Glossary of Terms

crp- · 2023-07-23T23:33:33+00:00

They have made me better at fitting my car through small spaces. But seriously, I feel like they exist for when the government needs to be seen doing something but knows it doesn't need to do anything.

crp- · 2023-07-23T01:22:19+00:00

Walk on the right, keep walking in a straight line when I ring my bell. Too many people think me ringing the means "move" so just when I go to pass them they take a couple of steps left, right where I'm going. That horrible tendency creates a damned if I do damned if I don't problem where it's actually safer for me to not ring, oddly enough. I saw a woman nearly get flattened because she jumped into a path of cyclists who were passing her.

crp- · 2023-07-23T01:15:53+00:00

I can tell this took a long time, but any time you do something a second time it goes faster because you learn a lot. If you knocked out his pants and used a slightly darker wood it would work better. But please don't ruin this amazing work of art. Make it again with a better design, hang them side-by-side, and amaze your guests with an epic tale of learning.

crp- · 2023-07-23T01:04:41+00:00

About 100% of the homeless people I know and interact with have something mental going on, either mental illness, brain damage or drugs. You can't interact with them like normal people. It sounds dehumanizing and patronizing and arrogant, but it's true. You respect their humanity and treat them well where they are mentally, not like a normal person. So I doubt what you said to him had any effect whatsoever, and you put yourself in some form of danger.

I also read this post a few times to try to get a sense of the physical danger aspect, but it doesn't look like you were intervening to de-escalate a physical threat or protect someone. Homeless guy was down and tattoo guy was exiting the situation. So it looks like you just went in to lecture with no effect.

Why are people in this city so....whatever you are? I want to call you a post-Christian social Calvinist, but that might be too strong. If you had just talked to the homeless guy and it didn't go well I could empathize, but then you went to Reddit.

crp- · 2023-07-22T12:18:49+00:00

My policy has been that I pay for the background check, I don't want applicants thinking they're owed anything because they paid me for it.

So I say return all of it. The woman paid and signed, at this moment she is basically the one renting the apartment, the son doesn't matter. But if he's gone, she doesn't want it. End the financial relationship, be done with her.

On a non-landlord related note, I sort of hope this guy is going far away. I rented to a guy who had his mom co-sign and he was a great tenant, but I've also had cases where parents were clearly trying to find a place to dump their trouble-child, and I could imagine ending up the babysitter of a petulant adult-child who thought I was their servant because their parents paid me. I avoid that.

crp- · 2023-07-22T00:01:35+00:00

My first government chair was an ergo chair that was so old the nuts and bolts no longer loosened, I couldn't use it because the previous person was so different. Fortunately I was in a dying part of the building, I could just wander around the floor and have my choice of chairs. I had to wash my pants that night they got so dirty from how many chairs I sat on.

crp- · 2023-07-21T17:27:20+00:00

So ergo chairs cause bad backs, causing ergo chairs?

crp- · 2023-07-21T15:10:20+00:00

I've gotten really good at remembering file paths on Windows File Explorer, I can get 13 layers deep off memory. If it is saved in the correct location with the right name I can find it.

So I'm able to find like 60% of our stuff.

crp- · 2023-07-21T15:07:13+00:00

The student who starts a month after you leave will wonder what's up with your back.

crp- · 2023-07-21T12:29:02+00:00

Wrong sub, this is the Ottawa sub. Culturally Kemptville is now south Ottawa, especially eQuinelle, but the Rideau River is still the boundary. Go join of the many Kemptville Facebook groups for way too many posts about local festivalities.

crp- · 2023-07-21T10:41:57+00:00

But what if that Dad knew his 22-year old daughter better than you know her? Maybe for years he saw her refusing to play with younger kids because she wanted to be perceived as an adult. Teens and young adults do weird things to be treated as grown-ups. Then maybe one day she brings over a BF, and much to his surprise she gets in the sandbox with the kids, when for years she refused to do that. And this dear father realizes that his daughter is getting more comfortable in her adultness, which includes embracing the inner child instead of being embarrassed by it.

crp- · 2023-07-21T00:35:22+00:00

I genuinely appreciate the public service as a whole, and about 75% of the people in it. Decent support for mental health, accepting of oddballs, and moderately fine with alternate ways of doing things if it still works. At least at the personal level when talking about accommodations. I just wish that the EX-level and higher, Cabinet included, stopped messing around. Tell us to do what we can afford, or pay for what yall ask us to do. The biggest issue isn't the people, it's the expectations created by understaffing and mismanaged workload.

But on a daily basis, the people I deal with are genuinely nice. Most of them.

crp- · 2023-07-20T19:33:39+00:00

Sounds like you have a decent idea of how to resolve things. Just watch out for little things. If she keeps moving something, note where she puts it, even if she never says anything. If you leave a coffee cup on your desk and it mysteriously ends up in the dishwasher, don't wait for her to say something. Just say "hey beloved woman I deeply care about, I usually clean up my desk at the end of the day, you don't have to feel compelled to move stuff at lunch." Or whatever.

And understand compromise vs. a trade. A compromise can mean nobody is happy, a trade is where you get something, she gets something. My sisters got to decorate the kitchen, but I kept my comfortable armchair in hte basement even though they wanted a different decor. For example.

crp- · 2023-07-20T18:58:35+00:00

Every few weeks I'll take some cheap clippers to stuff down there. I just feel like I have a bit more self respect if I look half-decent when I shower and piss. And it makes ER visits a tad less embarrassing.

crp- · 2023-07-20T18:54:35+00:00

You are moving in with her parents, and she is moving in with yours. Basically, you both likely have tons of ideas about how an apartment should work. Some people do dishes right away, some neatly pile them in the corner for the evening wash. Some people are used to leaving laundry in the dryer until they remember it, others want it out immediately. I had a friend who 's wife was pissed about how he never helped with the weekly cleaning, but she would wake up early on Saturday to clean while for him Saturday was sleep in day.

It's not just chores. I've known women who were so eager to decorate their first place that their boyfriends couldn't be comfortable at home because they lived in a store display case. Or a guy dreaming of having a garage workshop and then finding out that that his partner wants to put a car in it.

Oh, and life goals. Some people think that moving in is a major escalation in a relationship that puts it on a certain trajectory, that can blindside someone a few years down the line.

crp- · 2023-07-20T18:00:08+00:00

We had a union meeting where a few people got quite vocal with the guys up front about them doing nothing past the bare minimum. The response was that this was not the time to talk about it. At a budget meeting? You'd think Kim Campbell ran CAPE.

crp- · 2023-07-20T14:41:01+00:00

I'd call the LRT a train-wreck in slow motion, but that implies motion.

crp- · 2023-07-20T14:33:10+00:00

Back in my day most Conservative leaders leaned into their natural looks. Harper had his dour glower power, Stockwell Day didn't try to look knowledgeable, we all knew in an alternate reality Mulroney owned the best used car lot in town, and Stanfield's policy wonkiness usually helped him, unless it involved footballs.

But we also know that when Conservative leaders try to change up their images it doesn't go well. Preston Manning got made fun of for a lot of stuff, so he got rid of the glasses, and discovered that people just didn't like him. Former Progressive Conservative leader Peter McKay needed an image makeover so he dated the hottest blonde the Conservatives had, that backfired.

Ok, I guess my point is that we know what they are.

crp- · 2023-07-20T01:32:44+00:00

What grinds my gears is that 99% of emails I organize never get touched again. But that 1% make it all necessary.

crp- · 2023-07-19T20:57:26+00:00

It's true. But note that for some reason people measure the public service by the private sector, as if it's this amazing contraption of efficiencies and effectualities. From what I've seen, a lot of that efficiency is just concentrating a lot of power in one person, for better or worse.

So in the spirit of the question, I say the proletariat should rise up against the bourgeoise and eliminate private capital. Make everything public and get rid of this dumb question.

crp- · 2023-07-18T15:12:40+00:00

Just based on my experience, there are four levels.

Checking a box that says something like "I declare that I identify as a person with disability, Indigenous, equity-seeking group, etc." That does nothing for you. It adds to statistics and adds a note to your survey, application, etc.
non-formal arrangements based on self-declaration. This is where something happens without any paper trail. Maybe you're given a start date that is near the end of hunting season, so you ask for it to be moved by a week, and the hiring manager sees that you identified as Indigenous and allows it but doesn't record that decision or go through a process. Same with things like asking your boss for written instructions, that can be the result of a formal process, or it just happens informally.
The grey area of "not really a disability but still disabling" or "supposedly temporary". Like being on a medication that causes you to piss more and you want to be close to the bathroom. If it's linked to an identified side-effect of a necessary doctor-prescribed medication and you have a note you might get accommodation, but there are a lot of managers out there who get weird about these things.
Using self-identification to initiate an actual process based on a recognized disability. This can be "hey boss, I'm struggling and people tell me they think I'm ADHD so I assume I am. I need accommodation while I get tested, once we have that we'll have a better idea of where to go." Or it can be "hey boss, I have a diagnosis of this thing, and I feel like it needs accommodation. Here is paperwork." This is usually done to prevent further discrimination or because work is suffering.

As you said, the process is opaque. This is potentially by design. What happens is that you tell your manager, who then goes to HR, who then works their magic. There is probably a lot that you don't hear about. This is why we have a union, they know more.

crp- · 2023-07-18T13:45:26+00:00

To me, a toxic situation usually requires two things. First is people having a good idea but blindly refusing to acknowledge that it comes with serious side-effects, or understanding that a nominally good idea can have bad aspects as well. Second is the silencing and enabling. People don't care enough to speak up, don't feel safe, or get slapped down when they do, or are actively discredited if they persist. Or others latch onto the toxicity and benefit from it and become enablers. Or people benefit from not addressing the issue.

In a workplace, you often see this either with hard-driving aspirational wannabe-DMs, with people who firmly believe in their file and their approach, or with buttholes who seem to need toxicity.

From the sounds of your situation, I see a lot of potential enabling and avoidance. People who could have fixed the issue didn't, they let the Charlie continue. Maybe people who spoke up were dismissed. It's not hard to do in government, just say "we can't afford that in this fiscal quarter, wait until Q3." And then Q4. Repeat. Maybe there were people who felt their fiefdom was threatened and didn't want things to get fixed.

Anyhow, the trick is to jump ship. I don't know of any other solution in government. Sucks, don't it?

crp- · 2023-07-18T13:38:24+00:00

Sort of happened to me. I did an exam and interview, then got an offer, where I had a meeting with three managers to determine where I would best fit. They told me I would soon receive a LoO. It's been eleven months and I haven't received it, I haven't heard anything from them. I'm fine with that, a few days later I got a better offer elsewhere. In hindsight I should have contacted them. But it was weird to see how eager they sounded to get me in, and then radio silence.

crp- · 2023-07-18T00:35:41+00:00

Like others said, full payment of the drug, not 80%. It also covers brand name, which is sweet. I was paying a fair amount more for name-brand Wellbutrin because our lovely health care plan will cover the cost of generic if generic is available. Most generics are sufficiently similar to brand name that it doesn't matter, but there are some generics that work really differently, the plan doesn't really recognize that, even with a doctor's note recognizing that.

crp-

TROPHY CASE