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Back to Workplace || Moi, sort of || Millstone || Injury || Financial straits || Peggy (sadly now deceased) 04/02/2004: April Fool's joke delayed to the next day: it seems because I am not able to receive EI, because of WSIB payments last year, the next step is to receive $50 per month, plus a bus pass, from Ottawa Partners for Jobs, as welfare is now called. This is a page about a project that an acquaintance, Neil Russell (recently deceased from Crohn's disease) and I were trying to develop: this is precisely the kind of work that I would love to be involved with, at the giving and not at the receiving end of a community aid structure. 05/18/2004: How to become really angry: be harangued by some idiot in India (or was it Toronto?) phoning re a bill regarding a TD bank account that I cannot repay until things improve. How dare TD employ companies to implement this level of abuse for customers they had. One could not expect that if things improve that I would even consider reopening any TD account. Fat bloody chance. It was apparent that theirs was a different way of speaking English; that, as usual when telephoned that one cannot interrupt the usual harangue; and that no one in these organisations does a Google search, or an approach between similar organisations to pool information. That would reduce the level of idiotic harassment that one receives. It has not done my health any good (it increases stress, or wouldn't you believe that?), and events similar to this also prevent one concentrating on job search. 06/14/2004: This in Society Guardian: English government to implement improvements for the employment of the mentally distressed. Er, maybe, given what transpired later. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ It seems, and this has been admitted by OPforJ personnel, that my particular situation was not considered by the planners: having to live at home when one is 62, where one has debts and living/maintenance expenses means nothing. Now I am in more of a parlous situation than ever before. The injury at work last year and the WSIB allowances do not mesh, especially when one realises that it is likely to be 2005 before my physical problems are ameliorated to a reasonable level. It is probable, as the population ages, and the boomer generation becomes frailer, that I am in the vanguard of many, if not identical, then very similar disasters. And, now it is one week from 2007, the damage is not cured: having to lift a 21" monitor recently caused major twinges, as did sitting on chairs, poorly made for health, at a recent all day Microsoft Vista and Exchange 2007 seminar.
Primary Edict: Not one person
to ever speak about anything to my father: only ever leave a message. It should
be obvious that no one should even phone my father's abode. This page originally relates to the idiot at NetNation, an otherwise excellent hosting company, who gave my father a list of what I purportedly owed the company. Also, the page covers the remainder that can't understand that I live here only until I can afford to move out, or the poor old sod departs this earth. (Except that I was genetically faulty to begin with, since mental illness is generally known to be chemical in origin. Mind you, since I increasingly see signs as I age of my mother's features when I look in a mirror, it might be her. Welcome to the fear of dementia, but when will one know?) Personal Factors relating to Paul Dickins, early sixties in age, and of grey mien, a result of fatigue, job chasing, and harassment: a) A possible depressive: once intimated were dysthymia and chronic black dog. This may not be accurate, but I certainly have behavioural problems extant, which is why I lost my wife and youngest daughter, together with use of car, house, phone, high-speed (essential) Internet access, and my job with Convergys. One hopes that the pages illustrate what a depressive lives with: not everyone can be Winston Churchill or Dalton Camp (for Canadians). Oh, yes, the other thing is that the constant lack of money precludes the purchase of medication, which is, naturally, expensive. One can only obtain repayment, if applicable, after the fact. Thank goodness that I have been able to maintain a semblance of balance by using will power, and not medicine. It is, admittedly, difficult to do, but nothing comes easily, what? Having an odd sense of humour, to see the funny side of the world we live in, is absolutely necessary, so that is what I have! And, as mentioned, the fact that I am prone to having fits of temper, of ill feeling towards those who deal with me, is nothing to be happy about. This behaviour has cost me dearly in the past. Notably, it is also present in my father, and how he sometimes treated his wife. b) Injured for a considerable time in 2003/2004: see here. Obviously, no earned income at all for certain periods. Consequently, can obtain no new clothes, or any other requirements. At least it showed that I have a willingness to work: unfortunately, this time, with disastrous results. The company I was employed by, Doucet, puts ill-equipped &/or poor workers alongside drivers, and then wonders why drivers never last. c) Loss of working opportunities because I cannot lift objects from floor level, and, in any case, illegal ageism prevents me successfully obtaining jobs in the IT sector. My preference is for work with my intellect, not my body. Mind you, until last year and the work injury, I had been playing soccer (and refereeing for a somewhat shorter time) unceasingly since I was six. Mind you, if the government Internet pages professed anything better than lip service regarding ageism, perhaps I would not currently be thinking about an early pension as the only viable option of maintaining an existence on this planet. I would rather work: there are enough people who lack skills in English, both grammatical and literary, mathematics, and how to apply their skills in an office or other work context. To place this in context, the EI person I was showing my (current application) forms to didn't know that many of his questions were answered thereon already! He may have been bilingual, but he certainly was not au fait with the procedures! d) Living in Ottawa, with my aged father: see here for life as it once was with his deceased wife, Peggy. Not only that, he lost his driving licence on March 1st., 2004, because he has developed macular degeneration. He would have given me his car, but I can't find work and certainly could not afford the insurance charges. I am only here on sufferance, too, even if he is pleasant about it. Old habits die hard. e) Attempting to learn French, since most jobs here require one to be bilingual: and, although I have a B rating in reading, speaking franglois is another thing entirely. f) Debts owed to several bodies: no opportunity for repayment. And I cannot afford to become a bankrupt: my youngest daughter will suffer if I have to end up in the poor house. (Luckily she is growing up, sure to become a lovely girl, in the care of her mother in Montréal. Unfortunately, as shown by the adjacent illustration, she misses being with me, even if her crayoned picture of me is not entirely accurate: thereby hangs a tale, obviously related to my malfunctioning married life.)
g) No car. Public transit only: Or Shanks's pony. h) Constant badgering to obtain money for myself is only partially successful: after all, I desperately need dental work. I don't want to end up like dear Mama, looking like a ragged-clothed something circling a cauldron in Macbeth! i) Here are a couple of links from this site of typical experiences as a lowly employee. Not that I can forget working in Vancouver at a "finance" company, where I was the dogsbody (IT/accounts/admin). I discovered that my employer had siphoned off funds from Pearl Buck's estate; and that many of the calls I received were from friends of his lurking in gaols in the US. And then, in Ottawa: Worker Ants and TCC. It's about time that I find a proper outlet for my abilities and not continue suffering from this rubbish. The conclusion? Useless twat or merely unlucky? I have been a manager (several times), a union shop steward and secretary, a driver of semis and of buses, an instrument technician, a computer techie and educator, a part-time accountant, a teacher, ad nauseam. But now? Who knows, and being harassed does not help: You Know Who You Are! Any company that won't behave
will be listed here, and then advertised. |
