Stuff and Moonshine

My office periodically gets calls where I can’t hear anybody on the other end, and the screen just gives a town name rather than a caller ID (I hate our phone system). But a bunch of them are from Anzac, AB, which is an unusual enough name that I finally looked it up just now. Turns out it has a population of 506 people, as of the last census.

Who the hell is calling us from Anzac? Which of its 506 inhabitants is so desperate to talk to a hardware-supply company three provinces away? And why can they never get through?

So, I inadvertently overheard a couple of coworkers commiserating with each other about trans people and “what’s society coming to?” and then one of them said the CEO of Tim Horton’s had been arrested for possession of child pornography.

The other also commented on the man’s name being Jewish.

Thirty seconds of Googling the name reveals that (a) the guy in question isn’t the CEO of Tim’s but of a parent company that acquired the chain a year or so back, and (b) the newspaper that ran the story has since claimed it was “satire.”

Yeah.

The paper uses the not-very-satirical-sounding name “Vancouver Times” but describes itself as writing “satirical stories about issues that affect conservatives.” Goggling them turns up a description on https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/vancouver-times/ that rates them "questionable" and also mentions one of their past fake stories in which they state Paul Pelosi (Nancy Pelosi's husband) was arrested for child porn possession.

Apparently the anti-vaxxers are all currently mad at Tim Horton’s for requiring proof of vaccination from kids that attend the summer camp they sponsor, so I’m guessing that’s the motivation for this “news story.”

Anyway now I want to show those guys the article debunking the slander, but I’m not sure how to bring it up as I doubt they were aware I could hear them in the first place and I don’t interact with them that much; also it’s possible they’ll say the debunking article is fake, as it’s from what looks to be a somewhat left-leaning publisher.

ETA-- I can't get into the "Vancouver Times" site, which would be the smoking gun, on my work computer. Googling them does show that since they started up last December, they've spread viral claims that the CEO of Disney was arrested for human trafficking, and that Justin Bieber's recent bout of facial paralysyis was caused by the Covid vaccine. All under the name of "satire," of course.

Update (July 22) -- I got into work and told co-worker it had been debunked, directing him to Snopes who've now posted about it. He thanked me, and we agreed that misinformation is a problem. So, at least the truth is getting its pants on.

First week at my current temp job (telephone receptionist, admin stuff) seemed to go pretty well. This one’s a two-week assignment that might turn permanent— I don’t want to be overoptimistic about the latter possibility, but everyone I interacted with expressed the hope I’ll stay. Answering phone calls actually is’t so bad when I only have to direct them to the right department, not solve their problems myself. The pay is 23$/hr, and my co-workers seem pleasant enough so far. Dress code is very relaxed— I’m still trying to find a balance between overdressed (for the place) and comfortable (for me, as somebody who mostly dislikes wearing trousers). They’re still requiring masks indoors when walking around, but not when sitting at desks or in cubicles, which is probably as cautious as they can be at a call centre. Got my earlobes re-pierced a week ago yesterday. I’d had them done as a teenager, with a gun at the local hairdresser’s, and the right earlobe hole was always fine (and is still open, despite not having had an earring in it on the regular for many years), but the left-hand never really healed properly and is the reason I gave up wearing earrings. This time I went to a tattoo/piercing place, and now have a total of two piercings in my right earlobe and one in my left. ETA— Monday: Argh. The manager stopped by my desk today to ask if I wanted to be considered for the permanent receptionist job. I said “yes,” and resisted saying “wait, I thought this was a temp-to-possibly-permanent position and that I already *was* a candidate,” but I must have looked startled enough that he took it as uncertainty and asked if I was sure. Think I’d better speak to their HR and/or the temp agency to emphasize that yes, I want to be considered as a potential candidate for this job I have already been doing for a week, and hope that that’s taken as a point in my favour. Gah.

It’s normally Mon-Tuesday, but it began Tuesday this week. After a brief hitch finding the place (I should have checked that the address in the work description was the same as the one on the company website— it is not), I arrived and had my nose swabbed (I’m negative, yay). We also wear masks, and being on the evening shift the building (a warehouse, with ceiling fans) isn’t particularly crowded. The project for which the company’s hired on extra help involves digitizing an archive that was transferred decades ago to microfilm— so, they’ve a scanner or two that can handle reels of microfilm. My part is then to go over the initial scans and make sure that the little frames the software puts around the image of each page is in the right place, and correct it if it isn’t, before handing it off to the next person in line, who marks the frames that contain the slips of paper with the document numbers and labels them. Basically I spend seven hours a day drawing rectangles on a screen— it’s pretty easy, no one interrupts me, and I can pretty much do it on utopia or while thinking about other stuff. We’ll see if they move me to a different task as the projects goes on. There’s music playing down at the rectangle factory— I’m not sure which of my co-workers picks the tunes, but they skew heavily towards North American pop stars ca. 2005-2015. Last night I heard numerous songs I previously only knew from the Post-Modern Jukebox cover versions, and spent some time wondering if Bruno Mars had dropped off the map (per Wikipedia: no, he’s now part of an R&B/rap act called Silk Sonic).

They weren’t offering medical/dental, so I walked out of the interview. As politely as I could, but I walked out.

Got a screening interview today, which turned out to be a zoom meeting between myself, an interviewer, and three other candidates. Not surprisingly, I was informed by email a few hours later that I didn’t make the cut, and even though I didn’t really want the job (it was for a vaguely-described PR firm and seemed a bit dodgy), I find myself annoyed that I couldn’t fake enough confidence and pleasantries to make it past the first-round interview. Two of the other candidates had a marketing background and knew all the right buzzwords, and everybody but me said they saw themselves as reaching a management position within the next five years. I don’t want to be a manager, I know I wouldn’t be good at it; you’d think companies would want at least one person who just wants to do what they’re good at, instead of jockeying for a position which is a set of very specific tasks, not a reward for good behaviour.

If there’s one thing that’s going to get me fired from my job it’s my inability to guess when I’m supposed to CC some other person on an email and when I’m supposed to leave them out of the loop until the details are firmed up/not bother them with trivialities.

Admin coworker claims this request has come down from management and that Lawyer CEO is on board with it. I’ve asked if I can get an email from Lawyer CEO confirming that he really wants us to do this. Co-worker says she’s not comfortable putting the situation in writing, which seems like a huge red flag in itself, but I didn’t say anything out loud.

Decided to keep stalling until CEO comes back and see if I can talk to him in person. Will lose some respect for him if he actually does favour this course of action.

Made it through my first week at my new job. The woman training me is moving to Quebec and today was her last day working there, so on Monday I take over with four-and-a-half days' training. Eek. I'm hoping they'll be tolerant for the first little while.

The dress code is pretty relaxed -- the person moving to Quebec has hair dyed vivid purple and magenta. I don't lean towards "casual," per se, but I'm not so good at the low-key professional look either, so it's nice to know I can dress fanciful. Actually, I got excited enough that this evening I cut my own hair, meaning to only take an inch off the ends, and seem to have ended up with a chin-length bob. Still, it's nice to have a change of look when starting something new.



Getting paid will be nice too.

I think I'm being gaslighted

I think I've mentioned the co-worker who keeps needling me and talking down to me? I'd already upped my anti-anxiety meds because of her, but last week I was stressed out because of the credit card incident, so I was more on-edge at work than usual: Wednesday I’d noticed the printer was out of tabloid-sized paper, and I looked around but couldn’t find any, so I’d asked her to add it to the list of office supplies to pick up. The next day another co-worker was also looking for tabloid. When I said I thought we were out, he insisted we couldn’t be, looked in the same cabinet I’d searched yesterday – and found some, on the very bottom under a bunch of cardboard.
First co-worker said to me: “Did you hear that – (Second co-worker) found it.”
“On the bottom shelf, under a bunch of cardboard boxes,” I added, not wanting to look totally foolish.
“That’s what all the kids say,” she replied sweetly. At which point I couldn’t keep myself from swearing under my breath and hurling the apple I was about to eat across the room.
She didn't seem to notice, and I prayed she hadn't.

On Friday I snapped again (not at her, I was cursing myself for not handling a phone call as well as I could have); afterwards she asked our new manager if she could talk to him alone, and today she passed on a message from him that I'll be fired if I behave inappropriately a third time. I feel like the kid who the teachers don't notice is being bullied until she lashes out, and then their reaction is to punish her.

Think is, I've seen this pattern before at this office, with this same co-worker -- when I first started, there was a woman who was always freaking out and screaming at everyone, and was eventually let go for it. On at least one occasion, I heard her try to protest that she was being bullied, and noticed for the first time that she was always being quietly baited by the woman who's doing the same thing to me now. While she really did have issues, I don't know if they'd have been as bad if she hadn't been driven over the edge. I suppose if I fall, she'll move on to the newest co-worker, who she's currently being nice to. And I don't know what to do about any of this -- the manager has only been here a couple of months, so he has no way of knowing how I usually behave, and he already seems to have fallen into the pattern of communicating with me through her, rather than speaking with me directly.

Meanwhile, Andrew's not well today, and begged me to stay home with him, so I've claimed to be sick myself -- it's plausible, as a couple of people were down with the flu last week -- but I'm paranoid it won't be believed and will turn into another strike against me.