I’ve been pounding away at the keyboard all day, dear reader, and I’m feeling comfortably frazzled. And I’m not even ashamed of what I accomplished today. The portfolio has started to co-operate and it’s doing some very nice things. One more piece and she’s ready for prime-time. I’ll have to juggle a few things tomorrow, some social engagements and such, so I’ll be keeping it short and sweet tonight. I do hope you understand. Not that I’d have anything else for you if you didn’t though. :)

Two things managed to break my bubble of steely concentration today: the weather was starkly beautiful again —

(Although this evening does smell an awful lot like rain. Kind of a mild, mildewy, wet dog smell.)

— and I’m rather pleased about this second one, I finally managed to capture my arch-nemesis! At least from behind. At least something.

Crafty crafty “organization” named Ornge Lift. Not Orange, Ornge. As in, Evl.They fly their aircraft around Ontario taking critically ill people to hospitals. Basically flying paramedics (so they get to do whatever they want).

They also airlift to hospitals downtown using these orange helicopters and landing on the roofs of places like St. Michael’s. St. Mike’s happens to be quite close to where I live, a few blocks maybe, and apparently the approach path is directly over my flat.

In the winter I hardly notice. But with the weather lately I’ve been keeping the windows open and “THUP THUP THUP THUP THUP THUP THUP THUP THUp THup Thup thup up p p p”. It’s an experience. Sometimes, I swear, that thing hovers over my street just for shits and giggles. Like, aren’t there people that need saving or something?

Haven’t caught sight of the pilot yet, but one day … one day …

Well, it’s happened. I’m getting antsy.

I was watching Breakfast Television this morning to see if Dina Pugliese would entice me into a passionate new day (and for the weather report). She didn’t; she’s just so dry (and it’s supposed to start raining tomorrow).  The over-boiled supposed-to-be-soft-boiled egg was digesting in my stomach, as was the thick, crunchy, crusty hunk of Vienna Rye (I buy it for a reason!) I was up early again and was feeling the need to get inspired. Portfolio’s a waitin’

Dina obviously wouldn’t do it for me so I decided to kill a few birds with one stone: head outside for a walk, get some inspiration, and take a few photos of it. I firmly believe that to solve a problem it’s best to walk away from it; just the excuse I needed.

My first thought when I hit Yonge-Dundas Square was to make the portfolio like a building. Each floor would house a project I’d worked on that you could fly into via the magic of Adobe Flash. The Woo building (I’m sure it has another name — but is it as catchy?), seemed like a suitable candidate. Lots of windows and spinny, twirly, moving things. Plus, I remember the Woo website being somewhat slick – the location must’ve worked for them.

Except that it’s been done, like, a million and one times already.  Every agency and creative somethingorother showcase their loft, or their building, or some nearby space on their web pages.

Okay, how about something like a construction site then?

I could have the shovels, umm, shoveling content. And the dump trucks … dumping … stuff. Hmmm.

That idea had two unfortunate connotations. First, the connection between trucks, dumping, and the intertubes. Not sure if that’s the image I want to give off. Second, this thing:

Ultra-cheese since it first appeared in a Netscape window. I haven’t used Netscape since I don’t even know when.

So that pretty much put an end to the construction idea.

For some reason, fire trucks were racing along Yonge Street the whole morning. I didn’t see a single emergency (no smoke or stretchers), but they did spark off an idea.

Maybe I’d been over thinking it. Maybe I could just use one complex, rotating, 3D object in the middle of a pristine white web page. The object could be something like a fire truck, the Swiss Army knife of vehicles. Or a Swiss Army knife. I imagined it would be kind fun to poke and prod this thing on screen, having each prodable doohickey act as an activator to some portfolio piece that would pop up beside it.

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To be perfectly honest, there’s nothing I enjoy more than having someone tell me how to operate my own equipment. I mean, a suggestion is one thing. That I don’t mind at all. It doesn’t make any presumptions. But when that short, older man (wearing a Yankees cap!) told me, “you can’t shoot directly into the sun, son”, I could scarcely contain my rage.

I took him to the nearby corner of Yonge-Dundas Square and I showed him a few things.

“You see, sucker”, I thought to myself. “There’s enough ambient light on the sidewalk”, now out-loud, “to illuminate subjects from the front. They’re kind of shadowy, but I think that’s kinda cool. All thanks to this iContrast thingie.”

“Ah!”, he marvelled. “What camera is this? I have an EOS Rebel XSi at home. Is that a Rebel too?”

“No”, I replied, “it’s a … umm …”. I’d forgotten the name. Flipped it over. “Oh, yeah, a Powershot … SX 10 … IS. Fixed lens (can’t stick another lens on there) … but what a lens!”

I went on to extole the virtues of the camera and its lens while flipping through the other photos.

“So, it has all the same software?”

What an odd question.

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It’s been a helluva few days around here, dear reader. I’ve been cleaning the flat, apologizing to Ollie, and getting some stuff for my fridge. That last part I was once again pleased to be able to do at St. Lawrence Market There really is great stuff there that I haven’t seen anywhere else around town, and the neighbourhood locals are unparalleled. The one old lady I bumped into this time happened to be buying a loaf of bread from Future Bakery. I lucked out (one Vienna Rye still left!), and she seemed pleased / perplexed with her purchase.

The rest of this story I’ll narrate around the walk that I took shortly after that conversation. That talk propelled me into the walk, as it were. I pulled the shopping cart behind me the whole way (surprisingly, pears: unharmed), along Wellington Street. Just headed directly west. And  don’t know about you, but that’s one sexy street. Even just the way it begins!

The old city basically starts to spread itself open here. Wellington is an old-time street, it’s near enough to the lake to belong to the original town, I figure, plus there are enough old buildings left along it to suggest the same thing.

I love walking down here in the late afternoon; with the sun almost equally aligned between the pillars; it’s über-dramatic.

But I was discussing the old lady, wasn’t I? Right.

So, as we were waiting to pay for our loaves, she mouthed something imperceptibly. She’d done the same thing earlier when she saw me helping myself to the few bagged breads remaining on top of the display case (they’re loosely cordoned). She held up her own and said something. I’m not sure if she was proud of her ability to have heaved her shriveled frame up that case to retrieve her own bread, or if she had been finger-wagged by the staff for the same offense. Or both. Her face was an uncertain mix of smiling and frowning. At the same time. And she spoke so softly, I couldn’t make out anything she was saying.

It was a bit unsettling.

I thought she’d left by the time I’d finished pawing the merchandise, but she suddenly reappeared at the cash counter around the corner. Holy shit!

“You know zat voman? Zat funny vun? Wis ze sree uzer guys?”

This time, I guess, she’d cleared her throat or something, and was finally able to speak. Okay, but seriously, what an awkward opener? Zat woman? My mind jumped to Catherine O’Hara when she’d been on SCTV. But ze sree uzer guys? I’m pretty sure there were more than sree guys on SCTV at that time.

That’s where my thought train made its last stop. I was just left standing in the billowing steam at the station with a blank expression on my face.

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…continued from previous part.

You know, dear reader, the most aggravating thing about this whole affair lately has been that it got me off kilter. Weren’t we talking about Regent Park or something? Dang.

Unfortunately that seems like a lifetime ago now. And, also unfortunately, I’ve recently very much enjoyed re-connecting with the city again (i.e. more frickin’ pictures). So I’m going to pull some academia out of my butt here and am calling this final installment a “photo essay”. Haha! Wicked. Whoever thought of that one gets a high-five from me!

This implies there will be no words. *snicker*

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Wow. I have to be honest, dear reader, I wasn’t expecting the continuing vitriol that I received on Friday when I handed over my resignation. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be happy, but not that. I offered to come back as a contractor in the nicest way I could muster and was told, side-mouth, as jerkwad was walking away from me that “no, that won’t be happening”. I’m absolutely certain that that wasn’t a rational reaction, I think he’d already invested his whole heart into me becoming his personal, absolutely free, work-till-you-drop lap dog. I must’ve really hurt his feelings. :(

I guess you know the story by now, crazy project, crazy hours, and at the end they basically gave me the middle finger for even suggesting that I take some time off. I was “expected” to keep that up for another two months, minimum. After my probationary period, then, maybe, a few days off. What about the time off that the law allows for workers to rest so, you know, we don’t die and stuff? Those came off my vacation days. And again, wasn’t I lucky that they granted me such privileges – what an asshole I was for fucking them over like this. Overtime pay or lieu time?! HOW DARE I?!

When I think about it, I suppose thinking that they’d at least try to consider our plight was optimistic, but I’d hoped that by reminding them of their obligations as employers, under the law, they’d at least pacify me and send me on my way. But no, jerky to the very bitter end.

So I’m filing a complaint with the Ministry of Labour. It’s just not cool to treat people that way, legally or otherwise.

That’s me and a gentleman I met at the Human Rights complaints office. Turned out this wasn’t the office I wanted, they deal mostly with discrimination and everyone at my former employer is treated equally shabbily. I guess my complaint is common enough that the government now conducts most of its business online, so my trip was entirely unnecessary. But it was a nice day and I’d just quit the sweatshop (really, dictionary definition), so why the heck not?

The gentleman accompanying me had a compelling case – former manager in a well-known company, been there for a while, forced out by a higher-up who later turned out to be a bit of a scoundrel. The details certainly seemed to fit and sounded honest, and he claimed to have documented every step of the story. I don’t know if he’ll get the damages he’s asking for, but some of the lower sums he was tossing out (and that the lawyers had been suggesting), seem more likely. But I only know as much about the law as I need to, so that’s that analysis for you.

After our chat we strolled to nearby Nathan Phillips Square where the Paralympic torch relay was being held:

No idea what the point of this was supposed to be but I found it kind of funny that, apparently, you’re allowed to subdivide the flame – there was definitely more than one torch running the track:

I’m thinking that, should my funds start running low, maybe I’ll get into the Olympic flame racket. “No, honest, it came off the Olympic torch. You can even use it to start campfires – Olympic campfires! Think of how good those marshmallows’ll taste.”

In the meantime, though, I’m really averse to being an employee again. I mean, sometimes managers are just boobs, but sometimes they’re absolute tyrants. Either way, I have a really hard time buying what they’re selling. So, here I am on my first free Saturday since early February, jobless, nothing lined up and no feelers out (and no richer off for the experience, let me tell you!). I can honestly say I’ve never been in this position before. Bit scary. Also a bit exhilarating – I do pretty good work under pressure, implying I’ve got about month of layabout time before things start to get serious. But I tend to get antsy after about three days, so I don’t expect I’ll be pushing that envelope very much. Besides, my last fortune cookie said, “You will become an accomplished writer” (undoubtedly referring to TCL) – how can you argue with that?

If there’s any surliness in this post dear reader, I apologize. Unfortunately, it looks like my full-time status with my current employer is about to come to an abrupt and screeching halt. Well, I’ll try to avoid the screeching, but I’m loathe to put in even an hour more. Not as an employee anyway.

Let me explain.

As you may be well aware by now, I’ve been putting in some insane hours lately. Around 300 for the last month, according to my rough estimate. Fair enough, they warned me it would be crazy. Can’t say I was always peachy when it came to losing weekends, weeknights, sleep, nerves, and basically my entire life for the last two-and-a-half consecutive weeks (I was only doing 12-hour to 14-hour days before that). Laundry, Ollie, and kitchen sink all suffered – not good situations. But, I’d hoped that the extreme flexibility they were requesting of me would be reciprocated. All said and done, I’d worked roughly two weeks extra during the four weeks. None of that was because of any deadlines I’d missed, I should point out. Seems like that was just how the thing was scheduled.

So, I was asking for three days off. Three measly days.

I figured asking for overtime pay wouldn’t fly, and besides, I really just wanted some time to rest and recuperate – get my wits back together before taking on my newly added duties (begin managing the other developers as part of my seniorness). Apparently they’d already booked me on another project but when I requested my time off they tentatively switched me to another smaller one. Cool, I thought. Guess it shouldn’t be a problem – they’re shifting stuff around to give me some room. Plus, the new project really shouldn’t take more than a day or two. Three if the computer bursts into flames halfway through.

It struck me as odd was that I was asked to fill in a vacation request form. Again, though, I thought it shouldn’t be a problem. Just paperwork. I’d finally get some rest (plus the time to do all the other things I’d been neglecting). That’s all I really wanted.

Spoke to the head of H.R., told him I really needed some time off, told him why. “Oh, I don’t care one bit, I know it’s been crazy around here”, he replied. Still cool, I guess. Came across as a bit non-committal but he seemed to genuinely not care about me getting away for a few days.

Spoke to the managers on my initial project (currently on vacation), they didn’t think it’d be a big deal. But they’d be out of the picture so…

Unfortunately, it seems that the new project manager (who today, possibly yesterday, returned from vacation and isn’t “quite with it” yet), booked me in for this Friday. Ooh, part of my three days off – no can do. And I’m pretty sure that I didn’t even exist on this project until this week so I’m not sure how that commitment got made. How many times did I tell them I need some time off? And just to add some extra pique to this, I later found out that this thing isn’t going out until mid-March, so the urgency of forcing me in this Friday really escapes me. Fairly certain the weekend would be involved too, you know, for all the stuff that’d be overlooked. Not my first time down that path, you must understand.

Perhaps there’s some question about my willingness to put in the hours or effort to get things done? Perhaps my seniority doesn’t apply to my ability to estimate the amount of work involved?

So I raised a concern.

It went up the chain of command.

I got the hand in the face.

Not only the hand, but reminded that I’m still on my probationary period and don’t really even qualify for vacation – I’m lucky to get two days (that’s my word but that was the implication). I was reminded that I’d been duly warned, the hours weren’t the typical 9-to-5. Oh yes, I understood that going in, I said. I just didn’t realize that I would be expected to hand over my life, health, etc., in exchange for a pat on the back and the opportunity to add to my ulcer collection for what amounts to less than minimum wage (salary divided by hours). Okay, to be fair, that will be true at the end of this month when the new minimum wage kicks in, but it’s not far off the current mark. Did I mention I took a bit of a pay cut to work there?

In other words, this schedule is expected of me and it’s a bit rude to even be asking for a break. When I was told I’d be giving up my first-born, I didn’t think they were being serious. Perhaps that’s my fault. Perhaps I misunderstood. But, as Danny Glover so eloquently put it, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

Don’t worry, dear reader, I’ll let them down gently. After all, freelance work would probably be considerably more advantageous there. At least that’s what the freelancers I work with lead me to believe. And, you know, I’m okay with a thank-you note in the form of cheque – for every single hour I’ve put in. Not like they wouldn’t be getting their money’s worth. The company-wide email with my name in it doesn’t really do it for me, to be perfectly honest. Also, the ability to refuse the next project is quite handy.

Heck, I would’ve scrounged up enough for a month off at this point. Instead, I get a guilt trip for two days. They were grudgingly approved in the end, except I’m not sure they’re technically a “vacation” so much as “the law”. Seems like I shouldn’t have to fight for that.

*sigh*

That just won’t do :(

Well hey there, it’s me again. Listen, I’m just absolutely beat. The project went live but I have one more day before I can throw in the towel. R&R :D Can’t wait.

Unfortunately, TCL is as much a victim of circumstance as I, but at least things seem to be coming to an end. One more day. :D

Oh, and this is what I’ve been working on:

http://www.rolluptherimtowin.com/en/fun.php?showcontest=en

Or, if you speak the other tongue:

http://www.rolluptherimtowin.com/en/fun.php?showcontest=fr

Roll Up The Rim; finally went live on Sunday night. From what I can see, my piece is the only way to enter the contest. A no-pressure kind of first assignment; relaxed in every way.

There’s also a companion site at http://www.everycup.ca/, but luckily I wasn’t involved in that.

You can enter the game after completing the registration form – the information isn’t validated (to the best of my knowledge), so go forth accordingly. But heck, if you want to enter the contest for realsies, be my guest!  And yes, you can get better at the game. I almost got to 5,000; currently 200th on the high score board, though some of those high scores look somewhat dubious. Gonna have a talk with the team about that tomorrow. And then I’ll be back to posting in no time flat! (I promise … I miss it so!)