Strap in for Excitement... or not.
Well, it has been a time hasn’t it? So I suppose I should fill you all in on what is going on, whether you would like to hear it or not :). Unfortunately the writing bug has been a long time in biting me though so I will be keeping subject matter on the short end rather than telling you every bloody detail of what is going on. Probably for the best actually? Lets go with the something good, something bad concept… yeah that works.
First of all, I did indeed go on a road trip. It was loads of fun. Unbelievable fun… and driving, lots and lots of driving. First of all there were four of us. Allen, who owned the car and initially organized the fiasco. Gemma who works at the Signature store upstairs in the Four Seasons and her friend Stephanie. I didn’t really know any of them that well before the trip and have come to the conclusion that Allen I can take or leave as the case may be, though mostly leave. He’s kind of like Warren for those of you who know him, or anti-freeze for those of you who don’t. Delicious in small doses but will kill you in higher quantities. Or you will kill him, it works out to the same thing in the end really. Gemma is super cool, very talented and hilarious to talk to what with her terror of all things animal like but difficult to level with as she becomes strangely reserved at times. Stephanie is also super cool and very outgoing in her personality and joy of all things remotely resembling a party. Of the three I wish that I could have gotten to know her better but since neither of us really had even seen each other before the point of getting into the car you could imagine that the one on one discussions between us were not of the most insightful variety.
We nearly ran out of gas twice, in the same place no less as we went by way of that road both ways. Oh… maybe I should tell you where we went first? We went to Lillouet, Merrit, Kamloops, Banff, Lake Louise, Columbia Icefields, Jasper, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. The first and second night we stayed in Banff, the third and fourth in Jasper and the fifth and sixth in Calgary. Lillouet was remarkable in that we stopped at an extremely sketchy place for a bathroom break, terrible coffee and to check out the view. Merrit was interesting in that we took a wrong turn less than four kilometres from Kamloops (where we wanted to go) and ended up having to go to Merrit or risk running out of gas. It was an insanely big detour just to grab timbits and the local Timmy Ho-s. Kamloops was good for a lunch break at East Side Mario’s where the girls that I went with had apparently worked at in Toronto and Lake Louise was worth a stop if only to check out the frozen lake and the insanely huge Fairmont there. Freaking Gyenormous. The Columbia Icefields I could have done without since we ended up being a little on the late side for the tours and ended up just crushing pennies in a weird little vending machine and taking a look at the sciencey type stuff. Edmonton was alright since we got to send the girls off to the mall while I visited with one of my old friends from there and the other guy I was with visited with his father. Edmonton is a lot skeezier than I recall though? I account it to the fact that I was a naive little dumb ass when I was first there with no sense of good taste or concept of what a city should look like.
Overall however the trip was made in Banff, Jasper and to a lesser extent Calgary made the trip worthwhile, as did the trip through the Rockies from Banff to Jasper. It was kind of nice to have both the ladies along for the drive since they helped give us some perspective on what we were seeing. I mean, the mountains were big and impressive but I’ve grown up in the shadow of a similar though slightly smaller mountain range so it never really drove home on me. The girls though were amazed though to the point of childish wide-eyed-edness what with their British sensibilities of size. Don’t you know girls? Everything Canadian is bigger than in Britain, including the countryside. Heh heh heh, you see, that’s what people call “innuendo.” Tain’t I clever? Their enthusiasm was infectious as well so I found myself stopping the car at points where I normally wouldn’t even have noticed just to watch elk or harass tiny ground squirrels. The lakes were mostly frozen so our swimming was restricted to the Banff hot springs but I don’t think we would have been dipping in any of those even in high summer. “Allan. Allan man. Help me find my testicles. They disappeared some time during the swim.” “Screw off, I’m too busy looking for mine.” Really, the madcap adventures involved would require the pictures that go along with them but suffice it to say that much alcohol and nature hiking was involved. As well as a number of bars with delightful live music.
Calgary was a special note though since it was our last night and we ended up not doing the planned pub crawl but rather staying at a place called the “Flying Emu.” Two words… Drunken Karaoke. I had the honour of singing two or possibly three songs depending on your perspective. Namely, Eye of the Tiger, Paradise City and… Love shack? What was that last song? Stuck in the Middle with You? No wait… that was Gemma, Gemma the professional singer, Gemma who was in the Question this week since she will be singing at the GLC (local upper scale bar) on the nineteenth. Gemma who made us look so pathetically bad that we were forced, FORCED to drink another three rye and cokes just to forget the fact that we would be on next. Okay… maybe we would have done that anyway. There are advantages to going in a group at a karaoke night though since we made the agreement that whoever isn’t singing had to dance in support. It helps a lot I’ve discovered. Last thing of note, one of the girls ended up going on the dance floor and dancing with another woman there who proceeded to take off her belt and mock spank our friend on the floor. It was a weird situation for at least one party and I might of gone to try and “cut in” to break up the awkwardness by I found myself laughing so hard that I could neither see through the tears nor manage to stand. It is to Allen’s eternal regret that he had decided to use the washroom at that moment and missed the whole thing. Oh god. That was so god damned funny, just thinking about her expression makes me laugh.
I also learned an interesting drinking game which I have discovered to be incredibly addictive when I am mentally idle. Basically someone names a celebrity or cartoon character. Say… Brooke Shields. Then the next person in line needs to say a celebrities name that starts with the first letter of the second name such as Sarah Michelle Gellar and so on. If someone gives a double barrelled name like Susan Sarandon then the flow reverses back to the last person to give a name. If you can’t think of a name you start to chug your drink. Allen and I got our asses handed to us the first and only time we ended up playing it which I assume has to do with the fact that neither of us had even heard of it before. Still I feel the urge to play it now that I have prepared myself and find it an addictive past time as I fold laundry, go for a run or any other mentally dead task. Try it… I dares ya.
On a sadder note… work sucks. Well, not the work persay, but I am finding the hierarchy and bureaucracy of the Four Seasons to be unadulterated bullshit. Seriously, I want you to think of the guy at the zoo who cleans out the exhibit cages of all the animal’s poo, shovelling it into a wheelbarrow and dumping it in a central location. When you visualize that massive pile of mixed feces festering in the sun, flies buzzing all around I want you to imagine a single arm sticking out at the bottom, twitching feebly in an effort to free its owner from the impromptu grave. That arm belongs to me. ME! Don’t get me wrong. Four Seasons is great providing you just do your job and nothing else. If I had no dreams, aspirations, ambition, goals or independent thought processes this place would be the bomb. It is almost humorous the way that management will take all of your suggestions and discreetly throw them in the trash. Or when you have a sit down discussion with one of HR to work out with them your career goals, plans for the future and how both the company and you might benefit from them. They nod gravely and become enthusiastic at your long term commitment and then when you leave they light candles to their dark lord and start jabbing a straw doll bearing an uncanny resemblance to yourself with varying sharp instruments. I understand companies that want to treat you like a cog in a machine, I can even bring myself to respect them but these people treat you like the oil for those cogs. Wondering how long it will take for your viscosity to run out or even placing bets on what your splatter pattern will look like when you finally hit the ground beneath. At least put in an oil pan you wasteful bastards! I should write down a list of every single spoken “policy” that I have seen directly contradicted in practice.
This rant is spurred by a conversation I had recently with my boss about an upward transfer within my department. I found the experience embittering since I figured out that he had already hired someone from outside within the first ten minutes of talking with him. Despite the fact that Four Seasons policy is to “promote from within,” despite the fact that the decision date was still days away on the written HR posting, despite the fact that I am probably one of the few people in the property that has documentation/ diplomas relating not just to the job, but to every aspect of the job. I have a freaking certificate which proves I’m good on the phone for Christ’s sake!...................................................................................................................................................................................... sorry. I accidentally threw the monitor of my computer through the window and had to go hook it up again. Oh wait. I’m done yet with this rant. During the interview he actually told me that neither my qualifications nor eight years of hospitality experience was relevant since I hadn’t spent it in one place. I shit you not. I might also note that he only has six years of experience and no formal education. I must admit it is a sore spot with me as far as my resume is concerned that I only spend six or so months in a given property/ position but this is only in regards to my resume. I have found that because I spend a short time in numerous positions I now know a hell of a lot about the operations of a hotel/ resort/ restaurant. The only position I couldn’t fill in the hotel due to lack of experience is probably waiting tables or upper management. Even then I could probably fudge it, though they would figure it out in a month or two with the management scenario. Or maybe they wouldn’t? Hmmmm. I guess it all boils down to feeling like I am not only wasting my time but having time wasted by others on my account. Nobody likes that feeling I know but I really was hoping that I might be able to start working on my career here. Then again I’ve never been a ladder climber, I just don’t have the lips for kissing ass and every time I hear of a promotion it always boils down to that. Not some of the time. Not most of the time. Every Mother F-ing time. So ends the tension relieving rant.
By end of tension relieving rant I mean I want to put a lid on it and bring it to boil again later on. I just don’t want to alienate everyone through my constant bitching. Which, if I were to look at it critically, it really is since I’m not doing anything constructive to solve it. Once I have decided how to get myself out of this mess I will do it. Until then though I need to clear my head via this method. Lets see, nothing else that I really want to mention is going on. The weather is shite right now. Spring seems to consist of hideous amounts of pelting rain here and while all the plant life is brightening up you can actually see the people starting to droop as the days are slowly turning into weeks. I watched the first season of the cartoon Striperella. I wouldn’t say it’s comedy gold but it might make the mark of comedy silver or comedy nickel-cadmium mix. I found it a tad formulaic but I would imagine that anything seems formulaic when you watch thirteen episodes within three days. Armando the world’s greatest Latin Lover did make me laugh though if only for his “…and if need be, I will make sweet love to her. I will savage her body like a wild boar,” comment. The gym calls to me again, but not the gym I am already a member of oddly enough. That gym is just flat out too far away to be worth the effort. When I had a car it was super keen but now it’s just a frigging chore to get there and back. Instead, the slightly crappier gym that is literally a vigorous cum away is the one I’m looking at. The rates are reasonable and I can easily afford the three month passes. I think before I was shopping for the one year pass and it ended up scaring me away since it was slightly higher than the other gym as well as the fact that I would have to pay for it rather than having work do it for me. I’ll decide on whether I want to make any sort of plunge on that matter tonight. Tonight? What’s going on tonight? Oh yeah, Gemma’s singing tonight, right, right, I mentioned that already. I suppose I should also go to a matinee of the new Star Wars as well before I end up hearing and seeing everything about it out of context from other people and utterly shattering the experience for me. I did go and see “Kingdom of Heaven” which I found to be a worthwhile film… Have I talked about this in another post already? Hmmm, I don’t think so. Anyway, it was nice to see Orlando Bloom stretching himself as an actor in a non-bow related role and actually going into the trenches for some manly Aragorn style hack and slash. Now we just need to get him to do something without swords and armour and he might actually be worth something truly worthwhile. Perhaps he could play a heroin addicted boy whore in Trainspotting two? Or a middle aged, fat, jewish lawyer that doesn’t want his hot daughter to marry a Goiyam? I’ll let the fates decide on that one and seeing as I am apparently having some sort of breakdown judging by the quality of my writing I am going to cut this post off here.
PS: I made my supervisor spit her coffee out by mentioning “those crazy Ruskies. Running their tanks and planes off of vodka and corn oil” in reference to world war two. Perhaps it would help to mention that she is Russian?
First of all, I did indeed go on a road trip. It was loads of fun. Unbelievable fun… and driving, lots and lots of driving. First of all there were four of us. Allen, who owned the car and initially organized the fiasco. Gemma who works at the Signature store upstairs in the Four Seasons and her friend Stephanie. I didn’t really know any of them that well before the trip and have come to the conclusion that Allen I can take or leave as the case may be, though mostly leave. He’s kind of like Warren for those of you who know him, or anti-freeze for those of you who don’t. Delicious in small doses but will kill you in higher quantities. Or you will kill him, it works out to the same thing in the end really. Gemma is super cool, very talented and hilarious to talk to what with her terror of all things animal like but difficult to level with as she becomes strangely reserved at times. Stephanie is also super cool and very outgoing in her personality and joy of all things remotely resembling a party. Of the three I wish that I could have gotten to know her better but since neither of us really had even seen each other before the point of getting into the car you could imagine that the one on one discussions between us were not of the most insightful variety.
We nearly ran out of gas twice, in the same place no less as we went by way of that road both ways. Oh… maybe I should tell you where we went first? We went to Lillouet, Merrit, Kamloops, Banff, Lake Louise, Columbia Icefields, Jasper, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. The first and second night we stayed in Banff, the third and fourth in Jasper and the fifth and sixth in Calgary. Lillouet was remarkable in that we stopped at an extremely sketchy place for a bathroom break, terrible coffee and to check out the view. Merrit was interesting in that we took a wrong turn less than four kilometres from Kamloops (where we wanted to go) and ended up having to go to Merrit or risk running out of gas. It was an insanely big detour just to grab timbits and the local Timmy Ho-s. Kamloops was good for a lunch break at East Side Mario’s where the girls that I went with had apparently worked at in Toronto and Lake Louise was worth a stop if only to check out the frozen lake and the insanely huge Fairmont there. Freaking Gyenormous. The Columbia Icefields I could have done without since we ended up being a little on the late side for the tours and ended up just crushing pennies in a weird little vending machine and taking a look at the sciencey type stuff. Edmonton was alright since we got to send the girls off to the mall while I visited with one of my old friends from there and the other guy I was with visited with his father. Edmonton is a lot skeezier than I recall though? I account it to the fact that I was a naive little dumb ass when I was first there with no sense of good taste or concept of what a city should look like.
Overall however the trip was made in Banff, Jasper and to a lesser extent Calgary made the trip worthwhile, as did the trip through the Rockies from Banff to Jasper. It was kind of nice to have both the ladies along for the drive since they helped give us some perspective on what we were seeing. I mean, the mountains were big and impressive but I’ve grown up in the shadow of a similar though slightly smaller mountain range so it never really drove home on me. The girls though were amazed though to the point of childish wide-eyed-edness what with their British sensibilities of size. Don’t you know girls? Everything Canadian is bigger than in Britain, including the countryside. Heh heh heh, you see, that’s what people call “innuendo.” Tain’t I clever? Their enthusiasm was infectious as well so I found myself stopping the car at points where I normally wouldn’t even have noticed just to watch elk or harass tiny ground squirrels. The lakes were mostly frozen so our swimming was restricted to the Banff hot springs but I don’t think we would have been dipping in any of those even in high summer. “Allan. Allan man. Help me find my testicles. They disappeared some time during the swim.” “Screw off, I’m too busy looking for mine.” Really, the madcap adventures involved would require the pictures that go along with them but suffice it to say that much alcohol and nature hiking was involved. As well as a number of bars with delightful live music.
Calgary was a special note though since it was our last night and we ended up not doing the planned pub crawl but rather staying at a place called the “Flying Emu.” Two words… Drunken Karaoke. I had the honour of singing two or possibly three songs depending on your perspective. Namely, Eye of the Tiger, Paradise City and… Love shack? What was that last song? Stuck in the Middle with You? No wait… that was Gemma, Gemma the professional singer, Gemma who was in the Question this week since she will be singing at the GLC (local upper scale bar) on the nineteenth. Gemma who made us look so pathetically bad that we were forced, FORCED to drink another three rye and cokes just to forget the fact that we would be on next. Okay… maybe we would have done that anyway. There are advantages to going in a group at a karaoke night though since we made the agreement that whoever isn’t singing had to dance in support. It helps a lot I’ve discovered. Last thing of note, one of the girls ended up going on the dance floor and dancing with another woman there who proceeded to take off her belt and mock spank our friend on the floor. It was a weird situation for at least one party and I might of gone to try and “cut in” to break up the awkwardness by I found myself laughing so hard that I could neither see through the tears nor manage to stand. It is to Allen’s eternal regret that he had decided to use the washroom at that moment and missed the whole thing. Oh god. That was so god damned funny, just thinking about her expression makes me laugh.
I also learned an interesting drinking game which I have discovered to be incredibly addictive when I am mentally idle. Basically someone names a celebrity or cartoon character. Say… Brooke Shields. Then the next person in line needs to say a celebrities name that starts with the first letter of the second name such as Sarah Michelle Gellar and so on. If someone gives a double barrelled name like Susan Sarandon then the flow reverses back to the last person to give a name. If you can’t think of a name you start to chug your drink. Allen and I got our asses handed to us the first and only time we ended up playing it which I assume has to do with the fact that neither of us had even heard of it before. Still I feel the urge to play it now that I have prepared myself and find it an addictive past time as I fold laundry, go for a run or any other mentally dead task. Try it… I dares ya.
On a sadder note… work sucks. Well, not the work persay, but I am finding the hierarchy and bureaucracy of the Four Seasons to be unadulterated bullshit. Seriously, I want you to think of the guy at the zoo who cleans out the exhibit cages of all the animal’s poo, shovelling it into a wheelbarrow and dumping it in a central location. When you visualize that massive pile of mixed feces festering in the sun, flies buzzing all around I want you to imagine a single arm sticking out at the bottom, twitching feebly in an effort to free its owner from the impromptu grave. That arm belongs to me. ME! Don’t get me wrong. Four Seasons is great providing you just do your job and nothing else. If I had no dreams, aspirations, ambition, goals or independent thought processes this place would be the bomb. It is almost humorous the way that management will take all of your suggestions and discreetly throw them in the trash. Or when you have a sit down discussion with one of HR to work out with them your career goals, plans for the future and how both the company and you might benefit from them. They nod gravely and become enthusiastic at your long term commitment and then when you leave they light candles to their dark lord and start jabbing a straw doll bearing an uncanny resemblance to yourself with varying sharp instruments. I understand companies that want to treat you like a cog in a machine, I can even bring myself to respect them but these people treat you like the oil for those cogs. Wondering how long it will take for your viscosity to run out or even placing bets on what your splatter pattern will look like when you finally hit the ground beneath. At least put in an oil pan you wasteful bastards! I should write down a list of every single spoken “policy” that I have seen directly contradicted in practice.
This rant is spurred by a conversation I had recently with my boss about an upward transfer within my department. I found the experience embittering since I figured out that he had already hired someone from outside within the first ten minutes of talking with him. Despite the fact that Four Seasons policy is to “promote from within,” despite the fact that the decision date was still days away on the written HR posting, despite the fact that I am probably one of the few people in the property that has documentation/ diplomas relating not just to the job, but to every aspect of the job. I have a freaking certificate which proves I’m good on the phone for Christ’s sake!...................................................................................................................................................................................... sorry. I accidentally threw the monitor of my computer through the window and had to go hook it up again. Oh wait. I’m done yet with this rant. During the interview he actually told me that neither my qualifications nor eight years of hospitality experience was relevant since I hadn’t spent it in one place. I shit you not. I might also note that he only has six years of experience and no formal education. I must admit it is a sore spot with me as far as my resume is concerned that I only spend six or so months in a given property/ position but this is only in regards to my resume. I have found that because I spend a short time in numerous positions I now know a hell of a lot about the operations of a hotel/ resort/ restaurant. The only position I couldn’t fill in the hotel due to lack of experience is probably waiting tables or upper management. Even then I could probably fudge it, though they would figure it out in a month or two with the management scenario. Or maybe they wouldn’t? Hmmmm. I guess it all boils down to feeling like I am not only wasting my time but having time wasted by others on my account. Nobody likes that feeling I know but I really was hoping that I might be able to start working on my career here. Then again I’ve never been a ladder climber, I just don’t have the lips for kissing ass and every time I hear of a promotion it always boils down to that. Not some of the time. Not most of the time. Every Mother F-ing time. So ends the tension relieving rant.
By end of tension relieving rant I mean I want to put a lid on it and bring it to boil again later on. I just don’t want to alienate everyone through my constant bitching. Which, if I were to look at it critically, it really is since I’m not doing anything constructive to solve it. Once I have decided how to get myself out of this mess I will do it. Until then though I need to clear my head via this method. Lets see, nothing else that I really want to mention is going on. The weather is shite right now. Spring seems to consist of hideous amounts of pelting rain here and while all the plant life is brightening up you can actually see the people starting to droop as the days are slowly turning into weeks. I watched the first season of the cartoon Striperella. I wouldn’t say it’s comedy gold but it might make the mark of comedy silver or comedy nickel-cadmium mix. I found it a tad formulaic but I would imagine that anything seems formulaic when you watch thirteen episodes within three days. Armando the world’s greatest Latin Lover did make me laugh though if only for his “…and if need be, I will make sweet love to her. I will savage her body like a wild boar,” comment. The gym calls to me again, but not the gym I am already a member of oddly enough. That gym is just flat out too far away to be worth the effort. When I had a car it was super keen but now it’s just a frigging chore to get there and back. Instead, the slightly crappier gym that is literally a vigorous cum away is the one I’m looking at. The rates are reasonable and I can easily afford the three month passes. I think before I was shopping for the one year pass and it ended up scaring me away since it was slightly higher than the other gym as well as the fact that I would have to pay for it rather than having work do it for me. I’ll decide on whether I want to make any sort of plunge on that matter tonight. Tonight? What’s going on tonight? Oh yeah, Gemma’s singing tonight, right, right, I mentioned that already. I suppose I should also go to a matinee of the new Star Wars as well before I end up hearing and seeing everything about it out of context from other people and utterly shattering the experience for me. I did go and see “Kingdom of Heaven” which I found to be a worthwhile film… Have I talked about this in another post already? Hmmm, I don’t think so. Anyway, it was nice to see Orlando Bloom stretching himself as an actor in a non-bow related role and actually going into the trenches for some manly Aragorn style hack and slash. Now we just need to get him to do something without swords and armour and he might actually be worth something truly worthwhile. Perhaps he could play a heroin addicted boy whore in Trainspotting two? Or a middle aged, fat, jewish lawyer that doesn’t want his hot daughter to marry a Goiyam? I’ll let the fates decide on that one and seeing as I am apparently having some sort of breakdown judging by the quality of my writing I am going to cut this post off here.
PS: I made my supervisor spit her coffee out by mentioning “those crazy Ruskies. Running their tanks and planes off of vodka and corn oil” in reference to world war two. Perhaps it would help to mention that she is Russian?