Work Drama Part Deux

Posted in Rants, Work with tags , on May 12, 2008 by abraxus

To further enlighten the curious I have learned a few new things since my last Post on the subject of the co-worker who is giving us the proverbial shaft. Last week he had asked our Boss to sign a paper saying that he was now allowed to work wherever he chose and was free of ties to her company. At this time he was claiming that his contract with her was up. She was reluctant to sign a legally binding document without consulting her lawyers and said she would sign it when her lawyer got back to her.  That was Friday.

Cut to Monday when our Boss comes in to work and gets in touch with her Lawyer who tells her that he has an entire year left on his contractual obligation to her. So he tried to pull the wool over her eyes once right there. Then we inform her that he is moving to the City on Wednesday (also he hi-jacked another of our employee’s to help him move leaving us short handed today) AND is taking all the furniture in the apartment as well.

Our Boss furnished the apartment completely, right down to silverware and linens for them so they would not have to do anything when they arrived. So ALL of the furniture is hers and she has not been paid for it at all. So as of today when he started taking loads down to the City in a rented Truck he is guilty of theft. Not to mention Breach of Contract.

Even after ALL of this she is reluctant to take legal action against him. She asked my opinion and I told her the following, “Let him go to Edmonton, let him get his family settled in. Then you call your lawyer and you tell him what happened and you go after him for Breach of Contract as well as Theft over $1000. You don’t want him to come back to work here because you’ll both hate it. So you take him to court and let the law do the work for you. At they very least you should be able to have his wages garnished to compensate you for the lost income as a result of having to replace him here and I don’t doubt that you’d be able to get a cash settlement out of him for the theft of your furniture. See how he likes living in the City when a good chunk of every paycheck he cashes comes straight to you for the next year.”

That’s going to be my last Rant-ish type Post on this matter. Any future mention of this will just be basic updates so I can keep it all straight in my own head down the road.

Work Related

Posted in Rants, Work with tags , on May 10, 2008 by abraxus

Oh the urge to tear off a chunk of Rant and chew mightily on it is powerful today…but I will try to avoid that if I can.

We have several foreign workers at the Restaurant in the Kitchen. They were hired on contract by the Owner because she could not find competent staff in our sleepy little City. Under those contracts they work for her for Three years and then are free to do whatever they please. In return she helped to pay for them to come here, set them up with furnished apartments and often drove them wherever they might need to go. All in all it was a pretty fair deal for all involved.

Until they started taking advantage of her kindness. First it was Silva, who could not handle the hectic pace our Kitchen maintains during its peak hours. Silva up and walked out in the middle of his shift, hopped a bus the next day and went to stay with some of his countrymen in Edmonton. No explanation, no apology, he just ran.

Now it is Sepala, a man that I actually called ‘friend’ for quite some time. With him it started when he could not understand the paperwork involved in bringing his Family to be with him in Canada. My Boss went out of her way to hire a lawyer at her own expense to help with that and soon enough his family was here. Shortly after that he couldn’t work nights because his wife was working at the local Wal-Mart at night and he needed to be with the Children. Then he could not work in the Mornings because he wanted to walk his Children to school and his wife, who worked the overnight shift at Wal-Mart, was asleep until around 11 A.M. most days.

Just recently these past few months his Wife has begun having medical problems with her feet and back. This has forced her to miss many shifts at Wal-Mart and eventually she quit as a result. So once again we had to change the schedule to meet his needs ( I should mention that many of us gave up days off for several months to make this happen) so that he could deal with his family.

Two weeks ago he needed to take his wife in to Edmonton to see a Specialist about her back. We all pulled together and covered for him while he was gone for five days and were happy when he finally returned. All that changed today though.

This morning we learned that his wife was never ill, she was merely unhappy with this City we all call home. So much so that she refused to go to work and lied about foot and back pains to get out of it. On the days when he was supposed to be home watching his kids and walking them to school he was in fact out looking for another job. When they went to Edmonton to see the “Specialist” he was looking for a house in the City and taking interviews for Jobs there.

All the times we covered for him he was screwing us around so that he could set himself up in Edmonton and today he came in and informed us all that he and his family would be moving to Edmonton on Wednesday of next week so of course he could not work with us after that day. He thought it was quite amusing that I had no idea what was going on (in the past I had defended him to the Owner who suspected he might be doing something like this because I had thought he was my friend) so for the first time in many long years I looked a man right in the eye and said, “Fuck you, you inconsiderate bastard.” and walked away.

He didn’t even have the balls to tell the woman who went out of pocket to bring his sorry ass over here and then did it again to help get his ungrateful family over here as well.

What kind of creature does things like that to the people who help them? So yeah.

W

T

F

EDITED to Add: He HAD 6 months left on his contract and is defaulting on it. So apparently he will be paying some sort of penalty as a result. I hope it’s huge.

Dental Update

Posted in Health with tags on May 6, 2008 by abraxus

Well after my checkup/Cleaning this morning I am pretty much good to go on the Orthodontic front. I hadn’t been in to see them for a checkup in several years (Universal Health Care covers only serious things and Dental does not count) so I was expecting worse but I got out in under two hours with only one bout of gagging and one small cavity which will be fixed next week.

On another note…it turns out I am ticklish on my upper gums. I scared the begeezus out of the Hygenist when she poked me there and I giggled. She thought I was gagging of course and when I told her it tickled she looked relieved.

Adventures in Dentistry

Posted in Movies with tags , on May 5, 2008 by abraxus

Well this morning went off pretty much without a hitch. Which is odd for me and my famous Gag Reflex. Little bit of trouble with the X-Ray but it did get done. They even managed to use the rubber dam thing on me which pretty much has never happened before.

Funny thing being when she put the clamp on my tooth that the dam attaches too it popped right off, second time no luck third time with a different version it worked. THEN the rubber damn wouldn’t go on correctly. Figures the time I don’t gag is the time they need even more time poking around in my mouth risking the gag.

Once it was all in place though it went fine and quickly which I liked. Tried to make an appointment for a Cleaning/Check-up and was told the earliest possible time was in October…sheesh. So when I got home I had a call from them saying they had someone cancel and I could get in…*drumroll* Tomorrow at 10 AM lol.

Oh yeah and Iron Man was freakin awesome. Robert Downey Jr. is PERFECT as Tony Stark. And the little ending scene after the credits was cool too. I love it when they take the time to properly tell a story in movies these days. 90 Minutes is just stupid, forces the script writers to cram too much in and the movie suffers for it most times. I much prefer they take all the time they need.

Lucky me

Posted in Uncategorized on May 1, 2008 by abraxus

Just the other night while I was eating dinner I bit down on a piece of Chicken and heard a crunch. Those of you that have ever broken a tooth in this manner know exactly what that noise sounds like. Now I should mention that I am a total and complete wuss when it comes to dental pain. I turn into what my wife calls, “Angry Bear” when I have a toothache and I tend to take it out with a passion on anyone foolish enough to engage me in conversation.

When can I get in to my Dentist? Next Monday. I have four days left in my work week. Operation Maple Flag is JUST getting under way which brings around 5000 Military Personnel into town from various countries around the world. This means we are busier than normal at the Restaurant and that leads to stress. Stress leads to pain and none of my coworkers have ever seen “Angry Bear”. I warned them and they all just laughed. We’ll see how many of them are alive and if I still have a job by the weeks end if my tooth truly starts to hurt.

My own wife, bless her, has a hard time putting up with me when I get like this.

A Day in My Life

Posted in Life with tags , on April 28, 2008 by abraxus

At around 8 PM last night my wife decided it would be superspiffycool if we could go to “The City” today. Some Geographical enlightenment: We live 385km away from “The City” With our fancy Canadian cars and measurements of speed that means we are just shy of 4 hours away from “The City” at the legally allowed Speed Limit.

This means we got up at 7 AM to get to our destination at 11 AM. That’s just getting to the edge of it mind you, not the additional 30 minutes of drive time through traffic to reach our goal, the WEM. Our purpose? To buy her a new PC. Our Results? $210 in Anime, $76 in Old Navy, $105 in the T&T Market, $86 at Payless and about $77 in Manga. You’ll notice no new PC on that list. She’s a fickle one she is.

Fun was had. Risked life and limb in cutting approx. 90 minutes off our travel time both there AND back again (Hobbits FTW!) whilst avoiding the lovely gentlemen of the R.C.M.P. who can only “Get Their Man” if they know their man is there to be had apparently.

Off Topic I stopped by Danalyn’s Blog to wish her a Happy Birthday on behalf of Yoshi ( I think this was a clever plot to see just how much he could irritate her…curse me for being so easy to manipulate!). She was having a lovely time explaining how dim the Geek Squad can be at times. I had many things like that happen to me when I was in the field of PC maintenance lo these many years ago before I found out I liked Cooking alot more than my old job. I wasn’t even trained in any formal sense, I used my common sense but I daresay even I might be over-qualified to work for Geek Squad based on her Post.

Editted to remove my embarrassing typographical incompetence.

Sheesh

Posted in Movies with tags , , on April 25, 2008 by abraxus

Watching things about Uwe Boll is more interesting than watching a Film by Uwe Boll. You’d think that someone would have mentioned this to Uwe by now eh? Click the link to see the latest foolishness.

Uwe Boll Strangeness

Sharingan meets Shuriken

Posted in Tattoo with tags on April 22, 2008 by abraxus

IMAGE_010a, originally uploaded by hellgate71.

Finally my new Tattoo makes an appearance thanks to my new Camera Phone. Not the best Quality in the Pic but at least it’s up finally.

April Showers…

Posted in Life with tags , , on April 22, 2008 by abraxus

IMAGE_006, originally uploaded by hellgate71.

bring may flowers? Yeah right!

April 22nd 2k8

Posted in Life with tags , , on April 22, 2008 by abraxus

IMAGE_008, originally uploaded by hellgate71.

All of this fell in approximately 32 hours, that’s my Driveway…I am standing about oh…30 feet from the end of it. Snowblowers are my friends.