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Back to Work
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 627
Back to work this morning, the boon of the unexpected 3 days off is over, and - well, I'm figuring 5 weeks left, let's get it over with.
But I'm not happy.
Arriving early, there was rain earlier in the week, intending to search for arrowheads.
SR is outside the basement, on the phone, he's earnestly talking to someone...
As I get out of my car he tells me - "S*** killed himself!!! I just found him in the basement...".
S*** was the head chef, he lived in the basement. And SR describes how he found him, on the couch, slouched over, black, the stench...
So, no suggestion he killed himself, rather an expression of SR's annoyance that he won't be coming to work. From the sounds of things this probably happened after work Sunday. I wasn't there.
Now they're looking for Mister Tickles, the other Chef, doing a "wellness" check and wanting to ask if he wants to work today in S***'s place. Of course they would.
After a spell the ambulance shows up, they confirm he's deceased, minimum 24 hours, now it's time for the RCMP, then the coroner....
SR's wife, in shock, C**** is horrified, JR is in shock and crying. It's a gong show. SR and his wife, they want to stay open, "Life goes on...".
I'm doubting that's going to happen. Eventually Mister Tickles shows up, he's a little calmer about it all than they are, he knows damn well they want him to work, nothing stops them, they're demons...
***
It starts to come together a bit. S***, native, without family, had worked 14 hours Sunday. A big guy, he was exhausted. Dead exhausted. And the Mother in Law, she's worried - she gave him a package to hold for her brother, his meds, morphine. So maybe that was it? She blames herself.
Maybe. S**** liked to party, and his "girlfriend" was also his dealer, talking to him once he mentioned she stopped dealing when her best friend OD'd. A bad batch.
And occasionally she was seen 'round his place. So maybe he didn't stop using, maybe tried to curb his exhaustion...
Maybe, maybe, maybe. Or maybe it was just they worked him to death. That place would do it to you. It was a busy day, by all accounts.
***
Talk to another Kitchen worker, A****, who confirmed she'd last received a text from him Sunday night, by Monday morning he wasn't answering.
***
I'd often joked the place was built over an Indian Burial Ground, and now - now it is. Let alone the winding up of the chefs at the beginning of the season, when I told them about the OD's in the staff housing...and I want to ask, if only to cast levity on the situation, if they found any sign of Curtis down in the basement, that chef who went missing under mysterious circumstances in May...but it's too soon. S*** would have laughed.
***
Enough is enough and I want the season to be over. C*** won't make it, will probably quit within the week, the kitchen girls, high school students, they're not going to take it well, we're wasting time until the season is over, the season, this season, the longest one ever, and every one wants it done.
Carrington Events
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 793
Add this to the list of things to go imminently wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event.
If climate change doesn't precipitate the end of Civilization this just might well. We've built it all - satellites, telecommunications, internet - all in very slender window of opportunity where nothing has gone wrong. But knowing that it can - and most likely will - we've taken no steps to prepare for what should be regarded as an inevitable - but preventable - calamity.
And it's just a matter of time. Sunspots peak every 11 years, and we're only 4 or 5 away from the next maximum, and who is preparing?
Booksmyth
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Reviews
- Hits: 875
And, one of two great bookstores in Nelson closing, just noticed it on the weekend, popped in, couldn't believe the sign but the owner confirmed it.
The pandemic, and rents on Baker through the roof, and this is it, the community loses another great thing, like the Old Wait's News on Baker and Ward, there 70, 80 years, moved to put in a shoe store, we need more useless gift shops, card shops, ....
Anyways, they're picking the bones of it now as I write this, I couldn't go over, it seems too much like exploiting another's misery.
Fed-Ex
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Conversations
- Hits: 578
I get a call from Fed-Ex, Filipino, thick, almost unintelligible accent. I have a parcel, but duties must be paid first.
Damn E-Bay, but the item wasn't available in North America so you do what you gotta do...
Anyways, she wants payment of duties before delivery. Fair enough. And I'm trying to give her details, my CC, and she's trying to take the payment but it's just not working...
...not working at all...
If I wasn't expecting the call I'd be damned sure this was a scam.
And I'm wondering why you'd make someone who can't speak English or work your payment software a CSR but that's the way of the world nowadays, just plain broken.
There's a party of foreign voices in the background, and I swear there's not a word of English...
She's confirming the spelling of my name... using her own version of the Nato Alphabet... "B as in Bad...O as in Oily...Y as in Yanghze..." and I'm just shaking my head...
20 minutes of this nonsense, no payment taken, and so she promises to send me a link where I can sort it out myself. It's in no ways intuitive, her name, Mexican, not Filipino, still, 0 English skills and while it's no small miracle it arrived it does make me loathe to use Fed-Ex.
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