Friday at last

And I shouldn't really be blogging, I should be packing. We are travelling down to the island this weekend. So although I have packed the food, there only being one crappy shop on said island, I also have to pack all the cleaning products. For to clean the house. Which has not been opened in six months.

There will be a lot of spiders I'm thinking.

And we'll have to rehook the water up.

And start a fire to wake up the spiders.

And Lady Moonbeam arrived with the full moon last night.

Never mind.

Later tonight we will be sitting on the deck looking out over the village and past it to the sea, and the moon will be huge and sitting directly in front of us, accompanied by all the stars.

And there might even be a whale or two!!

So it will be worth the packing and the four hour drive. And the cleaning.

I had an action-packed day yesterday. Firstly I had my immigration medical. I got all the paperwork ready and was waiting at the bus stop for the one bus that would bring me to the clinic when I realised I didn't have the form. Ran back to the apartment. Not there. Damn damn, left it at work. Called a taxi to drive me to work, wait for me to get forms, and drive me to the clinic. The taxi driver could sense my stress. Was I late for work? I explained. Turns out he was an Iranian Kurd, a refugee, who translated for other refugees at the clinic. The international brotherhood of Canadian immigrants kicked in and by the time he got me to the clinic (in time) I was no longer stressed and we had had a great chat about Kurdistan. I won the prize for passenger who knew most about Kurdistan.

Not a difficult prize to win in Nova Scotia, where the only place everyone (thinks they) know about is Scotland.

So I had my weight, height, sight, hearing, blood pressure, urinalysis and blood work done at the clinic, along with a lot of questions about my lifestyle that I didn't answer completely truthfully, but who does! Then it was off to the hospital for my chest x-ray. The whole thing was over in ninety minutes.

Out-patient queue chaos rules Nova Scotia, my ass!!

Then it was back to work for the rest of the day.

Sigh.

There is a growing contempt and lack of respect for staff in our workplace that is really starting to bug me. It stems from some recent appointments; a combination of the personalities involved and their interaction with other senior managers. To be truthful, I don't care who's in charge of the treehouse; so long as my contribution to the workplace is respected, and simple phrases like please and thank you and how is your day going remain the currency of the place.

The reason I don't care is because politics is a collaborative process and so there are no superstars (well, maybe the leader, but certainly not staff superstars). Unfortunately, self-indulgent macho bullshit appears to be gaining a foothold.

In the spirit of everything I've ever done in my life before and everything I will ever do in the future, and with the power invested in me by Lady Moonbeam (ie a grinding backache and consequent foul temper) I called it yesterday and told the ringleader he was to stop being a prick.

He didn't bat an eyelid before he said he was what he was and he wasn't going to change.

He is what he is all right. But I am not having it.

Nosirreebob.

It might be okay to pull this crap in the provincial backwaters of the world, but some of the rest of us have worked in places where this type of thing is not acceptable any more. And I for one am going to drag this workplace into the late twentieth century if it kills me.

In the full knowledge that it probably will kill me.

I just need a plan.

A plan, anyone?

In the absence of a plan as to how to put an end to it at the moment, though, I am going to invoke the spirits of the Stoics, as outlined in Farmer Brown's blog.

Cross-posting rocks, doesn't it!