Employment Review

This morning I ran late for the first time. I overslept and didn’t wake up until about an hour after I usually arrive at work. I didn’t get to work until about 9:30am. Consequently, my coffee is tepid at best, I’m un-showered, I’m still tired, and I have the frazzled nerves that rushing gives me.
I received two email messages when I finally opened my inbox. Both related to my employment review, which was apparently scheduled for 9:00am this morning, and to which I was not invited. My boss thinks this is hilarious. Consequently, my review is being rescheduled, likely for Monday, although possibly this afternoon. That’s just great.
Yesterday’s interview seemed to go fairly well. I spoke to various people over the course of one and one half hours: answering various questions, discussing my experiences, trying to explain how I went from an English diploma to an engineering degree, and asking questions about the work. I was stumped on one rather important seeming question: why do I want to work for a consulting company in lieu of a contracting company? (paraphrasing). I had no idea. My response: stammered generalities, silence, more stammering, and finally an admittance that I hadn’t thought about it. It seems important because I realized I would probably prefer to work at a contracting company (note: consulting company does designs and drawings and the like, spending much of their time in front of a computer, whereas a contracting company is the one who actually builds the stuff). I couldn’t say that, at the moment, I didn’t care because I just want a job as an EIT, which just wouldn’t be appropriate.
So now I’m still supposedly doing technical writing alone in the office with the over-exuberant air conditioner without a contract and, although the aforementioned interview might turn into something, I’m back to applying to every job or company that seems vaguely appropriate to my education…

Contract

After too much consideration, I went and mentioned to my boss that my contract ends tomorrow. He responded with a confused stare. Apparently he had not just forgotten when my contract was ending, but had entirely forgotten that I even had a contract.
He said he’d get someone to put the paper work through to make me permanent.
I asked if we shouldn’t have a meeting about it.
He said yeah and that he’d try to organize something for tomorrow or maybe the next day (that is, the day after my contract expires).
I probably should have been more assertive and pushed for having a meeting today or tomorrow, but I didn’t. This sucks because the day after my contract ends is already starting to look rather busy, what with accompanying an elderly person to a dentist appointment at the hospital in the morning, possibly going to work sans contract for the day, and then I probably have a job interview in the afternoon.
The job interview is important. It’s for the sort of position I’m actually looking for, one where I can register as an Engineer-in-Training (EIT), and learn stuff, and have a mentor, and do actual engineering work.
So now I’m going to have to explain that I no longer want to work here to a boss that seems to assume my continued employment here is already a done deal, all while somehow attempting not to burn any bridges behind me.
This is all very troubling to me.

Petty Grumbling

I have three and one half working days left on my contract. I have no idea what happens when it ends. I haven’t yet talked to the boss about it, possibly because he has been away all week. I suspect that it is assumed I’ll just continue working, although I had thought there was supposed to be some sort of meeting about it; the type of thing where we discuss how I’ve been doing, if they want me to stay on, and if I want to stay on. I would have thought such a discussion would have happened by now.
I should stay at the job. That’s what people tell me anyway. That seems logically, what with jobs been somewhat hard to come by right now, especially for people with my lack of experience. The fact that I don’t like the job just isn’t taken into account in that assessment. I suppose there are lots of reasons why I don’t like the job – I work alone in over air-conditioned office with no windows; the entire day is spent sitting starring at a computer screen; I’m not trained for this type of work and I don’t think I’m particularly good at it; the rest of the company is in another city to which I have absolutely no interest in relocating; the pay is alright, but not enough for me to move out of my parents house and still pay off my debts in a timely manner; and my first two and one half months with the company where spent doing basically nothing, which for some reason required me spending the first two weeks in the aforementioned undesirable city – but none of them seem to matter that much; I just don’t like it.
I guess the facts that the job negates the last six years of my education and that I’m learning nothing (quite the opposite actually) don’t help either.
I should definitely mention to somebody here that I am currently looking for a different (by which I mean: more appropriate, or better) job. I wouldn’t be surprised if, having mentioned that, I would simply be told that I might as well just leave now, based on the departure of the person I was sharing an office with for a short time, who left on not what could be considered ‘good’ terms.
Although only a minor concern at this point, it looks like this job won’t break my record for longest term of employment, which still stands at a whole four months… I’m twenty eight and I’ve never held a job for more than four months, how pathetic is that? I think I need to go back to school.

I feel... old

Last night I couldn’t fall asleep thanks to the blaring satellite radio that could be heard throughout the neighbourhood. I tried to ignore it; I tried closing my window; I even tried humming along, but as midnight quickly approached my patience ended and I decided to call in a noise complaint. I’ve never called in a noise complaint before. I had to look up the phone number on the internet.
As the neighbourhood is on a curved hill that forms something of a natural amphitheatre, localizing the noise from my window was not possible (and the guy on the balcony across the street didn’t seem to be having any luck either), so as I waited on hold on the non-emergency line I threw on some clothes and wandered, barefoot, outside.
As I opened the door my call was answered and I explained my plight. While giving what information I had to the lady on the other end of the line I wandered ‘round to the front of the house and espied a small, dark blue, ford pickup truck with some asshole sitting in the driver seat flipping through the radio stations. I related this information to the phone and then mentioned that I was going to go back inside as the guy was fingering me. Instead, I went around to the side of the house and out the other gate to try and get some more details for the nice lady on the other end of the line. Alas, the prescription of my glasses has not been updated for quite some time and thus I couldn’t make out the license plate.
The phone call finished, I went back inside and cavalierly took some photos of the truck from an upstairs window, ensuring that the license plate was legible in at least one of the pictures.

The music stopped soon after, likely when the ass realized that I had just reported him. I considered relaying this development to the authorities, but decided that some dude in a truck out front of the house was likely cause enough to call in a report in and of itself, the loud music notwithstanding (citizens are supposed to report suspicious behaviour after all).
I don’t know if the police ever came, because I went to bed having specifically requested that they don’t try and come to the house (thus waking both myself and my folks). The truck was gone when I checked in the morning.
Ultimately, I’m confident that I acted correctly. I don’t want weird old jerks sitting in vehicles out in front of the house at night, especially if they force me to try and fall asleep listening to soft rock and eighties hits from the likes of Snow Patrol, Bruce Springsteen, and many others. Not that that music is necessarily bad, but the neighbourhood definitely does not have the acoustic properties required for agreeable listening. The echo delay separates the high and low end to such an extent that they sound like wholly isolated music sources, and the reverb imparts the vocals with an airy quality more appropriate to new age elevator music. Basically, the music sounded like crap.

The whole making a noise complaint somehow managed to make me feel old without making me feel any more mature. Although a justified grievance, it still seemed almost petty. Granted, I am pretty petty, so I imagine not feeling petty would feel similar to going to work without remembering to wear pants.

– Side game: A ‘prize’ for the funniest thing analogous to forgetting to wear pants?

(Please note: ‘Prize’ does not refer to an actual prize. The ‘prize’ has no monetary value. The ‘prize’ does not constitute any tangible item, real or imagined. It is likely that there will be no recognition whatsoever given to the ‘prize’ winner. Thank you for playing.)

That does imply that a younger person not only wouldn’t call in a noise complaint, but wouldn’t actually be annoyed by the noise. That seems somewhat unlikely. I think noise is generally annoying regardless of age. So maybe actually phoning in the complaint is actually more mature. Actually, age and maturity probably have nothing to do with it. It probably has more association with patience and stress levels (mine being little and high, respectively). Also possibly hearing; I have rather good hearing, when I’m listening anyway.

Puzzle

I’m good at puzzles. Puzzles like the ones that ask you to remove the metal ring, or put the blocks together to form whatever shape, or even the standard put the pieces back together to form a picture puzzles, although I always figured those more based on experimentation and doggedness than any particular talent.

My folks used to buy me new puzzles for Christmas and birthdays, but gave up a few years ago when it took me forty-five minutes to solve a ladder ring style puzzle that was supposed to be wicked difficult. The company told my mom to call them if I managed to solve it in less than three hours. They apologized and offered a refund.

Most recently I found the Scorpion’s Sting, which is rated ‘Level 10 – Mind Boggling’ and took me a little under three minutes to solve. Although I already know how such puzzles work. I do still enjoy solving them though, as it’s something of a self confidence aggrandizer, despite the fact that I have yet to find any practical function for this skill.

I have, as yet, not solved Rubik’s cube. I am still working on it and have recently made some significant advances. I will solve it someday.

This photo depicts a puzzle I was given some time ago. It consists of sixty four wooden cubes in rows of one to four connected with an elastic of some sort than runs through their middles, making a serpentine coil-like thing over a meter long. It is supposed to twist together into a four by four by four block cube. It is not the kind of puzzle that can be solved on logical principals and, failing the blind luck of tentation, requires significant three dimensional spatial reasoning. It vexes me.