Went on a "sit-along"

My new friend Andrea is a dispatcher for the police. Tonight she allowed me to come on a "sit-along" with her (it is like a "ride-along" but I was just sitting beside her at the computer).

It was really interesting. Logan and many of the other cops I know where working.
Andrea and I spent the first three hours as dispatcher for Districts 3 & 7 (Logan works in 7).
It was a fairly slow night. There were some interesting things that happened - but nothing terribly exciting or over the top. It was crazy to see how much one person is in charge of watching. The level of multi-tasking certainly impressed me. And I feel like I am a good multi-tasker.

I think that I would have been really lost if I wasn't the wife of a cop. I spent the time learning 10 codes while Logan was memorizing, I understand some of the lingo, I have heard the stories, I understand the intentions and "plan" and have heard radio chatter before. Much of it went speeding past me. There were three screens of information and a number of open windows on each screen. Some things didn't need to be explained - but much of it did, mostly because I missed it the first time.

But as the time passed I could keep up a little more. We kept tabs on calls and cars. It was fun to see it happen. Especially since I don't plan on going on a ride along. This was the closest I will get to watching him work. We followed a call that Logan's car and another car we on for a long time. We followed their progress tried to help.

It was also interesting to get messages from Logan and some of the other fellows I know, including Andrea's fiance.

For the last three hours we moved over to 911 call taking. It was very different. It was a slow night and there really wasn't an interesting call. But it was interesting to see. I was especially interested in how much extra work the call takers are expected to do - besides answering the call. They do (should do) extra digging to find additional details for the responding unit. Mostly officer safety things. It makes me feel safer knowing that there are people that try to discover things before Logan has to - on the spot.

I don't know if I am prepared to make a career change to this particular career. But we shall see.

There's no business like Show business

There are times that I step back and take a look at what I do for a living. It can be pretty damn cool. Many people ask "Do you love it?". I would have to say, honestly, no. Do I think that it is exciting and neat, yes. I am doing something that people only dream of, well, normal people don't dream about my job exactly-but of working in show business in general.



For example, today I walked across an empty stage to a meeting. While I was walking I took in the grandeur of the 770 seats looking at me. A moment that most people will never experience.
I get to say the weirdest sentences through the course of the day that make total sense to everyone in the room. "After taping the floor I will move the moose head so that the bed frame doesn't roll over it, if you can preset David's purse and Andrew's skirt." And the people around you are doing and saying things that don't really make sense, until of course they do. "Dave Trimble, have you set your purse?" "Maybe Stevie is farting on an audience member and blowing it on them" "As long as it is good bad, not bad bad, can we set the bad?" "Elk head, deer head, mule head, mule deer head, animal head, ungulate head? Trophy head? Does it have to have a name?" "she's a going! Not yet she's not! Then make a better sound effect". "you mean...your's saying...you...so you...so / And you say you have worked in Stratford?"

We have a good time for the most part. But this show has been a bit stressful. It was suppose to be a small show. There is usually a Stage Manager, Assistant Stage Manager, and Apprentice Stage Manager. There have been plenty of shows at Theatre Calgary that I have done as the only person back stage. I wasn't worried. And knew that this must be small if they are bumping up the other assistant to Stage Manager for the first time. But it grew out of control. In general you have three weeks of rehearsal, the first week you read through the play and talk about it, then you get up on your feet and start adding the movement to the words, once you have done each scene once you add props, after going through them a couple of times you can start to think about wardrobe. But as a general rule you don't have wardrobe in the room, just rehearsal pieces. (If someone is wearing something they don't usually wear you want them to get used to it.) This show has been nothing like that. There wasn't the usually layering. Before we had begun blocking the movement we were talking about costume changes. It has been wild.

And that is my excuse for not writing. I have been working 11 hour days with a half hour travel time on each side (assuming I made it for the bus that comes every half hour).

Route 301

Now that we live out in the sticks I cannot walk to my downtown theatre jobs any more. I get to take the bus. Good 'ole reliable public transportation. This really isn't a big deal. Especially since bus fare is $2.50 each direction and parking is $27 a day.

We happen to live right next to a major bus route. It is called the BRT, what is stands for I don't know, but it is the express bus to downtown. It takes me 25 min on the bus and 20 in a car. It stops almost right out side our little circle. It comes around every five minutes in peak times, every 10 minutes on the times surrounding peak times and every 15-30 minutes in the middle of the day and evening.

Yesterday was my first real example of how bad this could be. Yesterday was a holiday. So the buses were running on holiday hours. I called to see if parking was on holiday rates and it was not. That meant there were only buses every half hour, and about 10 minutes sooner than I am used to. So I hurried my butt out the door to make it for this earlier bus. I had 6ish minutes to walk about a minute and a half. As I stepped onto the main road from our circle I see the bus at the stop. So I run. (I forgot to mention that I have a tray full of cupcakes that I was volunteered to bring for the birthday of our Scrooge.) The bus waits for me. I hop on and it is already full. I guess lots of people took the holidays as Monday and we are all trying to fit on one bus that is usually one every five minutes. I put my cupcakes on the "my bag is too big" holder and stood. The bus was like a sauna. I had my coat off before the next stop. To make matters worse the driver had a very heavy foot, both on the gas and the brakes. We lurched out in the sauna for about 15 minutes before I had to start calculating my options.
-sit down, then I won't be able to see out the front window
-open a window, I am so far away from one I wouldn't feel it if I opened it
-get off at the next stop and wait for the next, half an hour later I would be late
-just breathe through it and hope for the best.

When we were rolling over the Center St Bridge I almost thought I couldn't make it those last couple blocks. As we pulled to a stop I grabbed my stuff and was off the bus so fast. I sat on the wet, granite steps of the building we stop in front for 10 minutes before the feeling of throwing up had passed.

I felt sick for the rest of the day. Then I had to get on the bus to get home. In comparison, the bus ride was much more pleasant. Except that I still felt that my stomach was upside down from the first ride. Seabands and all I still felt like I might just chuck on the good ole 301.

Unemployed Again

Today was my last day at the Home Depot. Yipee. That place was sucking the life out of me...and gave me the flu (currently) and bronchitis when I first started there, not to mention the other particulate I have inhaled. Oh I can only imagine what that place has done to my immune and respiratory systems.

I start at Theatre Calgary for Christmas Carol on Thursday!

Planning a big Halloween party for the 31st. Very excited. Have a spider theme for decorations and all of the food on the menu has creepy names. Should be fun.

And a cute picture to close. My boys napping.

Names other than your own

Many people have nickname. Most people in fact. Many people go by shortened version of their own name or words that seem to have no connection what so ever.

Some people call me Stace. Not many. I find it a very personal jump to drop that 'y'. Sometimes I mark the progression of a friendship with that leap. And sometimes it comes from the wrong person way to soon. For example, if we work together and speak one or twice a month and you jump to Stace when you want to ask a favour - not cool. If you just met me, it is Stacey. If I don't like you, keep it to my given name please.

There are some people that I remember when they dropped the y. Mr Taylor from elementary school. He was the cool teacher, everyone's friend. I was in Gr. 6 and thinking about running for student council. He called me to his office to encourage me to do so and then as I was leaving he said "Good luck Stac." Mr. VanD in high school was very similar. I was at that school the moment it opened and apart of the student council my whole stay. He was another one of those teachers that really cared. He has certainly affected my life in a huge way. We got along from the beginning. He called me Stace and it created a bond that helped me through high school.

There are other nick names that seem to come out of no where.

There is a gentleman at work who is french and calls everyone baby. Not is a gross kind of way. With his accent it doesn't even sound like baby but his own little word for friend. Guys, girls, doesn't matter "Ok baby". Sometimes he even goes so far as to call me baby girl because he thinks I look so much younger than I am. Today he asked if my husband calls me baby. I said "he calls me lots of things, baby, babe and weirder things like Stac (with a hard c)."

For a very long time now Logan has called me Stac, and then it turned into Stax. This has morphed into many variations of those.

I have two other weird nicknames that are very person specific. My mom calls me Stacer and a friend from elementary school that I speak to only on our birthdays (hers is the day after mine - at the same hospital in the same year). She calls me Slater - always has.

I suppose I shouldn't have told this very kind gentleman this. Now he calls me Stac.

Democratic Responsibility

I hope you all got out there and voted on Tuesday. Though it seemed to be a choice of the lesser of the evils-But isn't it always.

I did my duty in spades. I worked the election. A Registration Officer. I am the person that put you on the voter list if you were not. I did this job many years ago in a federal election while still in Regina. I remember filling out less than 25 forms (I didn't finish one package). I was told that Calgary Nose Hill, my riding, is the third fasting growing constituency in Canada. In anticipation of this they had two Registration Officers hired. We each had four packages of forms. We nearly finished all of them. Busy.

But way to go Canada. Lowest voter turn out yet. I guess most people felt that it was a $300-million dollar game of musical chairs. And what did we accomplish. Some say nothing. The result is the same as it was three days ago. Who am I to say. I just work here.

New Low

The Home Depot hit a new low this morning. They called us for "morning rally", which up to this point was just a staff meeting in the morning. Today, the worst happened. After all of the news and sales were announced they decided we were going to start doing cheers. I don't think so. If there was ever any incentive to hide in my aisle and claim to be helping a customer if approached later. There was clapping in rhythm and "drive sales" woo hoo. It was terrible.

Car, carpet and a free storm door

I said that I would update on our new car. We love it.

The screen door/storm door on our back door is bent, dirty, looks like crap and has an every growing hole in the screen that the puppy likes to stick his head through. While Janet was staying with us we checked out the selection at the Home Depot. I was told if I could hold out until Oct I would get a good deal. I watched "the best deals of the year" on doors go by as I held out hope that there would be follow through if I could wait until Oct. It finally paid off to work at the Home Depot. There was an open box door (that was missing one piece, the frame from one side of the door) that is regular $300. They are not allowed to sell this door if it is open and instead of throwing it in the garbage sold it to us for $50. That is right $50.

To sweeten the deal we had found three plumbing pieces (total ~$20) that we did not end up using from our very first trip to Home Depot after taking possession of the house. On the way into the store we returned the items to a gift card. I picked up a towel bar and ring that I had set aside (regular $45 and $35 marked down to $10) and then picked up the door. At the till we gave the gift card for the $73.00 total. She then asked for $2.53. I don't know where the mistake was but I am not complaining.

The door is all glass for a very clean look. But when you want to open the screen you pull the window down from the top and the screen unrolls down. It is very neat. The screen is all hidden away. Giving an uncluttered and clean look!
The day after the door I was walking toward the break room for my last 15 of the day and almost walked into a pile of carpet rolls with green markdown tags on them. "What do we have here?" $20-$50 rolls of carpet. I called Logan to measure the basement and then come into the store to pick me up after work. I grabbed a few hold stickers and put two on hold until after my shift. We ended up getting a further markdown. We got a roll of "Bow River Berber" 12'x14'6" and a roll 12'x 4'. It covers nearly the entire room. We are short about a foot between the stairs and the bathroom, the little nook there. I couldn't be happier with a $40 purchase!
We installed it ourselves. It looks pretty good.
The photo doesn't show where the seams are. The wall behind the chair there is a seam straight across. And then perpendicular to that seam from the middle of the door on the left. $40!

"I love my job, I love my job, I love my job..."

I have been using this as my mantra over the past couple days. Over the past couple of days I have been doing major manual labour. I love my job, I love my job. I spent six hours hauling pallets full of fully assembled cabinets from a trailer in receiving to the other end of the store in search of ONE cabinet for a customer. Six hours and 15 pallets. I found what I was looking for three minutes after my shift was over. 15 pallets, over a hundred cabinets, trouble twice for where I was stashing them all over the store and one very unhappy Stacey. The next day I spent four hours moving the cabinets from 5 rows in 6 bays into 2 bays. Dirtier and sweatier than the day before. The next day I came in to find another worker doing the same thing I did two days before - pulling pallets looking for one cabinet for a customer. For an hour I kept busy to avoid helping - but felt sorry for the buggar. So... I joined in, grabbed a pallet jack and pulled another ten pallets from the trailer. Yesterday, I had help, and took down two shelves (the actual wood and steel) from every bay and filled the shelves with the cabinets I had pulled out.

I had today off (just one day) and am back to work for five. I intend to work very little to make up for the last week of over working.

Summer Job

Well...I work at the Home Depot. Yeah me. Let's go back and look at some of the other jobs I have had to get me through summers.

Westjet

Shoppers

Both of these jobs have lead to posts like:

Ode to Shoppers
I hate you for the pants I wear
the grumpy people's nasty stares.
I hate you for the people in need
who don't see the sign, or just don't read.
The shit that happens everyday,
"I did this wrong, I don't wanna pay".
The drumming fingers and rolling eyes,
these people and things I truly despise.
A summer job that makes me say,
I hate you in each and every way.

Ripples become waves
Because there is no one else around I had to leave a note.
To Whom It May Concern,I will require/be taking a personal/sick day tomorrow, Aug 30.I will not being coming in for my 8:30 - 5:00 shift.Stacey.

If I see another hand in the air
Today was the end of the second of four weeks of training for WestJet, and I couldn't be more frustrated. The class moves so slowly that I might kill someone - I'm actually not sure how I have not done so yet. The class style is "wait for everyone to be on the same page". There are some people out there that I am unsure how they get to work every morning

I already can tell that this one is going to be no better.

I have been hired for Kitchen and Bath, and will be trained to be a kitchen designer. Hopefully, once I don't have to rely so heavily on other people it will be better. I am not sure I can make it through this one. I will be keeping my eyes open.

Ah the boredom

Sometimes I have a very exciting job. I work in show business, and they do say there is no business like it. And they are right. The ups and downs are like no other. When people ask what I do they often respond with "how exciting". Well today...is not.

Remember sitting in a class like social studies and the teacher would talk on and on about the same thing for a really long time. Well, the beginning of the rehearsal process is a bit like that. We spent two days sitting at a table talking about the play. (The first I sat through with much enjoyment, the second day I spent most of my time doing other work elsewhere). Today is day 4. The actors in one scene (a 4 minute 46 second scene) are sitting on the set talking about everthing, their intentions, backgrounds, why they think the other person said that, and how it relates to the other scenes. It is a lot like class - excpet that you know there will never be a test and that the information in front of you is being spoken strickly for that person's benefit.

I have been excused from the hall by the stage manager to type out a piece of paperwork that is not pressing in the least. The note she passed to me was "you look bored. Wanna get out of here? I have busy work..."

I have been paged. Back to bordeom.

No more

Ahhh... last day.

No more Shoppers Drug Mart

I am not gonna lie, I am not gonna miss it.

Ripples become Waves

As per my previous post, Ode to Shoppers Drug Mart , I am not really enjoying my summer job. It is a place that makes me very angry. The photo lab is my little world, there is no one else but me that works in there. I am a bit of an anal person, things have to be my way when ever they can. People mess up my stuff, leave me notes like "the photo machine is broken" - no detail, information or who wrote the note. It really makes me angry. Monday was probably the worst day I have had at Shoppers yet. Tuesday was not really that much better. Wednesday I was scheduled with one other person - again. How many times have you gone into a store and only seen one cashier and one other person that is doing something else and you think "you could be over here helping". Well I am that other person. I have other stuff to do, like my job. When there is just the two of us for 8 hours I get very angry and frustrated.

So Wednesday I decided that I would be taking a personal day on Thursday. Because there is no one else around I had to leave a note.
To Whom It May Concern,
I will require/be taking a personal/sick day tomorrow, Aug 30.
I will not being coming in for my 8:30 - 5:00 shift.
Stacey.

I did this because I hate this place and I knew that by me not coming in it would really put the scheduling lady/supervisor in a rough place (she was getting her nails done in the afternoon). I wanted to leave a message because talking about it doesn't seem to do much. I did mean to cause ripples and have the big guys of the store ask questions.

When I came in this morning there were signs all over my lab saying that the photo lab would be closed until further notice. That it would take up to five days to receive your prints. It seems that she told everyone that I had quit. The other cashier that was supposed to be on knew that I was taking the day (I warned her) and she tried to tell her that I wasn't quitting. But she told everyone that I had. When I came in we had a chat about why I needed the day. I told her everything that I felt was necessary.

It seems that my attempt to make ripples made waves.

An Ode to Shoppers Drug Mart

I hate you for the pants I wear
the grumpy people's nasty stares.
I hate you for the people in need
who don't see the sign, or just don't read.
The shit that happens everyday,
"I did this wrong, I don't wanna pay".
The drumming fingers and rolling eyes,
these people and things I truly despise.
A summer job that makes me say,
I hate you in each and every way.

What's in a name?

For a long time now I have been talking and thinking about trying my hand at wedding videography. After the mess our guy made of our wedding I thought that anyone can do better, especially me. I really enjoy video editing. I have been doing so for years. Way before computer editing softwear I would have two VCRs hooked up together with the video camera and create videos for different events. I have finally put a deadline before myself. I want to have myself ready for the next batch of Bridal Shows in January.

Step 1 is a name. I need a catchy, great name. I like simple. I don't like anything like The Wedding Shooter. Examples of names I like, Red Leaf Studios, our wedding photographer. It is simple and clean and leads itself to a logo. I like Day One, a videography company in the city. It links to weddings and it being the first day of the rest of your life etc.

Before you read my ideas think. Don't read ahead. I don't want to influence your thoughts.

The first thing that came to my mind was Slogan. A name that they ole Do It With Class kids used to call us - Stacey & Logan. But that name doesn't go anywhere. Logan came up with Glass Imagery. It is winning so far. I like it. Ties to my old name and a nice sound.

Tell me what you think. All ideas are great ideas!

And the winner is...

I have taken the job as Photo Lab Technician at Shoppers Drug Mart. Not the most glamorous job I can imagine. But I don't care. It is 3 blocks away and will mostly be 9-5. As with most jobs they couldn't guarantee that all shifts would be 9-5 because they want me to be able to cover cashier when needed, no more than twice a week. I start on Tuesday.