Thursday, January 22, 2009

What Really Grinds My Gears - 11

You know what really grinds my gears - today, everyone.

I walk to the bus stop every morning. I get there at the same time every day and I'm generally the first person there. I wait at the lights like a good pedestrian and despite the fact that there may not be any traffic, I still wait for the pleasant little walking man to give me the thumbs up on crossing the street.

This morning I'm halfway across the street when I start to hear cars from three out of four directions blaring their horns. Naturally I turn to that fourth direction to see a speeding car coming right for me. I guess this person is colour blind, because normally red means STOP. I take two quick steps back and let the speeding car pass. That's right, I was two steps from being hit by a car. Now let's suppose for a minute that the rest of the cars didn't see this guy coming. That would have led to a 3 car collision at least and I would have been hit by at least one of the spinning vehicles. So yes, I'm thankful for horns today and for all of those other cars and their drivers to be paying attention. To you, the colour-blind man, take a walk.

So now I'm waiting peacefully at the bus stop. The same old lady (and by old, I mean probably just in her 40s, but she pretends to be senile) who waits at the bus every day with me but generally gets to the stop 2 minutes before the bus comes, decides to stand in front of me.

So I'm waiting for the bus, but you get to come and stand in front of me? What happened to the concept of a line? Or how about the concept of 'first come, first serve'? The bus arrives and she gets on first. That really grinds my gears. I feel like I should push her in front of the bus so she doesn't have this opportunity.
There is one friggen seat available on the bus and now this old lady gets it. So she gets on the bus, takes what should rightfully be my seat and I get to stand for all 30 minutes of the ride. Whatever. When the bus arrives at the final destination I feel like holding back the masses and allowing the old lady to get off the bus first. Because really, she needs to be first. Again, this lady isn't old in age, she's old in misery. Just one big miserable pain in my thigh.

Now I always complain about the subway folk, so really you can just read my past rants to get the full gist. But please, can someone enlighten me? What exactly is the point of the escalator dash? You know when people have to be the first off the damn train, they push everyone out of their way and run as fast as they can to the escalator. They stop, wait a few seconds as they debate which of the moving stairs they'd like to stand on, they make their first step and then just let the escalator do the work. What's the point? Why are you in such a rush to get to the escalator, only to stand there? If you're in such a damn panic, you should be running up those steps two at a time, but you don't. I don't understand you. You know who you are. You take a good look in the mirror and ask yourself where the fire is.

So after an hour and a half of commuting with these bogus people I am now safely at work. I'd like to take a minute here to explain why exactly I go through this process every day. This is not a career. This is no where near my dream job. So why do I torment myself on a daily basis? Simple. My husband is an immigrant. Actually, he can't even be classified as an immigrant, he's still just a 'visitor'. He has lived here since 2006, and we've been married for over two years.

For anyone that says to get a "green card" or "residency" just get married, they're lying. We submitted the official paperwork a long time ago and the government just makes excuses as to why their job isn't done.

First, it was because the Doctor's exam had expired. Well, if it didn't take you a year to look at it in the first place, it would still be valid.

Second, the criminal background check is missing. Well, we submitted that according to the web site's request, but sure I'll put in for another one. It only costs an extra $20 and 3 months of my time. The UK police say 40 days, but I guess with the time difference this is 3 months because THAT'S HOW LONG IT TOOK THEM TO SEND US THE PAPERWORK.

So as per your request Mr. Government, here is everything you asked for and then some. So what are your excuses now? Well, there is a backlog. That's not really my fault, I gave you everything you needed a year and a half ago, if you had looked at it then, nothing would have been "expired" or "missing" and there would be no backlog. They tell us to call back 'next month' for an update on the progress.

When we call back the next month, we hear the same nonsense. After a few months of these phone calls we now are getting a different excuse. "The process has changed due to the election and political changes, please call back in two months."

WHAT DOES THE ELECTION HAVE TO DO WITH ME? Honestly, this is like saying well the price of gas has increased since your last purchase so you owe me $#.## based on the difference of what it is now and what you paid BEFORE. Ridiculous. Why are we paying so much money to the government when they aren't doing anything?

I was invited to go to the TTC meeting. This is where they discuss changes that are to be made to make the world better. Right. This is where you tell me you're increasing the fare by yet another quarter and decreasing the service. Less trains, less buses, and meaner staff. Excellent.

Oh right, the reason why I come to work. Due to the fact that my husband is just a 'visitor' he is not legally allowed to work in Canada. I have agreed to 'sponsor' him for three years, but apparently this three years starts the day his residency is approved. So for the last 2+ years that he's lived here he has been my responsibility. Well he's my husband, this is not an issue. The issue is that in order to sponsor him I have to prove that I have job stability. This means that I have to work in this hell-hole for the next three years and 2 months (plus the actual time it takes the government to approve the residency). That's only if he's approved. Suppose he's rejected. That means we have waited all this time, and put all of this money into a process that failed. We'd be homeless and kicked out of the country. Lovely, isn't it?

Now let's move on to the reason I started this stupid rant. I'm going to list all the reasons why my job sucks. No, correction, I am listing the reasons why it's sucks TODAY, why it sucks in general would just take too long.

I am in a department that consists of 4 people and a manager. The manager is just a figurehead. One of the four people is considered to be a team lead. A team lead is someone who delegates all work, yells at everyone, and sits around on his ass all day. We will just call this person "TL" for the rest of the post. Another one of the four people is a man. A man is similar to the TL except there is less delegating involved and more excuses. These excuses usually come in the form of "I'm too busy doing my own work to help anyone else with theirs." We have yet to see the results of said work. He also claims it takes him 8 hours to do a job that I do in 1 hour. This is not an exaggeration.

The other two on the team are myself and one other woman. We pick up the slack and take the brunt of the arguments. We do the work because if there are ever cutbacks, we know we'd be the first to go. We try not to give them any reasons. Strangely enough, if TL and man ever leave (and they have been known to take weeks off at a time) the jobs still get done. But if us women take off, well chaos ensues. You think, that this would show our value, but alas, it does not. Us women have to coordinate our schedules because we're not allowed to be on vacation at the same time. Crazy? Indeed.

We are to train each other on our daily tasks so that if the roof collapses or something drastic, at least the job will still get done. So while we're training each other we still have to keep up with our daily tasks. This is quite stressful as you can imagine, because there is not enough hours in the day to do all these things, but man is still too busy to help.

So the person who trained me in the first place is no longer in the department. She is still with the company. Today, I made the mistake of asking her for an email list. Well, TL yells at woman and writes an email to everyone saying that we are not supposed to go outside the 'team' for help. So no one here has the answers, do it incorrectly, all hell breaks loose and we get in trouble. Ask for help to avoid this, and we get in trouble.

I got yelled at for not filing work that wasn't done by me. I got yelled at for not cleaning out someone ELSE's desk. Apparently, it's my job to search every filing cabinet in the building, including those that belong to others, for piles of paper. Then I'm supposed to sort this paper by date. PS, I am NOT a secretary. I'm NOT an administrative assistant. And I am most certainly NOT your bitch.

Life is grand. I'm too tired to continue writing so let's end on this. I'm not sexist, or ageist. Ignorance and laziness come in all shapes and sizes... and that's what really grinds my gears.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Look on the bright side. You don't have to come home to crappy neighbours and miserable downstair dwellers as well.

Oh, wait a minute... ;-)

Jac Star said...

Someone was shot at Osgoode Station today. That's one block north of where I am right now.

And you know what? I'm not even surprised