anyone else for that matter). Last night however because of the declining numbers (to be expected) my performance dropped. Given an extra half hour I probably could have made over a grand but best I could do after a long week: $845. Still top total in the room. I made even $55 in bonuses. That is if Dawn P marked them all on the attendance sheet. I hope we do something other the CPA. Last night while Darryl was sitting beside me at kick-off I asked if we could do “St. Mikes” but Darryl informed me that we’re not doing it anymore due to the bad press we got in the paper about the old timer hockey game. He said when he was cleaning out Bart’s (then General manager) office sometime in March before Bart left us that he saw a letter that he (Darryl) read from St. Mikes that due to the bad press we had gotten from OTH and all, they pulled out of the non binding contract they had with Xl demanding their data base be stored on a DVD and sent back to them. More fall out from the bad press. Add that and Bart leaving something smells rotten.

Basically the press for oth wasn’t so bad in itself and us losing St. Mikes is old news most likely to the rest of Xl. The article being in our local daily paper The Edmonton journal, which has something like 100,000 circulation was read by a lot of people and on the front page and even made the news on CHED. I talked about this back in January. The article really raked Xl over the coals and was quite damaging. The article basically said how the oth event that was supposed to be a charity hockey game raised very little for the charity and most of it went to the pockets of Xl. The article went a bit deeper because of two employees of ours went and misrepresented the our company. The oth game was between the City Police hockey team “The faded blues.” and the old timer NHL legends themselves. Enough to make a team. Even Glen Anderson became involved among others. The idea was that if a customer couldn’t afford or make it out to the hockey game (March 17th just this last spring) they could sponsor kids and the underprivileged to come out and attend the game on their behalf. Well there were people like Steve and Paul that made themselves out to be Police Officers and said that when “Mrs. Jones” went and sponsored the kids out to the game $40 the kids from X charity would go to the game. The charity (AKA Mrs. Jones) called up a Journal staff writer to investigate and that’s when everything came tumbling down. The event itself raised almost $200,000 just about every year. For those that attend the game, it’s a real fan favorite. So the article went on to say that the 2 call center agents that misrepresented the company (Xl) were released from the company (except for Paul) The beneficiary of the event got about $20,000 and the rest went to expenses. The players got an (undisclosed) honorarium reported not enough to pay their own monthly mortgage. But it costs a lot of money to pull off an event like this. There’s insurance for the players, the costs for Rexall place for where the game itself was to be held and the rest went to the charity. there is even a disclaimer in small print that indicates how much of each ticket goes to the charity. It’s just the way the Journal staffer went out of his way it seemed to vilify Xl. We lost a lot of our donor/client base out of that article and Xl’s call center agents (me) have to indicate whom they are calling on behalf of etc. So I have to say my name is bla bla bla, calling from Xl for the old timer hockey game. We now have to use this disclaimer for every campaign we do. I heard it’s just for oth. So the article wasn’t favorable to the company I work for. After the oth game we went onto our old ways with out the disclaimer. I give no indication to anyone that I’m a Cop or fireman or anything in the body of any of my calls. All my calls are being monitored for quality assurance. (were supposed to sya that as well.)

Other things: I’ve been noticing the price of oil lately. Market analysts have been hinting at over the last year that consumers should watch for $80/barrel oil. My Spidey senses went up when I noticed how oil is still in the $70/barrel range in September. Something I’ve never seen before. The Thursday the price of oil did indeed go up to just over $80/barrel. Still measured in US dollars. This is really significant especially here in Alberta as oil and real estate are the main movers and shakers of our local economy.

Also over the past couple of months I’ve been talking about labor unrest here in the City and the Capital region. Now it seems that the carpenters and millwrights in the City have walked off the job this week to protest their right to strike. Something they don’t have that other trade unions do. My father was a pipe fitter and a Union man for almost all his adult life. Life was tough for our family in the 1960’s growing up when dad was often on strike. I’ve felt the hardship families go under when this happens. Strikes are bad business. Labor unrest makes investors nervous. What these large protests are doing is slowing the wheels of our economy down. There is still a lot of activity though going on right now. Just on my way into work alone there are 4 projects on the go and many more around the City. These projects are still going strong even though labor unrest is poised for a strike. The thing is this round, the strike is illegal. Minister for Labor iris Evens could order the trades back to work. Right now the war drums are pounding in the distance. This is not good news.

I’ve got mixed feelings about Unions. On one hand I can appreciate what these Union workers are going through. Everyone deserves a decent wage. However, not at the expense of the rest of us. Union workers are out of touch with reality. They say they want the right to strike. Most of them do. I’m against striking not because of them getting more money but because of the hardship these workers put their families through. I know, I went through it. When a union worker goes on strike they get strike pay. Strike pay is no greater then receiving unemployment insurance. It’s very little. Nobody wins when a strike is voted for. For what a few lousy dollars an hour more your going to put your family through hardship? Obviously it’s the married union worker that is in favor of strike. They have the other spouse to fall back on. This is Alberta people. We’re boom to bust here. Sure your enjoying good times right now but who’s to say what will happen to our economy 6-10 months from now? The bottom can fall out at anytime. Just ask anyone that has lived through the first energy boom here in Alberta in the early 1980’s. Union reply to that might be something like: “That was over 20 years ago. Things are different now.” Really? I don’t think so. When a Province or Country has to rely on a non renewable resource like oil for economic growth it’s not that unreasonable to see the unstable ground this economy is built upon. Will these Unions go on an illegal strike? Hard to say, I hope that reasonable heads will prevail. The last thing I want to see is a bunch if union people on strike working at my place of employment filing up the office with immigrants and strikers. “Jim 7 year steady employee, your not at line hour this hour but Bob Union guy 2 months on the job sitting beside you is, so we’re going to have to send you home for the 2nd half.”

Speaking of, which because we have a labor shortage here in Alberta according to J were supposed to get a bunch of 11 new people from India to work in our office for the as yet to be installed Sunday shift pretty soon. These people are on temporary work visas and will be getting paid $11/hr more then me at $10! It took me 7 years to get to $10/hr. J said he has a degree in pharmacy and was told by his Immigration Lawyer ( IW, ducking his calls) that he could supply his pharmacy Trade here. I mean how gullible are these people? If I have a Psychiatry degree here in Canada and if I set up shop in the States, I’d be sued for malpractice because I’m not trained in Laws rules and regulations much less in State curriculum. Unbelievable J’s layer would even say that J would be able to practice here. He was told, to take a job at Xl and then after a while he could pick up his practice. Yeah after he took the necessary 2-5 year course. So his IW lured him to work at Xl for $11/hr. He lived in Kitchener On before moving out here. He’s amazed at the rental increases and the fact that there is no paid healthcare like everywhere else in Canada. Once this cold Alberta weather hits most of these people will be hoping their visas will expire sooner then later.

Speaking about my job, today represents the 7th anniversary of my employment with Xl. It was 7 years ago on that Friday afternoon Rob hired me on to work with Mark and his crew. I went in on a Saturday morning for 3 days of training. This is when I lived across the street from the Kasper Place Legion. I even recall my first day on the job catching the bus just outside of the IGA (Soby’s) that Saturday morning. I had seen Anne a couple of times but not to really get interested. It wasn’t until I at with her on the job that I did because Paul was moving in ion her. Anne and I went out on a date after work to Tony Roma’s. I had just moved into the apartment on 96th Ave and 101st St. up there by the traffic circle. One thing lead to another and she invited me to move in with her. I moved in with her that Nov 2000 and a month after that my mother died and Anne and I got married.

So this morning in about an hour I’m going to take off out of here for work. First time I put a full week in, in a long time. Anyway, I really want to put some extra hours in this week because its back to lodge night this week. I want to have at least 25.5 hours in. With my bonus money in next week, I want to get a new short sleeve dress shirt and a clip on tie for lodge. Anne last night after work went to Walmart and got me a really nice gene jacket. The one with the felt collar but it was a size to small for me. It fit okay but I’d have liked it a little larger so after work she’s going to go up and exchange it for me. I like it. But after work, I’m going to take those reward points and get a couple of books and maybe a little treat at the City center food court. Then It’s home have a bit of a nap and tonight I’m going to go ro work on F and have some fun with that all night.

Anyway that’s all for now

e. Jim