Since I was the last to leave out of here, I shut everything all down and headed out with my bag packed. I read a bit on the train to Corona station and felt good heading towards the office in the nice breezy afternoon air. I got a nice bunch of empties and my old dialer in the corner facing the TV. We began CWF and I was doing alright with 4 sales and I managed to get $105 since break. Then I got some more empties and Super said be prepared to be moved. Since we were running a few tap dialers I figured my total against some of the other’s wasn’t that good enough to do taps so most likely I‘d be moved to the back 20. Super put me onto the taps section instead and I got no CC sales but managed to get $205 on the night. Not good but not great either. I was glad to get out of there and to the train where I read for a bit and got a seat to myself. Extra cars on the train because of the football game. I got crowded in with a bunch of happy Eskimo fans riding back to Clairview with me. I got in shortly around 10pm did some admin stuff and Anne made supper.

After the news I checked my 6/49 ticket and I got 1 number and maybe the bonus number for $5. I think. Nobody won the $4M so it gets carried over to Saturday for $9M. I’ll bring in my ticket to see if I did win but I doubt it.

Markus straightened up the Welcome photo block for me on my website. It looks a lot better. Thanks Markus! The staff at Geeklog are working on a better login security feature but who knows when that’ll be? it’s a minor annoyance.

Over there at SF Signal they are talking once more about ebook readers. These things are way to expensive for my liking. Nothing beets a good old paperback book but the Iphone apparently has an ebook reader app built in. I like the size of the Iphone reader app but if the Iphone display is anything like the display on my little Samsung cell phone it gives me about 10 seconds of light before it fades out. I don’t want to have to keep touching the screen every 10 seconds. There are a lot of SFF ebooks for about $9.99. If I get the Iphone and there’s a good chance I will, then ebooks might very well be in my immediate forecast. Nothings going to stop me from getting good old paperback books but I could see myself buying 2-3 ebooks/year. I like the idea of ebooks because I can read an ebook anywhere even to bed without bothering my wife……….1:45pm> Last December I had made a request to my branch manager (bm) to release my accrued vacation pay. This was to be my 2nd draw and usually equals out to be about $350 every 6 months. Not many people in my office have their vacation pay accrued and for good reasons. Hence what I’m currently going through with my company over my own vacation pay. Imagine my surprise last December 19th when HO said in an email to my bm saying that there was an overpayment and no vacation pay would be released. Huh? Overpayment? This is news to me. All my hours were correct over the past year or so prior to this email. I might have received the odd overpayment 2-3 times like $20 here or there but this basically makes up for bonus money I didn’t get like the odd $10/here or there. But not to the tune of $625! They screwed up on their end I don’t think they have the right to force me to clean up after them with my vacation pay. This was percolating in my head since then and as of a few weeks ago when I asked for my vacation pay again, Imagine my surprise when I had received only $34-say what? That’s when I took this initiative and called payroll at HO. They admonished me for calling them and seemed surprised that I was still active. Then there was the pull me into the office the day of my vacation pay request about to terminate me and giving me a big lecture with Super and his “deputy.” They had a termination form ready to sign for me. How convenient of them. I was going to ask if this had anything to do with my vacation pay, but I was on thin ice as it was. Tomorrow I get my paycheque and I’m expecting but not counting on receiving $50 in bonus money on my cheque. Quite often I get maybe half of that. I have a $20 a $25 plus a $5 amounts coming from 3 bonus money days. Now watch they’ll probably give me the $5 one. Right now all payroll is doing is stalling hoping I’ve got “other things to worry” about and forget about it. However this is not going to go away quietly. If HO does not pay this $625+ (because it grows with each week) then I’m going to take this to the next step and call Alberta Employment Standards/The labor board and file a complaint. What bugs me about this is payroll is so arrogant they won’t even give me an origin of explanation as to where the “over payment” came out from? What makes me full of confidence that they wont do this again in December? If I’m still employed there.

This leads me to believe that they are putting pressure on me in hopes I’ll quite. The last 2 nights I start off with CWF. I have $103 by 7pm. They could have put any number of people that were doing a lot better then me onto do CPA. Cathy beside me had CC sales and well over line hour yet Super pulls me and puts me in the back replacing Dave her son. This doesn’t make sense. The list for CPA is dwindled right down. Cathy has done CPA taps before. This is the 2nd night now that I was pulled off what I started. Something fishy is going on. I think what bm is trying to do is to demonstrate to me that “I’m not worth anything to the company at $210 one night and $205 last night.” I think that’s where this is leading. Most likely bm is going to call me into his office this afternoon and have another “talk” with me about how I’m not improving or growing or some such crap. I was one $25 sale away from line hour last night at 7pm as well. I can also understand Super didn't want to pull his best people doing well on a source that was working for them. The idea is they are trying to put pressure on me to either let me go and or hoping I’ll quit so payroll can no longer deal with this issue of fouling up my vacation pay. That’s what they’re trying to do. If this is the case, then I’ll ask if this has anything to do with payroll ripping me off my vacation pay. The saga continues

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim