A Saturday off

I was already to head into work this morning when Anne came in and said, “because of the weather, your staying home. Shut that off and come into bed.” I’ve got to do what the boss tells me. Since we’re not doing the OTH thing this week kind of gives me an out. Besides, I laid down the Law to Anne, that I will go into the office Sunday. It’s Time and a half on Sunday. Also, it will make me look good for missing today. Besides, I have 2 books waiting for me at Audrey’s on the way in so going in for 4 hours from 2-6 (I assume) I can get my books, collect my Time and a half and make up for missing today. I feel good about it.

The other thing about missing today was that it was just to damn cold. Right now it’s -27C and a -39C wind chill. This morning when I needed to go out it was -31C and wind chill about -40C. Sure I don’t have far to walk from behind Tim’s there to the office but just the same my wife (the real boss) said she’d be to worried for me this morning. God love her. The open parkade behind First Edmonton Place where I walk back and forth every day is usually somewhat active at 9:30am on a Saturday morning. If I get into an accident it can take anywhere from 3-12 hours for a human body to freeze to death in this kind of weather. That scenario would depend on say me falling on the ice and if I broke a hip and couldn’t move yelling for help with no one around. I could get a stroke or even a heart attack and be dead within the hour. Sure the chances of that happening are remote, which is why I’m going in for Sunday to make up for missing today.

After all that, I’m home and after I did the cbi thing about 7:30am I went strait into bed. Rob will see I missed Saturday but “Oh he was here Sunday, I can live with that.”

The other thing was this morning I wanted to take my camera out to see how well it would handle in this kind of extreme weather. I had a good Saturday morning sleep. I’m still a bit tired but feeling ok. So much for the camera.

In about 45 minutes it’s the big game: Edmonton at Calgary. The grudge match. After this we play The Wild Tuesday.

Other then that, not much else is going on for tonight. Once the game is over, I’m right back into my work on H. I want to tackle that this evening.

Anne decided after she fed the bird feeder out here she would go to the food Truck. It’s over there close to where she works. She called first at the flee market to confirm the truck was there and in this weather it was. What she spends $40 at Superstore costs her $20 at the Truck.

I had a pretty good night last night other then hearing some bad news. Firstly, another call center here in Edmonton closed it’s doors citing staffing issues. The TD bank call center in the TD building is moving everything “off shore.” Translation: India. India has the worlds 2nd largest labor force yet something like 30% of the population is under the poverty line. The TD bank call center was an in bound call center, same thing like Dell. TD has 140 employees, which will be laid off in July. I had a chat about this with Moe my night room manager. He said that this is all part of the current trend of the global equalization process. Here in Canada and I think in the US, we are trying to stop this by having all financial records remain at home because of identity theft. Identity theft is a huge issue here. Robert J Sawyer of course has his award winning short story on the same topic titled "Identity theft." I don’t know what the current status of this move to keep financial records here is. Moe knows more about this then I do. This bothers me because my wife and I work in a call center. Dell moved out of Edmonton after our city gave them rent free use of the building and other perks. Dell is even closing all of it’s some 200 kiosks in the US as well. So that’s 4 call centers closing here in the City so far this year. Consumer, Dell, TD bank and there was another one “Lazaire” or something like that and it’s only February. Are we next?

The other bit of bad news is that Rob short changed me on my hours. He did this deliberately omitting 9 hours from my cheque. Greg made a photo copy of my cheque for me and placed it on Rob’s desk. I was glad to get the heck out of the office on a Southside train got comfortable and read from my book. As cold as it was I had a brief wait for my bus and I was home to do some “accounting” and I watched Smackdown. Anne came home and got my cheque to go to the bank and bought us Pizza 73. Too much sauce. I ate half of it and wanted the rest for my lunch today.

Sorry for any typos. I’m in a rush.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

e. Jim