Finally, maybe a normal workday...maybe?

[Eleonore Beaudoin]

Finally.

No job offer to answer today -none in my ebox anyway yesterday-, no interviews, no
presentation letters to write within a short deadline, while work piles up.

I think in that regard it will be the first day in two whole months...

Was cmpletely stressed for phone interview, not by interview itself at all, but by the mad mad
race to finish forms for clearance in a record time, to then find a way for potential employer
to get it before end of day -which meant before interview while files were brought to me to
do urgently, told that someoen called to ask for it, but they could not remember who among
'those'...I then knew I had to do 'those' before end of day as well, while one text remained
from a batch of alst week I had hoped to get out. Longest one of that batch, but last one...

Just can not put it words how much pressure and how not only constant it has been, but from
all fronts, and consantly interrupted by a new presentation letter to send before this or that
hour in answer to this or that automated system match that never can be a match anyway since I
am stuck in the wrong classification group...

Still have one thing to do, to catch up and fialize he bunch of 'unusual' deadline,s i.e.
those that come with working but that are not a aprt of my daily tasks: fill four repiorts for
fur classes done in a record time on Friday, staying late for those mandatory on-line classes
because I never had one second to do them ever sicne they asked, weeks and weeks ago 0-with
many reminders.

Heck, dg kept havign person sent to close office messages askign me to fill in my absence
reports, and I never had a minute for that. Tnesions too because they never knew me ever
before, and do not see tha regular production get out: normally people are given all the time
needed to do their presentation letters and resumes writing and sending and follow-ups, and
work is put aside no problem. So it is with everyoen else that pretty much have nothign to do,
except wait for their result for their ONE application tot heir own job, where say 12 are
called for ...12 positions, so unless some boss hates your face roally, their tension is just
not knowng which of the twleve often same identical positions at same identical office, i.e.
new organization they will get.

But I deal with all the legal deadlines to be respected, having to get texts out on time
despite the constant interruptions and tight deadlines for those replies and applications or
declining when really way too far from my experience, like working as an HR person with 'five
recent yearsof experience with (prgrams acrnyms I do not even have a clue about, probably
coudl learn and do, but sicne they ask for recent experience as an essentail
qualification...eh. Most are liek that, which then is a waste of time, given the wrong
classification I am stuck under...

Others are not professionals, they are clerks or admin staff, etc.
In my case, a lifetime has been spent in my field, but also in studying for it, including a
huge investment of dozens of thousands of dolalrs, not to count eyars without income save
student loans and staving myself to near death at tiems to get there. All that to be screwed
by this classification thing noen fo them coudl grasp, not even HR sicne the HR we are under
deal with ...admin and clerks, and have not a clue what a writer/editor eats in winter.
This here writer-editor is startign to wonder herself whats he will eat even in summer,
mpft:), at this rate.

People trying to finalize verbal offer are splitting themself thin: while they do all they can
to go by the rules and by the book, they are now having to deal with the fact that my
clearance was not renewed by a previous boss who was an admin all his life and never had a
clue what a clearance was like, never had one, and had not a clue of course what a
writer-editor did in a day, let alone a profession and a lifetime.

I have reasons to think that I might have been an imposed choice on the ones who made the
verbal offer, a way for the HR new temp staff and WFA people to force me into some hole and rid
of a hot
potato if you will, using the rules of the process to make it so: it is said that people will
be offered up to two eyars of training to do different tasks. But never was it meant to be to
destroy a profession to make someoen an office admin support clerk...Yet that is what I -and
they- are stuck with,t he imapct not beign on HR, but on ME and on the oens that will have to
''train me'' to do charts and take notes during meetings -like I did at times to pay my
studies or on summer jobs decades ago. The two years training was meant to try and better
people's career, not to lower it to the ground.:( Sigh....

But at least, I take it that that new shop goes by the rules which woul already be a huge change.
They seem overloaded and really needing a person there, and have to go through a bunch more
paperwork to make it happen, sicne they ahve tow ait for a person to finish her transfer
pepers before hiring me, and since they now have to pprovide a rationale for my clearance,
sicne it is eeded there and sicne it shoudl have been renewed but was not in the past.
Normally in the process they ask that people are put in jobs where they already have what is
required, but in this isntance, being stuck and wanting to rid of the problem, maybe to avoid
a grievance they woudl fear, or just because they want to close that office on the double and
need people all placed for it to happen, go figure, they decided I ahd all requirements and
yet woudl be trained, and are now stuck witht heir own word and I suspect imposed choice, this
time usign the rules, to have the potential division take me.

One of the things that interested me in that offer IS getting back my clearance.
At my level (of competence and experience I mean), one can not get much anywhere without at
least the secret level, which I had most times in my life, often a higher clearance.
It can give aceess to contracts if all hell breaks loose for oen thing, and can also give access
to workign with people that know what a professional is, and with other professionals, if all
offices of course depend on the work of clerks and admin support as well.
Some admin support staff have knowledge in their job for that employer that would not be of
value to another employer, btu that is unvaluable for their actual employer, knowing the ins
and outs of every aspect of their area or field. But they are moer and more rare, those being
sent too often to retire earlier than they ever had wanted or planned...

For now, gotta clean cat litter boxes, left yesterday mornign without, and usually do them
each morning. Gotta clear washroom too and clean big hamster cage to try and see if can elave
the lil wounded bird in there to have room to move...Will depend on hwo it seems to be
feeling. It was way too hot at times yesterday, fightign a fever probably...
It kept askign me for a cajole, a kiss, and had lil sounds that I coudl hardly say were happy
or plaintive, poor baby....Missingits mom ever so bad....
May it make it....Tday might be hard for it...if left here alone....depressing and sad mayeb
for it...Option is bringing him to work,leavign it in a box i=on passenger seat and going to
see it shortly at breaks and lunch time.......But it then is left in the dark, without
daylight, inn underground parking......lost and alone, too hot or too cold, depending on the
moment and how it feels...

Better get going.

Got s many emails at work to attend, so much to do....
But at least there is hope I might get something done...
if there is the stress that I might be called anytime to sign a letter givign me two weeks
notice tiem to close my actual office, sort all ebox (just that woudl take months
normally!@!!), all filing cabinets (did most but much I still need to work with, and had to
wait...), etc. etc.


Also have to remember to all parking company that as usual wrote a warnign sayign I owe tem
htree months when I owe them NOTHING. They do this every single moth the lord brings....
They keep losing track of checks, often havign cashed them and claiming they never got them (sic).
If we worked like them, we woudl be fired. Sigh.

The worst is I could swear it is done because they see the checks are from Quebec, and they
are...in BC. No language to checks, nothing that woudol cause them any problem, checks like
everyoen else in this country. Same money too, doh:)

That I mail them registered and tracked never changed a thing. They still claimed not to have
them when I woudl prove to them they did and theyalready cashed them, and that I had the name
fo the person in bc that it was delivered to, with time and all.

Oh well. Nough procrastination, got much to do before leaving for work still.

Will be months before all stress is back to usual levels, with havign to move workplace,
havign to find ways to park without handing my full paycheck to parking attendants:(, and
waitign on a list for indoors parking due to sensitivity to ehat and cold and to alergies in
city transport (bus).

May this day be an almost normal one:)