Trapped by future plans
"It's only temporary" I tell myself, and resolve to look for work my next day off...
This job, it's day to day, the money is good, you can bank on it, but the hours, 13, 14 hour days, 3 to 5 days a week, they're killing me.
And the money's good only absolutely, the summing up, add up the hours spent at work and it's only fair, the split days off, lack of stat holidays, it soon becomes merely mediocre.
And there's the precariousness of the position - the fact that you can be fired, let go, at any time. Or perhaps, like so many that have gone before me, simply have enough and not go in again. In fact the big thing that keeps me going in is the fact that each day, each shift, could be my last...
But the day off comes and it's spent with kids and napping, patchwork recuperation for the coming week.
And there are the plans....
Time off in August. 3 weeks in a row. The last 2 days off in a row I had were at the beginning of January, August, it's only 3 months away....
Meanwhile summer approaches and I'm trapped in the restaurant, sunny days and cool spring evenings, outside the birds, sunsets, the ice has thawed enough on the Bow that I can begin again my hunt for arrowheads and Native artifacts, art projects beckon, my life is calling....
"3 months" I tell myself, I owe the children a decent vacation, it's been years...
But this vacation, it comes at the expense of seeing them during the week, and visits now become the cheapened "Take them for dinner and tell me about your week", not the parenting that I signed up for...
And I owe myself too, and life slips by...
I buy lottery tickets, but even if I won a million dollars still I would be broke, there are the innumerable claims upon my finances that could be made by relatives and ex's, the fair division of winnings would not see me take more than a fifth, a seventh, and a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars, not even a house....
I'm hanging on for the vacation, but after the vacation then what? The thought of returning to the restaurant kills me. And I'm hanging in for benefits as well, I'm in desperate need of a dentist and am loathe to spend several months income on restoring my smile to a marginal state. Benefits will reduce that expense. I don't want to lose my benefits....
The money I'm making, the money I'm saving, there are debts still to be paid, vacations to be taken, teeth to be fixed, vague plans to open a cafe, a business of my own, these sacrifices will not be without meaning...
And I'm like a gambler on a losing streak, throwing good money after bad, chasing my losses, trapped by future plans....
- Details
- Category: Miscellany
And another reminder from Shaw
And, in a move very similar to the Domain Registries of Canada scam, a bill from Shaw. Billing until June 4th, despite being told that I was disconnecting service on February 26th and having paid my 30 days notice, still they're sending me bills and hoping that I quietly pay them...
Systematic and premeditated incompetence.
Why wouldn't I? I mean really, it's a bill, don't people just pay their bills and shut-up? Even though for the past 2 months my service has been through Telus?
I don't.
SO I call, am put on hold, eventually choose the callback option and 10 minutes later an agent calls me and gives me my billing over the phone, I state my grievance and she puts me on hold. Crazy carnival music, jazz or ragtime, designed to placate me but strangely appropriate.
The agent picks up the phone and reassures me that it's being dealt with and she's sent off an email....
We'll see.
- Details
- Category: Who's Your ISP?
The Domain Registry of Canada
A helpful reminder from the Domain Registry of Canada that for only 10 times what I'm currently paying I can renew my domains with them. Every few months I get one, structured to look like a bill (with a bold disclaimer in the center of the page stating that, in fact, it's not a bill, formerly the disclaimer was in tiny print on the bottom of the page but enough people were confused, as was the intent, and obviously enough complained that they gave the disclaimer more prominence.).
Given they're abysmal rates and appalling marketing structure ("Hey, lets send out bogus invoices with lots of small print and try to get people to switch their domains to us...") I wonder how many suckers fall for it? Probably they're not targeting webmasters, rather individuals who've purchased a domain and might fail to notice the many irregularities in their helpful billing reminders and so inadvertently switch registrars.
But really, what a crummy way to do business.
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- Category: Rants
Lists of lists
Nothing gets done unless I've written it down.
And so I make lists. Day to day lists of things I should get done, like take out the garbage or doing laundry or posting to my blog.
The adding of the item to the list frequently takes longer than the execution of the item would itself.
There's something comforting about a list, a sort of remedial map for the stupid, the ensuring that things aren't forgotten or mislaid (as so often they are), the perverse satisfaction of scratching items off when finally they're completed...
It helps me to recognize when things are done.
I've lists for outstanding art and literary projects, blog posts, finances, bills, menial day to day tasks, and even, in a recent stroke of genius, lists of lists.
A book, then spreadsheets, of things that need to get done. No one is more organized than myself.
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- Category: Miscellany
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