Well, that's it for the summer...
I had another poor night at the bowling alley tonight: 138, 158, 164. That third game was my best game of the playoffs, and it was still six pins below my average. Pity, I'd started out so well (79 through the first four frames) but then got a couple of splits that killed my game.
Teamwise, we were 11th going into tonight - the top seven make the finals. We climbed to 9th place after the first game, but despite the fact that we overtook a team in each of the last two games, another team also overtook us in each, so we ended up finishing 9th.
Jamie was sick tonight - it sounded like a flu bug, from what he described - but fortunately there was someone there tonight who had filled in here and there throughout the season and so he was allowed to fill in for us.
In other news... I had to go up to Aurora today to pick up my last two paycheques and the formal letter that informed me of the layoff. It seems that they'd managed to get things sufficiently in order that their promise of keeping me on payroll until things were settled is no longer in effect. I should be getting a final severance payment in a week or so, along with my Record of Employment so that I can apply for Employment Insurance. (I was expecting to get that today, but apparently they have five calendar days to get it to me from today, so they're going to mail it to me. I was also expecting to have to sign something, but apparently having someone who doesn't own the company witness my being informed of the fact is legally sufficient. At least that's what my now-former boss said.)
The weird thing was that during the whole conversation, Zak never even peeked around the corner of the divider that separated our desks. I had to go around and get his attention to say good-bye. I don't know if he was just really uncomfortable with the whole thing (because who knows, he may be laid off soon too if things don't improve), or if he was being a jerk. I'll be charitable and assume that he was uncomfortable.
Tonight, at the bowling alley, Mario said that he was going to be playing golf tomorrow morning with someone he knows who is a good recruiter, so he said that he would mention my name and email me the guy's email address so that I can send him my resume.
I had a phone conversation earlier this week with a recruiter who was interested in putting me forward for management jobs based on my convention experience. I was skeptical, but I told him go ahead, send me the documentation about his company's services. The one thing that bothered me was that he said that they charge people - about $630 for the initial assessment, which is refundable under a certain set of circumstances, but if the candidate finds a job without their help they have to pay another $630. Now, no normal recruiter charges jobhunters for their services - they charge the hiring companies. But I thought, this is a management placement service, so maybe they use a different model. I was supposed to call him back on Wednesday to tell him whether or not I was interested, so I emailed Mario on Tuesday to ask him what he thought. His response indicated that management placement company or not, reputable recruiters all use the same model. So I called the guy back and said, "Thanks, but no thanks." I talked further with Mario about it tonight, as well as with Ed, who apparently used to be a headhunter. He said, "That's the company people go to work for when they can't cut it as a headhunter."
Anyhow... I've been told to get to bed now, and so off to bed I shall go. (It took a while to get around to clicking "post"... I actually wrote all of the above about five and a half hours ago.)
Teamwise, we were 11th going into tonight - the top seven make the finals. We climbed to 9th place after the first game, but despite the fact that we overtook a team in each of the last two games, another team also overtook us in each, so we ended up finishing 9th.
Jamie was sick tonight - it sounded like a flu bug, from what he described - but fortunately there was someone there tonight who had filled in here and there throughout the season and so he was allowed to fill in for us.
In other news... I had to go up to Aurora today to pick up my last two paycheques and the formal letter that informed me of the layoff. It seems that they'd managed to get things sufficiently in order that their promise of keeping me on payroll until things were settled is no longer in effect. I should be getting a final severance payment in a week or so, along with my Record of Employment so that I can apply for Employment Insurance. (I was expecting to get that today, but apparently they have five calendar days to get it to me from today, so they're going to mail it to me. I was also expecting to have to sign something, but apparently having someone who doesn't own the company witness my being informed of the fact is legally sufficient. At least that's what my now-former boss said.)
The weird thing was that during the whole conversation, Zak never even peeked around the corner of the divider that separated our desks. I had to go around and get his attention to say good-bye. I don't know if he was just really uncomfortable with the whole thing (because who knows, he may be laid off soon too if things don't improve), or if he was being a jerk. I'll be charitable and assume that he was uncomfortable.
Tonight, at the bowling alley, Mario said that he was going to be playing golf tomorrow morning with someone he knows who is a good recruiter, so he said that he would mention my name and email me the guy's email address so that I can send him my resume.
I had a phone conversation earlier this week with a recruiter who was interested in putting me forward for management jobs based on my convention experience. I was skeptical, but I told him go ahead, send me the documentation about his company's services. The one thing that bothered me was that he said that they charge people - about $630 for the initial assessment, which is refundable under a certain set of circumstances, but if the candidate finds a job without their help they have to pay another $630. Now, no normal recruiter charges jobhunters for their services - they charge the hiring companies. But I thought, this is a management placement service, so maybe they use a different model. I was supposed to call him back on Wednesday to tell him whether or not I was interested, so I emailed Mario on Tuesday to ask him what he thought. His response indicated that management placement company or not, reputable recruiters all use the same model. So I called the guy back and said, "Thanks, but no thanks." I talked further with Mario about it tonight, as well as with Ed, who apparently used to be a headhunter. He said, "That's the company people go to work for when they can't cut it as a headhunter."
Anyhow... I've been told to get to bed now, and so off to bed I shall go. (It took a while to get around to clicking "post"... I actually wrote all of the above about five and a half hours ago.)