This is Liz

I need a fix cause I'm going down

Sun Aug 19, 07:11 PM

Proper entry shall we? Ok, but where to start.

My Uncle Bernie passed away a month ago, and I had been up just before that to see him and be with my mom and aunt. I went up for the funeral and am still kind of wiped from it all. Jamie came in from BC and had a super long bus ride. We were supposed to be taking the midnight bus from Edmonton to Fort Mac together but his bus was 3 hours late. 3 hours! So I got into LLB at 3:30 or something, crashed at 4:30 after yaking with my mom, got up at 7 and then headed into Edmonton to pick Jamie up. His bus ended up getting in at around 3 so he had to hang around downtown Edmonton for 6 hours. I got into E-town near 10 and we headed back up. The funeral started at 2pm and we didnt get back into LLB until 1:30. I was not near as put together as I was hoping to be. The next day the 2 of us left to go back home at 9:30am. My day on the bus was only 8 hours, Jamies was closer to 14. Ugh having no car really sucks sometimes.

Shirley as a result of all of this is close to a zombie. Well so says my mom. My aunts have been out from Ontario, helping and such, and her kids are really concerned about the money situation, but most of all of dealing with this is left with my mom. And she's not doing so well herself. She just sent me an email this weekend telling me all this stuff and that she's happy she can tell me this. That she tried to keep a lot of it to herself when my parent got divorced. I'm happy she can tell me, but this is like real adult stuff and I dont really know what to do about it. She's having money problems, and I can send her some to help out but its seems such a cop out.

Work has been super busy. I got a promotion. Well sort of, its become official. I am now Lead Dispatcher and got a raise to go with the title. Really it means, amongst the 6 of us in the pit, while we all report to Diana, they come to me with the day-to-day stuff. And I work pretty closely with Diana about those folks. Its pretty cool and a little intimidating. Diana keeps saying stuff like I'll be running meetings, doing preformance reviews etc. I know there is going to be some pushback from, well Erin specifically and I am not sure how to handle it.

So with this, amongst the Bernie/Shirley/Mom stuff, I've been trying to train someone new at work, we have lost 2 dispatchers, hired 2 new ones (who have since been terminated as they were AWOL) and now the last person I was trying to train has just quit on Friday. Did I mention how crap Ashley was? OMG she drove me nuts. It was like talking to a brick wall with her. She was all bluster & talk in meetings (I know how to do it already, I dont need notes) but get her to do the actual work and she would sit there, slouched in her chair, twirling her hair. It drove me crazy because I have worked in her position. She had too much down time, not enough work time. DROVE ME NUTS! Our service girl, Sherry, has a chest infection (and has had a low grade fever for 3 weeks) and has been out on doctors orders. So I have been doing 3 jobs at once. Mine, hers and Ashleys.

The bad side is at this point, until Sherry's doctors will let her back, its just me and Erin. AHH! The good side is I know Sherry will be back. She will take the time to get better and will be back, and she is a great worker. I dont have to worry about her at all, she's pretty self-sufficiant. And as much as it sucks missing a body I will at least have the oportunity to train someone new, someone who hopefully will work out and wont sit twirling her hair all day.

Diana has given me a work laptop (which I am writing on now) so that I can do some of my own actual job from home. Since June, I have been putting in at least an hour and a half everyday of overtime. With new people, new systems etc there just isnt enough time in a work day to get it all done. And now that I am effectively doing Ashley's job, mine gets pushed to the wayside. So the laptop and VPN access will at least let me stay up to date with my own tasks and
not spend so much time in the office.

That has been my life lately. I am tired from working so hard, but I still really like my job. A lot of people have quit (namely Jackie, Tania, Erin M) and it looks like one more is probably going (Rhonda), but truth be told, as much as I miss hanging out with them, this summer has been a bit of a bummer around them. They really didnt like what they were doing or how things were happening at work. I felt like saying I liked my job was blasphemy. I miss them, but I dont, ya know? New blood will be good I think. A chance to start new.

I am really looking forward to the September long weekend. Rhonda and Tania are part of a Roller Derby league in the city and are part of the Tattoo convention that weekend. I want to go out and see them and support them in that. And it would be cool if Heather could make it down, havent seem those guys in ages!

Otherwise, I have no life. Reading on the bus, a few episodes of Heroes (so going to buy the DVD when it comes out on the 28th), an ep of BB8 when I can and thats it! But no complaints. For how crap it is, the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter.

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