spoiled chinese girl

I knew I held out on joining facebook for a reason. It's slightly creepy they insist on using your real legal name. (Using a nickname, or an initial is against their TOS, a girl I know got kicked off for using a widely known nickname… I don't even know what her legal name is) And that they're asking for so much info from you like your phone#'s and addresses etc to “Share with your friends”

*Ahem* Now suddenly, if I want to write on a “wall” I need to type in one of those catchpa random verification codes. And it says if I don't want to keep having to type these in I need to verify my account.

And… if I want to verify my account, I need to give them my mobile phone number. How many ways can you spell NOT HAPPENING?

Part 2.

HR lady also came to me with the idea of a day-long outing with the entire company.  Generally for large companies this would be a giant company picnic where there’s lots of games, entertainers, and the invitations of family members.  We’re not such a big company.  So we’re limited in that sense.

What was proposed was a company Paintball game.  Apparently the owners are all about paint ball, or at least are really excited about the prospects, and considering two of the owners are healthy fit young males in probably around their 30’s at best, it’s not surprising.  And the warehouse staff being comprised of much the same (maybe a little older) but generally very competitive groups… that might go over well.

Where it likely won’t go over well is with the office staff.  Which mainly comprises of very wispy females in a range of ages from me being the youngest to others being old enough to be my mother.  Personally, I’m all for paintball, I think it would be fun to mark out my bosses and be pretend-killing them at every turn.  But for a company activity to be a success I think it should be something the entire company has the possibility of enjoying, and I don’t see paint ball as being just that.

In my duties as a social committee member, I remembered this place called Rinx which boasts holding corporate events along with birthday parties.  They hae laser tag, much a similar theme to paint ball, without the physical violence of getting hit with pellets of paint.  And they also have bowling and mini golf and an assortment of other games we could partake in.  I was thinking… okay, maybe an evening of it.  Play rounds of mini golf or bowling for an hour or two, go to a lounge-type room and eat and drink, bring the kids and go home at the end of the night.

I walk in the next morning to a sign-up sheet for paint ball.  Where our times to be there are either 8am-4pm, or 12 noon-4pm.  On a Sunday.  My idea of Rinx got shot down because it’s indoors, and they wanted something outside because it’s so nice out.

Problem.  I know of many paintball facilities in the Toronto area.  None of them are outdoors.  The outdoor ones are all far away where there’s lots of forests and woods, such as… Barrie Ontario, a good hour drive away if not more.

So I questioned this theory.  Ummm… where are you holding paintball?  All the Toronto facilities are indoors.  And the outdoor ones are generally at least an hour’s driving distance away.

I have a return of “There’s a place in Milton that they have gone to already and really liked.”

Milton Ontario.  I ride in their Christmas parade on a unicycle.  It’s at LEAST an hour away by car, and that’s with *ME* driving.  And when I go there, I get paid 20 dollars in gas just to drive down, let alone the money I get paid to be in the parade.  I digress.

When I found that out?  I immediately replied with “You may want to put that on the sign-up sheet the location of the event.  Because people may not realize the commute time when they sign up and may end up backing out of it later”  No reply.

But seriously.  Milton?!  I went to their website (assuming I found the right one, but I think I did considering their website showed the same time availabilities as what we had been offered)  and it’s an awesome site, but not something first-time paintball participants will enjoy nearly as much.

Unless the owners just really want to live out a fantasy of killing their employees.

And if we want to bring guests, we have to pay for their admission.

And I’m wondering if in this 8 hours worth of play, how many balls we end up with.  Because first-time paintball participants run through 100 balls probably in 5 minutes.  Just some more things I will like to bring up with the HR lady just to show “Hey, you ain’t all that”

Seriously.  I don’t understand this company at all.

It’s a nice gesture and all.  But 8 hours worth of paint ball? Plus 2 hours for the commute there and back? On a SUNDAY where I already see these people 9 hours a day for 5 days out of a 7 day week??

I will seriously push for events to my liking.  Like a round of mini-golf, or maybe a baseball game (even though that’s hard with our crowd) but something family oriented.  Because people can’t bring their 6-10 year old kids to play paintball.  But they will bring their 6-10 year olds to play mini golf.

The owners are greedy.  Let’s do what we want and make it look like we’re being the nice guys.

Sure.  Like we can’t see through that.

“Based on your suspension experience, what do you hope to learn to improve the safety and experience of those being suspended?”

From the moment suspension entered my mind as a viable act my mind and body would be able to successfully handle; I have looked towards improving the experience for myself and for others. Current suspension practitioners I have the honour of knowing are my inspiration to follow the path they have lead.

In myself, I hope learning more of the preparation, the thoughtfulness, care, heartache and determination that suspension practitioners exhibit when aiding my experience, will help me be more thankful, and be more understanding to the hard work they have put forth to make my suspension a happy and successful adventure. My experiences being suspended are limited, but the attention and concern for my well-being was exhibited every time, no matter the outcome. I look up to these people that have helped me through all of my physical, mental and spiritual goals, allowing me to move at my pace being free from judgement. I hope to learn to think like them, and be them, and show my thanks to them through being there for others.

With others, I hope learning and understanding the motions I go through, rather than just going through motions, will help make suspension experiences for those who I assist in their own journeys. I aspire to be able to create sanitary, safe and positive experiences for those who will share themselves with me, and the lectures, and training within the program will be able to raise the learning curve; so I can more quickly be confident in my abilities and more quickly become comfortable in suspension settings to be able to continue learning through being present, doing work, and asking good questions. My goal is to learn from everyone, to take in knowledge from different experiences and incorporate them into future suspensions, making these experiences as comfortable and easy going for potential suspension participants as I have had in the past.

I have no aspirations to run off and start my own suspension team, or group, or practice suspending people privately, or largely involving only me, for a long time afterwards. The suspension school will be a large stepping stone from what I have learned already from mere observing and questioning. My fear is what holds me back, and in my mind, fear and understanding are inversely proportional. The more I understand about suspensions, the less I will fear, and become at ease with my skills, abilities and attributes.

All I really want out of the suspension school is to have better working knowledge of everything that happens. With many events in my life, I can appreciate the hard work and dedication that goes into any performance, or any impressive act. But the ability to understand and be able to accurately recreate events is what makes me appreciate it that much more. At some point in my life, I was told that you can never truly appreciate what someone has done for you until you do it for someone else. Ive always believed that.

I just can’t believe people sometimes.  Especially my coworker/HR lady person.  I don’t know how someone with the limited amount of logic she owns is able to tie her shoes in the morning let alone be the head of the human resources department.

First thing, just a little one before I get into my rant.  If someone’s come to see you because you have an appointment with them, for heavens sake, go see/talk to them.  So what if they’re 10 minutes early.  Busy yourself for 8-10 minutes, then go see them.  Don’t go on the phone calling more potential employees of the company, and make yourself 10 minutes late for your own damn interview.

Anyways, onto more mind-bending non-logic.

The company plans on throwing a company BBQ after work, once a month for the next 4 months.  A great and friendly gesture that is sure to put little stars beside all of their names, as opposed to the monstrous mountain of black marks due to their treatment of employees during the other days in the year.   Now these are held after work.  So the BBQ’s always start at 4pm.  Problem being there are staff that start at 8am and finish at 5pm.  And generally us early birds that start early, get to come out early and start eating/enjoying while the rest of the clods stay inside and finish off the last 60 minutes of their day before they come out for whatever’s left.

Well.  One suggestion was to end the day at 4pm for everyone.  So everyone can start at the same time.  Which bloody well makes sense.  Now are people willing to cut out an hour’s worth of pay for a BBQ though is the question.  Anyways, to those perhaps we should give them the option of starting at 7am so they don’t lose the hour, assuming they can afford to come in that early as well.  All those feelings aside, I personally think we should shut down work at 3pm and start the BBQ then.  It’s a friday.  It’s a nice day outside.  And why the hell not.  It won’t kill anyone if they don’t get their phone calls answered late in the day.

But I’m being asked by the HR lady, because I’m on the social committee, which by the way, she keeps interrupting me during my LUNCH which I am *NOT PAID FOR* to bother me about work-related issues.  ARRGH!  Anyways.  The way she made it sound was like “How can we *MAKE* people stay?”

Since, it’s tradition that if you’re not being paid to stick around work… you would… tend to go home.  Even if there is a BBQ going on, people might stick around for a burger or two, a drink and then head home.

Well, apparently the goal is 100% participation for a minimum set number of hours.

And when I brought up the points of “Well, people have family or other commitments, and maybe they just can’t stay that long” I get rebuttled with “We tell you in advance of these events, they have time to make other arrangements!”  Ummm… what if there are no other arrangements to make?

Say I have a kid, and a husband. (I have neither)  Me and my non-hubby both work.  He drops her (somehow “kid” became “daughter” by the way) off at school and starts his day later, meaning it ends later.  I have an early shift so I pick her up after school.  So what the HR lady is telling me, is that I must attend the company BBQ, and therefore either pay extra to have the daycare take my kid for longer, or make my hubby take off early, losing pay, to pick up my kid, so I can eat burgers, unpaid, with people I already see for 8-10 hours a day?  I don’t see the logic.

I just didn’t have the heart to tell the kooky HR lady “Hey, pay us to stay, and we’ll probably stay!”

And the company is just such a weird size that no real events work out well.  It’s too big to do an intimate dinner/drinks gathering.  It’s too small to do a giant softball match or renting out a really cool place like Wonderland.

I’ll continue this thought later.

Yoga tonight is going to kick my ass.