Journal For Week of June 12, 2000
Last Update: Sunday, June 18, 2000 10:22 PM
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Monday June 12, 2000
Very strange, last night when publishing my Sunday post, FrontPage published most of my year 2000 pages again despite my not having changed them. I have heard of others experiencing this, but it has never happened to me. I checked one or two pages and they appear to be unchanged. Go figure!
I have lined up another interview for Thursday this week. So far two of the past three jobs I have applied for have provided me with opportunities to go for an interview.
Had a talk with one of the people who works one of the other queues at work and found it interesting that his assessment of the jobs we have is the same as mine. That we are loosing skills we worked hard to develop because the job and the work environment does not provide us with the opportunities to use our skills. Nice to see that I am not alone. He also mentioned that from the outside looking in and after his interview he thought it would be a much better job than it is. I had the very same reaction about two weeks on the job. Seems than some of the managers that do the interviewing are good sales people.
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I find it strange that when I think about working on my bike something happens so that I HAVE to work on my bike. On the ride to work I thought that I should check my back wheel as I have neglected it some since I had to fix the broken spoke a little while back. Well while cycling up the last rise to my house I heard a pinging sound from the back wheel. A quick inspection when I get home finds a spoke almost totally backed out from the nipple and the rim is majorly out of true. A few minutes with a spoke wrench has the loose spoke tensioned up and the wheel fairly true again. I am going to have trouble again though since the spoke tension is not very even. I am going to have to keep an eye on the wheel and make some time to dedicate to getting the tension more even.
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Tuesday June 13, 2000
Talked to a recruiting rep in Toronto this morning. He found my resume on the Headhunter.net job board, and wanted to know if I am looking for work. He is working on getting some contracts in the Calgary area and need contractors he can present to clients.
Suppose to meet with a couple of reps from the agency I currently deal with this afternoon. The idea is for me to spell out what I am looking for so they can find something else for me move onto. I thought we had already done this once before? One of the reps I have not met before so having a face to face meeting over a cup of coffee may not be a bad thing.
I'm in a mischievous mood and have some spare time on my hands this morning. Plotted all the pertinent dates on my calendar so that I can theoretically devise when would be the best time to give two weeks notice ( assuming I have a new job to go to ) that would mess things up the most at work. It's not that I really have it in for any one, it's just I would like to go out with a bang. Amazing what goes through ones mind when you are idle!
Then later in the day when I was on my way back from talking to the agency reps I ran into the team lead for the queue on work on. He asked why I was meeting with the agency people and I explained that they know I am looking for a new job and want to help me do so, as well as find the replacement person for my current position. To do this they want a better grasp on what my current job is and what I want my next job to be. He replied that he and our manager are concerned that I will be leaving soon and lots of people have holidays etc booked which will leave them short handed. In my mind after he said this I thought back to playing with dates on the calendar as outlined above. I responded to him that all we can do is take thing day by day and see how thing turn out.
Bike ride home was a B#%@h. Strong head wind all the way. The few people that cycled by me looked like they were dying, which made me feel a little better seeing as they were killing themselves to pass me, and I felt terrible. Not only did I have to deal with he wind, but my legs felt heavy, and I could not find a comfortable pace. I even stopped once to make sure my breaks weren't dragging or a tire going down as it felt like I was pedaling through soft sand.
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Wednesday June 14, 2000
I have to laugh. I got an email trying to sell me resume writing services for the low low sum of $100 USF. Give me a break! A $5 book at the local book store and some common sense gets me a lot more that that $100 ever would. I have seen some of these so called professionally written resumes and they stink.
The same applies to cover letters. Go to the book store, buy one of the books of sample cover letters to use an a template. Over time with the book as a reference you develop your own style. One thing though I have found, is that a good cover letter is never easy to write.
Cycling into work this morning I started to wonder what day of the week it is. I have a meeting Thursday morning, is it Thursday or Wednesday morning? About half way to work I finally rationalized that it is indeed Wednesday and I am not missing my meeting. Big sigh of relief!
Despite my legs still being tired and sore from last nights commute home, I did my best Pac Man impersonation this morning. Gobbling up and passing every cyclist, rollerblader and jogger in my path. A few cyclists snuck by me, but chose to ignore them.
Nearly crash and burned in the parkade on my bicycle this morning. Went into a downhill curve faster than usual and started to drift wide. A gentle course correction started the tires sliding on the dusty pavement. I was sure I was going to hit the outside curb, but managed to just stay off it. Nice adrenalin rush for the morning. Definitely no need for coffee this morning, though I never drink coffee in the morning or anytime for that matter.
Today is the day the Oil congress protesters have been waiting for. It is the second last day of the congress and the security people are relaxing. Case in point, they waived me by when entering the parkade this morning. They are supposed to stop me and check my id. I am willing to bet this is not an isolated case.
My Shaw cable Internet connection has been working fine, with no real speed problems. Then the other day a friend mentioned that his buddy who lives in the same area as me was finding the performance rather poor. Since the comment was made, my connection has been getting worse and worse. It is still better than dialup, but I am spoiled by the good performance I have had up till now.
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Thursday June 15, 2000
See Friday June 16.
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Friday June 16, 2000
Thursday just up and evaporated on me. Before I even noticed it was after midnight, so I never got around to posting anything.
Today is not much better. It's now ten before 12 and I don't know where the day has gone. Been a good a good day though. For a change there was enough interesting work going on to keep me somewhat occupied at work. Had to hack the registry for one user cause the date settings made in the control panel were not updating the registry. A little research and a few educated guesses got things squared away.
After work I had to make a trip to the dry cleaners to get my suit pants cleaned and pressed for Monday. Monday afternoon I have a second interview with the business that I had an interview with yesterday morning. I have to meet with an IT Manger and the VP who oversees IT.
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Saturday June 17, 2000
Relaxed and watched some of the live coverage of the 24 hours of Le Mans auto race.
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Sunday June 18, 2000
Ran out to pickup my dry cleaning and fuel for the lawn mower. Just my luck, I get everything together so I can cut the grass and the rain starts. Seems I am not the only one affected by rain, the NASCAR race was cancelled due to rain as was the AMA SuperBike race. The F1 racers in Montreal had to change to rain tires about 2/3 of the way into the race.
Copyright © 1999, 2000 John Doucette. All Rights Reserved