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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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Summer, slow to start, and just as well, we're never up to speed on staff. The weather - rainy, by and large, scattered nice days, the rain keeps the smoke from the fires down so there's no complaining.
The owner's son, he's working, by which I mean he's on the schedule, he's come home for 2 months to "help his parents out" - he's got a wife, 2 kids, he's the only one working and he only works 2 months of the year - the rest of the year he's in school - yet he doesn't want to take tables. He puts himself on call and goes to the hotsprings and tells us to call us if we need him. He excuses himself to go upstairs for hours on end to visit with his Mother, his Father, his wife and his children, his friends from the area...
It's making me crazy. His being on the schedule is making us seem less short staffed than we are, but he's never there. And how does he afford this? His parents, they know, they don't want to talk about it but you know he's still costing them a fortune, never was money more poorly spent...
We've been short staffed all summer. The Kitchen starts to come together around the August Long, but the front of house we're always a couple of servers down. I'm doing 100+ hours every 2 weeks, too much. And every other day I'm training someone new...
Carmen, crazy lady who walked in off the street, car broke down up the road, claims to have served before but - very shortly in you figure that she hasn't. She stands and talks to tables, ignoring the dirty plates in front of them, the empty water glasses, wine glasses, beer mugs, then comes back and tells the other waitress that everyone wants to fuck her. She's my age, crazy, nobody wants to fuck her, you want to gently tell her that's she's safe from all male - and female - attention - but you live with it, anyone is better than no one. Filling the Katsups at the end of the night, fill them up, clean them up, put 'em away, she comes up and tells me she needs a brand new one. She has a table, it's they're anniversary, they should get a brand new Katsup. I just look at her. She's fucking crazy.
She lasts one weekend, her roomate in staff housing couldn't deal with her. The owner drives her into Nelson and drops her at a shelter.
Then there's Julie, who works one shift, calls in sick the next, then quits the following one because she disagrees with our house policies. There's Jessica, who works a couple of shifts then calls in to say she can't start until September. There's Krystal, who works about 3 weeks, knows what she's doing but then quits because of personal issues. There's Krystal 2, who's come here with her chef boyfriend, moves into the basement, and then they skip out 3 days later. "Family Emergency in Ontario". They call back a couple of weeks later looking for their jobs back, apparently the family emergency led them to a camp up north and they didn't like the work. There's Krysta, another chef boyfriend, they do a midnight move after 2 days and hitchhike out of town. At midnight. We're in the middle of fucking nowhere, that's how much they hated it.
August, the long weekend, raining, and now summer really begins, the restaurant becomes the indoor daycare for unhappy campers, dozens of children running, playing underfoot - it's all hell broken loose, but - survive it and there's one long weekend left.
And there are more, that came and left without my meeting them, forever training halfwits, the summer grows longer and longer. The mishap with the car, the staying past September through monsoons in the Hammock, the Ferry Strike, everything together makes this the worst summer on record. I'm finally let go the last week of September, I'm done, and they are apologizing to me - there just isn't the business, but they owe me no apologies, I'm fucking grateful as all out, it's overdue, I'm outta here...
The Kootenays, the greatest place on earth if you don't have to work or find a place to live.
There's the news of Sarah, the server who walked out just before I returned, made her way to Calgary to be with her boyfriend, she'd been filing for workmans comp over an incident at work that defies reasonable explanation, she'd filed, been declined, filed again, was declined again, then - finally - appeals and gets accepted. The reason? PTSD from the restaurant. I'm not making this up. This girl has just won the Kootenay jackpot...
But - finally it's over and I'm home - after sorts, and can breathe after a fashion.
Now, nearly, almost all caught up. There's a shit tonne of pictures to be posted - I'll get to it, and scraps and other tidbits but by and large we're almost all caught up. Phew.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
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By that I mean probably not a flying saucer, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, but looking at the stars, satellites, and I see two moving - towards me, and the rising moon, and as they approach they diverge somewhat, between them circles another light.
Quick, the whole thing maybe 4 or 5 seconds before they disappear into the light of the moon. Now curious, it's not a plane, or two planes, so then...?
It reminded me of once before, when my son was young and we were camping at a lake north of Cranbrook. And - looking at the sky, 3 lights - dim like stars, flying south in a triangle. And high and so you think maybe they're planes flying in formation, but the stars disappear behind them.
Again, no explanation. Sometimes you just got to accept it.
I know of people that swear as to the existence of flying saucers and ET and regularly spot wonders in the night sky, but it's usually a sign of other things. Nelson is home to a lot of alternative thinking, if you get my drift. But I'd consider myself pretty - well, dry and in this - Open, but skeptical.
Just a little mystery I thought I'd share.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1348
It's been a long 6 weeks (and I mean LOOOOOONG), but I'm finally back. I've a few things to catch up on, not least of cleaning this dump up (the boy used it over the summer and left me a whopping 6 squares of Toilet Paper. Thank you, Son, Thank you very much. And a fridge full of spoiled milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, etc.). The last 6 weeks - hectic, Summer never took off as it should have, then the ferry strike, homelessness in September awaiting the layoff, quite possibly the rainiest September on record spent swinging in a hammock in the forest behind the restaurant, then finally the layoff, a trip to the Island to visit the boy, to New Westminster to see Nick Cave, a few days lost around Nelson waiting, waiting...
Anxiety has been growing, a knot in the pit of my stomach, time to get things done, prospecting ended early, too early, no spoilers here, and the hammock - not the place, the space I need to complete creative projects, and so I've been in limbo, waiting, waiting to finally get back to Calgary - Thanksgiving with the crew from the restaurant, farewells, everyone in the end got the layoff, the ferry strike destroyed business, and it's time, it's overdue for me to get home...
And finally, finally I am. A shame, there was a rave on Saturday I wanted to attend, but this waiting, this idling, a thousand unfinished things, it's doing me in.
A thousand unfinished projects. An emptier - but still unpacked (and by now very dusty and dirty) apartment. Things still to sell, notes still to burn, paintings still to do, and a hell of a lot of blogging to catch up on.
Anyways - I'm back, the blog will slowly resume. I apologize, it's going to lack some narrative structure, there's a ton of notes to go through, and I'll be jumping back and forth and if you can't figure it out I don't blame you but probably you can, will, and so I'll jump all about and you can arrange the events, etc. as you choose. I'm glad you're still with me.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1654
I guess it all depends on who you're hanging out with...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1435
Trapped in Foon. My departure, after the Labour Day long weekend. Then to the end of October. Now, they tell me, until after the Thanksgiving Long. I gotta get outta here. My lease expired end of August, it's been raining every day and I'm staying in an air b&b hammock in the forest behind the restaurant .Excuse the typos....tiny keyboard...big thumbs.
I gotta get outta here. You can have too much of a good thing and at the moment that's me.
I got lots to say but it has to wait until I get back...if ever I get back....