Four seasons?

I realised today that in just two days it's July 1st. That's Canada Day back home, a national holiday. It's the kind of day that's usually celebrated with barbeques and fireworks. It's the epitome of summer. Everyone is out in shorts, lots of people head to the beach, there is the scent of sunscreen in the air and it's hot outside.

But I'm in Ireland this year, and you wouldn't know that it's summer. Today I'm wearing pants, a light sweater and a jacket. My umbrella is in my bag. I'm sure that in two days time, I won't be breaking out the shorts and tank top. Someone told me when I got here that winter and summer are only a few degrees apart. I would have to agree. While I don't miss the cold, damp rain of winter (and apparently I am here on a good year), it's also not too far gone in my memory. I seem to remember wearing my winter jacket and one day in April I switched to my lighter coat, and sometime in May I switched to my spring jacket. That jacket hasn't come off yet, except for a few gloriously warm days in May and June. As the Summer Solstice has come and gone, I wonder when I'll drift back into my coat without even realising it.

In Canada the change in seasons are dramatic. It's -27C one day, 0C the next, and entirely plausible to have 20C within two weeks of that. I've spent some autumn weekends leaving my place in Toronto wearing shorts, and arriving later that night at the cottage up north wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and seeing my breath when getting out of the car. People in Canada are often jarred by the change of the seasons. People get the flu around these times of year, or report having vivid dreams or trouble sleeping. People never drift through the seasons not noticing the change.

As I woke up at 4am this morning with the sun streaming through my window, I started to think that maybe Ireland does have seasons, but only two of them: light and dark. When I first arrived in February, sunrise was close to 9am and sunset was around 4:30pm. Now, sunrise is at 4am, and sunset is at 11pm. I love the light evenings, it makes the nights seem so much longer and it's a pleasure to walk home at night in the daylight. However, I haven't been able to get used to it in the morning yet. For the first few weeks of really early sunrises, I woke up with a jolt because I was convinced I overslept my alarm. I no longer do that, but it's a rare morning where I don't wake up at least once before 6am. Other Canadians I've spoken to here have also commented on not being able to sleep. I remember to when I first arrived and I was in bed at 10am every night. I thought it was because of the overwhelming nature of being in a new environment, but now I wonder if it was because it was so dark all the time - because I'm not sleeping at all now, and this place is still overwhelming for me.

I remember coming out of the gym one day in April and being shocked that it was still light out at 8pm. Something tells me that I'll be similarly shocked at the end of August, just two months from now, when I wake up one morning and it's still dark outside.

wanted: org chart expert

As I mentioned in a previous post, job #4 came to an end last week....or did it. On Friday, they asked me if I wouldn't mind working Thursday and Friday of this week as they needed me to cover for someone. No problem, it's not like my temp agency called me back for any jobs - a definite downside to having a longish temp contract is that you're no longer at the top of the list with the other temp agencies with which you previously registered. By the time Friday 5pm rolled around, I was really looking forward to my short work week. I had three days off and then work for two days for a bit of much-needed cash. Perfect. I had my three days off all planned out. I would go to the gym in the middle of the afternoon to avoid having to wait for any machines *bliss*. I would also clean the apartment because it's due for a good clean and I would get caught up on my laundry. I would drink a leisurely cup of coffee in the morning while reading the paper, and oh yeah, look for work.

I was just getting ready to leave for French class tonight when my phone rang. It was my replacement at the company I just left. She was having tremendous difficulty putting together the complex org chart that we started working on last week. My boss would like me to come in tomorrow to correct her mistakes and complete the chart as my replacement doesn't feel that she's capable of the task.

Now, I'm not a computer expert by any stretch of the imagination, but org charts aren't hard. I also find it hard to believe that there is no one in this company, which is incidentally an American multinational computer company, that can do this org chart. They have to call a contractor that just left back in to do the 1/2 day job (it will take me all day, I'm sure, I'm being paid by the hour). Actually, I can believe that no one there can do the org chart. They probably all said that it wasn't their job and got away with it. The "it isn't my job" attitude is something that I've found is unique to large corporations. I can't imagine ever getting away with that in the small companies I've previously worked for up until now.

I also can't believe that the person chosen as my replacement, who to her credit is a professional admin assistant, and I most definitely am not, is not very computer literate. She's working for a computer company! As an example, when MSN IM notified me that I had new mail while we were working together on my machine, she thought it was a pop-up from MS Outlook and that it was a work-related mail. She had never seen MSN IM before. She can navigate throughout most Office applications but it really seemed to me that she was remembering what she learned in a 10-week course, and not especially comfortable with the applications.

I can't help but wonder. If I'm so damn good at org charts, and no one else apparently is, how come I don't have a job? I'm not complaining, I'll get paid over €100 for this extra day, but there are just so many things wrong with this picture.

what's in a url?

I've had a couple of compliments regarding my choice of URL. First of all, thank you. I've also had a couple of questions about the inspiration behind it. Well, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't in any way connected with my move to Ireland but rather borne from an unfortunate incident at my 30th birthday party. No it wasn't just the drink, it turned out that I had the flu (no really). Anyway, I was recounting the events of my party to TH, a coworker, and said, "it came out of nowhere, I went from sober to smashed in 45 seconds". He then replied, "Ell, just promise me that whenever you do write your book, you'll use the phrase sober to smashed as your title".

So to give credit where credit is due: Thanks TH. It's not a book (yet) but it's on the Internet so that's something, right? Or maybe not.

TH, pour vous.

The job, or lack thereof

I am finishing up job #4 since coming to Ireland at the end of this week. Right now I'm temping as an admin assistant for a large American multinational computer company. After working here a week I soon realised why movies like "Office Space" are made, books like Douglas Coupland's "Microserfs" are written and why "Dilbert" is such a success. Every day there was something that just grated me about this place. First it was the superfluous use of acronyms. Now, I didn't get a handoff when I started so I didn't know my TEE HEE HEEs from my FOADs but that didn't stop people from expecting that I just knew what they were talking about. The thing is, they didn't know what they were talking about. Nine times out of ten if I asked them what a particular acronym stood for, the person I asked did not know despite the fact that they use that acronym in a sentence on a daily basis. The other idiosyncracy about the place that I couldn't get over was the abuse of the English language. Did you know that sometimes I hotdesked, and that I had to request that an item be actioned, and if I didn't get a response on my action request I would have to escalate the action? I felt myself getting dumber by the day. Pretty soon I would be working on some best-of-breed deliverables if I wasn't careful. Then I would be sent back to grade three to learn how to speak and write English again.

I was at said multinational for two and a half months. Now I realise that I haven't provided any background to my ups and downs over the past four months, which I'll do over time because like I said in my last post, I have a lot of catching up to do. Suffice it to say, I have had some real problems with moving out of my intolerable living situation and almost getting sued in the process for breaking the lease. It was nice to have a steady job and not worry about where the next paycheque is coming from. After about a month, I even started to like some of the people I was working with. That said, I wasn't really enthused about the job but I really thought I would be there until I found something else, not until they found someone else.

I told one of the HR representatives early on that I was interested in the marketing side of things since I was hoping that if an opening came up I could be considered. Unfortunately she tipped off my boss, who really liked the work I was doing, that I wouldn't be there for very long and they should find someone who actually wants to be an admin assistant, which to be perfectly honest, is something I don't want.

When I found out last week that I had a week left at the job, I was pretty annoyed about it. I was hoping to book a flight to Prague in July to visit my friend and also go to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival in August as well as London at some point in the summer. All of which are now put on hold. That said, after my annoyance wore off, I was pretty relieved. If I had to hear "Ell, my inbox is full again, can you vet some of my emails?" one more time... By the end of the day, I realised that I didn't really like the company, I certainly didn't like the job, I just liked the nice, steady paycheque.

Welcome

I am a Canadian currently living in Ireland. I decided to start a blog because I frequently have so much on my mind and so many things to say; observations about my newly adopted homeland, things I miss about home, and the joys and frustrations of the past four months (and counting). I really need to put pen to paper, or in this day and age, put fingers to keyboard. I've also been woefully behind on my email correspondence with friends and family so I figure this is a good way to get the word out on what's going on with my life without having to write several emails on the same subject. I have a hotmail account (I know, enough said) and when trying to organise my contacts into groups, I managed to make emailing more difficult because if I want to send one to most members of a group, but not the whole group, I can't edit people out for a specific email but at the same time, I can't find the email addresses in a master email list either to just select the people I want to send it to one-by-one. I would try to fix this, but I'm frequently online at a net cafe so it costs me money, and besides, I'm holding out for a gmail account.

So keep your eyes on this site, and I'll have more posted soon.