September 2015 Monthly Entry
Canadian Thanksgiving and US Columbus Day weekend will be the Knights of Malta's Gathering 2015 event which my chapter is hosting here in Vancouver. The good news is that there will be a lot of Seattle and Fresno Knights coming up but the sad news is my best bear bud, Kevin, cannot come up as he will be attending his older brother's military funeral and family gathering (his brother passed away about a couple months ago and his sister put the funeral on this weekend. D'oh!). This'll be my first time presiding over a Gathering weekend but I know it'll be fun. We plan to go to the VML Friday night social, have our Interchapter meeting, and do our formal dinner (most likely Moxie's - inside our host hotel). We are staying at the Sandman Suites on Davie that weekend so it is easy to find us as we wear our Knights vests. I'll tell you guys about the weekend later but for those in-town, join us!
The rain has finally caught up these days but the Fall season has come too early. Unless the sun is out, it is relatively cold around here. I had to turn on the gas heater last week, which is something I hold off until about October or November! It looks like I may have to retire my work t-shirts early and break out my sweaters soon.
I finally got to meet Barry, one of my Leatherdaddies who visited from Prince George a few weekends ago. We;ve been chatting for over a few years and he was visiting family in Abbotsford and to go to a funeral. He got a hotel room in Langley so after work, I went to go see him and we spent the afternoon, having some long hot leather play. He then took me out to a steak dinner at the Keg (the sunset picture above was taken before we went inside) and we had some interesting conversations. I spent the night back at the hotel with him and in the morning, he gave me a tour of Langley in the area in which he grew up. We then went to the Stampede Tack & Western Wear so he could look for new boots. He dropped me off at the bus loop at Langley Centre, just 15 minutes before my dad came to pick me up. It was really windy that day that it knocked power out in all the Lower Mainland. I spent a couple of hours helping my dad getting things in. My folks generator kicked in so they were okay for a while (though I found out they didn't get their power back on for three days). On my way home that night, it was really eerie to see a lot of the Lower Mainland in darkness, including no traffic lights too. Taking the final shuttle home, I noticed the west side of Prairie by Coast Meridian had power but the east side where I lived didn't (bullshit!). I got home and I was warned the power went off at 1pm that day. It kicked back on after 11pm so we were lucky as even downtown Vancouver wasn't fortunate to their power back on so fast.
David has been in the hospital recently due to pain in his pancreas. Soon, he will start his chemo and the preparations are done.
After all these years, I finally got an interview with Burnaby School Board as they are hiring for new janitors. I've been on their Lower Mainland-specific email list and almost everyday, they send out an email with various job openings in various cities. When I saw Burnaby on the list last month, I updated my resume and went through their career website. The last I did something like this was for Coquitlam 2 years ago but nothing became of it. It took quite awhile but everything was sent in digitally to them. I was kind of nervous in doing it and even admitted to David and my folks that I applied. They were happy I was giving it a chance. I didn't hear anything for weeks and thought they weren't interested in an interview. But come earlier this month, I got an email from human resources for a preliminary quick first interview. It was for a couple Tuesdays ago and I picked the time of 5:40pm at their main facilities building. I reminded myself that I haven't done a job interview in probably over 8 years and I'm going to need new clothes. I called my folks and let them know about the interview. I asked my dad if he had anything I could borrow and he said I could borrow anything as long it fit me. My mom chimed in that she'll go look for some new clothes for me. When I went to my folks the following Friday/Saturday, my dad let me borrow one of his ties and my mom went to Costco and other places and picked up a few pairs of pants a nice navy blue shirt. As I don't know the area in which the building is (near Forest Lawn Memorial Park which is where my dad's parents are buried), I asked one of my Leatherdaddies, MasterG, to take me to the interview on that day. He agreed to it. So come Tuesday, I packed the clothes plus my career binder (that was made up since high school) and took them with me to work. After my shift, I immediately go to MasterG's place so I could change into my interview clothes and prep up a bit. MasterG drove me north up Royal Oak Ave and we found Kincaid Street on the east side where the district building was. He waited in the car so I went in by myself. The head janitors were the ones doing the interviews and it turned out they accidentally gave my interview time slot to another "Steven" on their list that arrived early, thinking it was me. They rectified it and it wasn't long that I was led into a room and had a one-on-one with one of the head janitors. He simply asked me my availability and I (gritting my teeth in my mind...) said I was available for anything - weekdays, weekends, morning/afternoon/graveyard, etc. After some discussion, I was out in over 10 minutes. MasterG took me home afterwards. The next day, I get an email for the second interview and it is for two days later, on Friday. I let MasterG know and while I packed my clothes, I wore a brand new pair of black jeans throughout my shift so all I needed to do was change into the same blue shirt and my dad's tie again at MasterG's place. I let my manager know that I was leaving at 3pm as my interview was at 4:40pm (he knows of my interview and wasn't opposed to it). I got changed again once I arrived and MasterG promptly got me back at the district building. This second interview had two head janitors whom I met in the lobby on Tuesday. The interview took place in the same room and the questions were more about my work history and mindset. One question was about having to disobey a supervisor and why (if I did). I told them about an incident at SFU in 2006 as fast I could given I didn't want to gab their ears off and go on a tangent. Here is what I wrote on June 19, 2006 on my old Yahoo blog titled "Work Rant: June 16":
When I arrived at work to punch in and grab my keys, a sheet was waiting for me and it stated for me that while I clean the Atrium Centre (Cafeteria) to empty the garbage cans and to empty the recycling bins (bottles/cans) and wash them out because an event was happening that Saturday. I then proceeded to start my area but I notice outside that the Highland Pub was having some event and thus, no one can enter to clean it until after 1am. I could tell that my night was not going to be easy as my co-worker who cleans the SFU Theatre and Pub has been away for 2 weeks now . One new female worker has been doing it and not too shabby at it but she's slow and has to spend the entire night cleaning it.
I get to the SFSS kitchen and 3 loads of boxes await me and after they are all taken out and crushed, I go inside and find the kitchen in absolute filth so I had to do lots of extra sweeping and cleaning of the floors! The Prep-Cook was in that night so I was very thankful as he's a cool guy and knows what we as janitors go through. After nearly 2 hours of cleaning the kitchen, I go to the cafeteria and find that a lot of the tables have been cleaned off and the Prep-Cook tells me that the kitchen staff did it so I was really lucky! I take out all the garbage and then proceed to dust mop the entire floor and spot-mop with a wet mop the really big obvious stains as I don't have time to do every stain that isn't a big deal. While I'm cleaning I skip my first break as I hope to try and take it at 2:30am to watch Inuyasha up in the Pub. Meanwhile, the female worker finally gets to go into the Pub and I explained to her what to do and that I would help her as soon as I can but have to get my area done first. I then do The Ladel which is easy and it’s about 2:20am after both it and the cafeteria are done. I then go to the SFSS Orientation Office and take out the trash and its now 2:45am so I'm missing Inuyasha (damn it!) and then proceed to go clean the Coffee Shop.
Just before I was about to mop the floors while it's past 3:30am, two of the floor scrubbers (who run the show and act like "lesser-supervisors" and make some our lives a living hell - especially one of them named Jeff as he is buddy-buddy with the guys who run the show and my Supervisor) come and tell me to bring my garbage cart because they will be doing the recycling in the cafeteria. I take my cart and empty it in the MBC Loading Dock and take it to them and they open the recycling bins (they are locked to prevent people from stealing and I don't have the key to open them as do many other janitors in my shift) and empty four bins. They then tell me to take them and wash them out and before they leave, Jeff looks at the cafeteria floors and asks me if I cleaned the place and I said yes and then asks if I spot mopped and said yes again. He then tells me to do it again as he can see some spots but I reply that I don't have any intention of doing it because I don't have time and have to help that female co-worker in the Pub because she started after 1am and they replied that she is "fine" and I don't have to help her as they went up and saw her though I didn't believe them. After all that, I went back and started to mop the Coffee Shop and the Prep-Cook comes in to drop off the food he's made and I ask him how my female co-worker is doing since he knows what is going on. He tells me that she does indeed need help - especially with the mopping. I then tell him what happened earlier with Jeff and the other guy and he wasn't surprised. I told him I haven't taken a break all night and felt sorry for me and gives me a piece of banana bread to help me get through the night so I was thankful. I then finish my mopping and it’s now 4:15am and I start to clean the recycle bins one by one, hauling them to the janitor closet and putting them back. I used hot water and disinfectant but it wasn't enough to clean off the shit that was at the bottom of the bin (the juices and pop corroded the extra plastic bags and have bonded to the bottom making a gross smell and bacterial substance) - oh joy! After skipping my second break while washing and putting the bins back and replacing the bags and tops, it was now 5am. I go to the Theatre and find it hasn't really been used as the carpets have been washed and thus, there was nothing to do thankfully so I go up to the Pub and find that most jobs have been done and my female co-worker still had to finish off the washrooms and vacuum the lower part of the bar. I mopped the washrooms and mopped most of the floors and left her to go do the Loading Dock as there nothing more I could do to help her. Its was then 6:25am and after cleaning the Loading Dock, Jeff then finds me and tells me to go see my Supervisor in the cafeteria as he wants to talk to me. "Oh shit!" I thought...
While Jeff was behind me, I meet my Supervisor in the cafeteria and he asks why I haven't done the spot-mopping of the floors and I explain to him that I didn't get one break in for the entire night, that the female worker needed help in the Pub because she didn't start until after 1am (the same response "She's okay, no need to help her!" - bullshit!), and that I did some spot-mopping but didn't have time to do it all. He then states that I should have taken my breaks (and get in trouble later to boot?), that my area should have been done earlier (impossible!), and boasts that the recycling was done by Jeff and that other guy (which is their job since I don't have the key to open the bins and I was the one who washed them and replaced the bags - so I did more work than they did!). He then tells me to get my mop and bucket and to start mopping up the stains. I left infuriated and got them but while I was getting them, they pull out one male worker to spot-mop the hallways while they pull another one out to do the cafeteria! So there are two of us spot-mopping the cafeteria while both Jeff and my Supervisor are standing around doing nothing but watching us work and finally leave. I then tell my co-worker all I had to go through that night and apologized for being a victim to all this and thanked him for his help. I then put my stuff away and left my area at 6:55am and punched out of work exhausted and still in a rage. What basically made me angry with all this is that the sheet I was given had the priority of taking out trash and recycling and cleaning bins besides the usual cleaning of the cafeteria. But due to time constraints and the whole thing with the Pub, everything I told my Supervisor fell on deaf ears and for whatever reason; those floors HAD to be done even though that wasn't the highest priority! I had my entire area to clean and had to devote some time helping a co-worker in her area because she isn't experienced and lost about 2 hours of work time to start and didn't have much to do beforehand. But since there is no such thing as "reason" in my company, I got abused and treated like a dog again as usual and never did they thank me for going that far for them.
Like I said in a previous post I hope that my company's contract doesn't get renewed. I found out from one co-worker I get along with and gets just as abused as I do (usually even more than me!) that if it does get renewed, they will try to find ways to fire us easier with any small infraction - so with the above scenario that just happened, I would have been likely fired.
To add insult to injury, some stupid lazy bitch who works in my building after she gets her area done early, will sleep the rest of the night away (a lot of women workers in my company do that and the higher-ups do almost nothing about it on purpose). I noticed at 5:15am that both her garbage AND cleaning cart are in the janitor closet! What the hell was she doing then? The previous Friday night she was caught by an acting Supervisor (since the actual one was away for a couple of days) sleeping in her area and though he tried to get her attention (there was a gate blocking their way and they didn't have the key to get in) but she didn't hear them. I found that she was "written-up" but don't know if she was approached about it. What gets to me is why she wasn't pulled out of her area to help with anything. She's lucky I didn't rat her out as this would be the second time for her to be caught and rightfully so. Then again, since she is a woman worker they aren't going to do much to her and they are hardly put in stressful situations or pulled out to help others unlike the male workers. This is true if you are a Caucasian worker as they are very racist in my company even though they don't make remarks.
If my company does get its contract renewed for another 3 years of making SFU a garbage pit...God help me!
Another question they asked was about dealing with difficult people. I mentioned about the recent incident with "Mr. Whiner" from a couple months ago and how I dealt with it. I think they were amused with the stories I told LOL! At the end of the interview, I talked to one of them and added why I didn't include my working at SFU with Sodexo as a employer reference: because I left the company abruptly when approached by my first employer for a new and better paying job, that they declined to give me some reference when they sent me my employee record, and Sodexo lost their contract with SFU that following spring 2007. My first/third employer (my uncle) and my current employer are my only references right now.
After I left and visited my parents that night, I was congratulated by them and felt I did my interview well when I told them about it. The whole thing in the answers I gave my interviewers was to make them understand my mindset and how I react in certain situations. I don't know what is going on right now as I got an email on Tuesday that they will be contacting our references. I suppose I'll know soon on what happens next. If I don't get the job, it won't be the end of the world and just glad I got as far as I did. If I do get the job, it is going to be a radical change for me. I'll definitely will have to take the car my folks are holding onto for me as there is no way to do this job by transit.
Work has slowed down a lot compared to the last two months. I have caught up on most jobs and I'm now taking it easy given just how busy the summer was. Out of nowhere on Friday, the irrigation system was turned on for each building so I guess the water restriction has been lifted on that. I'm glad I no longer have to water the plants manually but to be honest, it wasn't too bad as I didn't do it often. Late last month, the landscaping company installed a new dog poop bag dispenser where "Mr. Whiner" from a couple months was complaining about. The original one broke so it was all they had to replace so the garbage bin was left alone. Paul, the manager of the other side of the strata, has finally given me a copy of the key to open the dispenser to replace the bags (this means my past co-worker, Ajendra, never had it or changed the bags). His wife gave me a large box containing the boxes of bags that should last us awhile. I gave everything to my coworker, Freddie since it's across from his building. I found out from him later that Mr. Whiner thanked him for the bags and of course, he will never thank me for prompting action on it! Oh well, he can fuck himself with his cane for all I care LOL! The last thing to mention is that we got new carpet cleaners. There were two guys with one taking a building and spend the day washing the carpets while the other did another building. So it took two days for them to do all four buildings. While they were fast compared to our original carpet cleaner, Omar, they weren't as thorough as him. Omar and his workers would pre-treat stains before going over them with their machine while these guys go over the carpets, treat the stains, and then use their foot to scrub it out. It works but not quite as efficiently. If I talk to one of the strata members later, I'll let them know what I think. Omar would come twice a year but for these guys, it would be smarter to do it once a season.
Tuesday night I watched Disney's The Jungle Book on Blu-Ray. This was the late-Kevin McKenzie's first and favourite Disney animated movie. First as in he saw this originally in 1967 while I saw it on VHS in 1990. While I like the production values and the lush, beautiful art of the jungle, I've never been a fan of the movie's plot as I find Mowgli to be obnoxious at times. Granted, he's a young man-cub and there are touching scenes at times, but this movie does kind of rub me the wrong way. Its music is fun and it has our "bear anthem" ("The Bare Necessities of Life" of course!). Still, it's a good movie and I always think of Kevin when I watch it or have it on my mind. The last time it was released on DVD as a Platinum Edition less than a decade ago, I bought it for Kevin as a birthday or Winter solstice gift (I don't remember which occasion). Before the DVD, I borrowed my family's old VHS copy of the movie and watched it with him (in 2004 I think). In both our viewings of the movie, it was fun seeing him recite some of the lines, especially from Shere Khan. To see Doug Walker's review of the movie go here or below:
Click to view
Tonight I saw X-Men: Days of Future Past on Netflix. Like First Class it was great having showing the X-Men younger and seeing the formation of the characters in the future (previous) movies. This one takes place in 1973 and Wolverine is sent back to that time period because an event will trigger the creation of the unstoppable mutant-hunting Sentinels. Because they have Mystique's mutant DNA and her ability to shapeshift, they can conform to any mutant power so it is up to Wolverine and the First Class X-Men to stop Mystique from causing the end of mutantkind. I really liked this movie and the after the credits, we see the young En Sabah Nur and his four horsemen. This means of course, Apocalypse and his Four Horsemen. To see the Bum Review of the movie go here or below:
Doug Walker's review is here or below:
As David has been obsessed with Netflix now, Star Trek: DS9 has fallen back to the wayside. I'll definitely watch it and upload my Season 5 entry soon.
I'm about a third through Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and I should have the review up next week as the game is short. I've made very little progress in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII so I may play catchup later this month so I can get it done around October or something. Some progress has been made in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords but have no idea when I'll be done. Maybe in November or December.
I haven't done much in the way of finishing Mere Christianity but it should be done soon and the quick review put up sometime.
Last Movie: The Avengers: Age of Ultron 3D (Theatrical), X-Men: Days of Future Past (Netflix)
Last Book: KJV Holy Bible - Revelation
Last Game: Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception - GOTY Edition (PS3)
Current Book: The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics - Mere Christianity
Current Games: Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (Xbox 360) & Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP) & Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (Xbox)