The Community Brothel

Employment Review

2009-08-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-30T13:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-30T11:00:00.000-07:00

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

2009-01-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

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.

Araneae

2008-12-29T23:45:00.001-08:00

Spiders creep me out. Little kids get scared of monsters in the closet and space aliens watching them while these eight-legged evolutionary malignancies crawl into their mouths while they sleep.

At my place in Victoria there were spiders. I dealt with them as I always do: if I caught any inside I would kill it, even if it meant spending an hour moving furniture and hunting around with a spray can of bug killer and then leaving for a few hours with windows open so the place could air out. The ones outside I usually let live, because that particular species didn’t seem interested in coming inside and was thus not of particular anxiety to me. There were of course a few exceptions, most notably the bastard who insisted on perpetually rebuilding his web directly across the path to the gate I used to exit the yard. It required that, on both entering and exiting the premises, I wave a stick around in front of me, lest I should walk into its sticky ass-silk and spend the next few hours slapping myself for every slight nerve twinge.

Right outside the door of my basement flat were a few red rose bushes. I never kept track of their schedule, but at whatever the prescribed time of year is they would bloom into a collection of good sized flowers. Occasionally, one of the outdoor spiders would find its way onto them and crawl around for a while, doing whatever it is that spiders do when they aren’t harvesting insects or multiplying. As spiders have always proven to be incessantly difficult to photograph clearly – when they’re still alive anyway – this afforded me an opportunity to capture an image of one with a modicum of clarity, although it did still take several shots to find a respectable one.

Deerweed

2008-12-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

Beyond the house whose basement I occupied for three years in Victoria is a small green space. Formerly a green way, there are now fences on both sides that limit the movement of the deer that frequent the area. Abutting the back of the house’s yard and along the far edge of the space are blackberry bushes. The side directly across from the yard is the back of a small grocery store that seems to make most of its profits through selling candy to kids from the nearby elementary school. The last edge is a public pathway.

The green space is really just a small grass field. Occasionally somebody cut the grass, but most of the time it was just overgrown with weeds and, at the right time of year, oodles of dandelions.

As the gate into the house’s yard and, ultimately, my front door, faced directly onto the pathway, I walked said pathway almost ever single day (except that one day, when there was too much snow). I’d often stop and grab a handful of berries to chew on, even though classically I’m not a big fan of berries. It was also common for me to run into deer hanging around the space, chewing the grass, and trying to break into peoples’ gardens.

I remember one particular occasion when I found myself in the midst of some sort of deer feud. Six deer of various sizes were standing around glaring at each other, occasionally one would take a run at one of the others, although the never seemed to have any major collisions. Interesting was how utterly unconcerned they were with my presence, in other words: they just ignored me, to the point that I had to leave lest one of them should accidently run into me, which was a valid concern because at least two of the six definitely outweighed me and there were antlers involved. Personally, I have no interest in being gored by a deer; it just sounds painful and embarrassing.

Rhetoric Slate

2008-12-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

I don’t know when the distinction between a photograph and something else is crossed. This was a pencil drawing that was photographed and then cropped and coloured and adjusted into whatever it is now. I suppose it could be considered art, but I certainly can’t make that assessment. Generally, I consider something to be art if someone else tells me that it’s art, or maybe if it’s on a wall or a stage. Even then I usually have my doubts, or maybe that’s just me questioning if it’s good art.

This was just a doodle likely doodled while I should have been paying attention to something important, like a lecture probably. The paper it was doodled on was actually closer to cardboard, specifically, the kind of cardboard they put at the back of a Hilroy notebook. Maybe it isn’t cardboard, maybe it’s just really heavy paper. I’m not sure if there’s a difference. I’m fairly sure that it doesn’t matter.

I was probably in class when I doodled the doodle. I had probably previously finished the crossword puzzle and was therefore bored. I’ve never been able to draw anything realistic looking, so, instead of trying, I scratch odd shapes and cobble them together and round off the corners; sometimes throwing in something that looks like a face, or just an eye, or a hand, maybe even a cross, or occasionally a quasi-random word that at the time might seem to be almost meaningful but not really.

Cirrus

2008-11-29T16:46:00.001-08:00

On a cool November day, sometimes the wind the night before clears the clouds and delays the rain and leaves a cloud-whipped blue sky. The sun tracking a low angle off south creates cold shadows and bright-warm clearings. The wind still gets cold down by the water.

The lamps in the parking lot feature odd decagonal tops; ten little panes of probably not glass in a ring containing whatever bulb setup the lamp uses.

The whole neighbourhood is bereft of parking, except for the big lot between the Planetarium and the music conservatory; almost unrestricted and totally, it sits half empty. I guess it’s not the season to be ambling about in the park next to the water.

Nearby are the city archives that we went to one time. Under the guise of some unimportant research, we were quickly distracted. Browsing old newspaper clippings to find out how some place came to its name: in the caption of the photo from an article about the middle-aged housewife and mother who killed herself there, in the very spot we often used as a fire pit. The very spot we were using as a fire pit on the fiftieth anniversary of her death, telling our friends the story while we sat in its vague warmth.

It’s been years since I’ve been to the planetarium. From the quasi-educational field trips in elementary school, to being the human sacrifices lying on the stage at the laser shows in my late teens and early twenties. The smoke from the smoke machine never did smell like piña colada anyway.

Aphotic Brew

2008-11-28T14:42:00.000-08:00

I primarily drink two beverages: water and coffee. I like coffee. If I go too long without having any the level of caffeine in my system drops too low and I get a headache. Consequently, if I sleep too long, I awake with a headache. These headaches are most easily remedied with a combination of a pain killer and one or two large mugs of coffee.

Despite mixed reports, recent studies have shown that coffee, taken in the correct quantity, can have various health benefits. Specifically, it lowers the risk of diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, cavities, and colon cancer, among others. According to the Annals of Internal Medicine, drinking six or more cups a day (about 1.5L) lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes by 54% in men and 29% in women*.

Some of the recent studies have shown an 80% drop in the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease in people who drink coffee regularly. Still others have shown a 25% drop in the risk of colon cancer, and an 80% drop in liver cirrhosis risk.

Perhaps most impressive is the assertion by Tomas DePaulis, PhD, that regular consumption of large amounts of coffee can offset the damage caused by smoking and heavy drinking. He also says that the coffee bean has one of the highest levels of antioxidants of all berries (because coffee beans are berries, and now I can no longer claim to not like berries).

Now, I should point out somewhere here that these data don’t apply to coffee based beverages, like lattes, and the benefits are likely significantly decreased if you drink your coffee any way other than black.

So, there are two possible conclusions that I can derive from this: either coffee is actually very healthy, or I’ve found only the positive data to justify my rampant coffee addiction. At any rate, here are some links in case you want to verify my facts on your own.

Desolation

2008-11-19T21:55:00.001-08:00

Near the room where I subsisted was a park the size of a single block with a bust of General Jose De San Martin at one end and an odd rock formation dedicated to battered women at the other. Sometimes through the snow drifts I could see the tops of what would be benches and garbage cans. There was a picnic table that stayed briefly dug out before the snow swallowed it back up.

The General faced west toward a bus stop on Elgin Street. Being the nearest main street, it was cluttered with vaguely trendy little coffee shops next to overpriced restaurants, cheesy sports bars, seedy nightclubs, dirty little grocery stores, and the occasional flower shop or magazine stop or dollar store.

Across Elgin from the park was a community center, or elementary school or something of that sort, with an outdoor ice rink out back that I saw people playing on once or twice.

Crossing the park, something I did frequently, care had to be taken not to step in the wrong place, because apparently the dog walkers who loitered there think that snow absolves them of the need to clean up after their dogs. I would tend to disagree.

Cut through the middle of the park was a row of lamps, lighting what I assumed to be a path hidden by the drifts. They were more ornate than they needed to be, but at night, with the help of the cold and snow, they gave the park a gothic air such that the place had a modicum of charm to lift it past the mundane.