Canadian Politics Today

I took my Pathfinder in to the dealership for a mandatory airbag replacement.  While they had it there, they did a Free 87 Point Inspection and identified about $2400 of service they thought should be done.  I thanked them, took their list to my own mechanic, and asked them to look it over.   They did their own inspection, and of the $2400 of work the dealership wanted to do for me, they recommended exactly $0 of it.  I am very happy to have a mechanic that I trust.



Work has been very busy.  Production Chief Pete is officially retired now, but still comes in to work most days to train the people brought in to replace him.   He did so much different stuff that his job has been broken into 3 separate functions, with 2 new people. As I mentioned before I have been dethroned and exiled from the production group by Alpha Minion who has taken over as supervisor of the minions. We also hired an MRP guy and a lady who will do inventory and shipping/receiving. I find this lady incredibly grating. The day of her interview she came in wearing incredibly loud perfume that smelled like bubble-gum and everybody complained after she left. She got the job anyway but was apparently warned about the perfume because that has stopped.  She's a middle-aged woman who still wears jeans with embroidered back pockets. Yesterday she had on a blouse that had Harley Davidson embroidery all over it. She drives a truck with an energy drink logo sticker and a "straight outta Craptown" sticker on the back window.  (Craptown: the dodgy suburb on the east end of Kim City, full of grow-ops, wanna-be gangsters, real gangsters, and so on.)   She talks in this breathy voice that makes me think of a low-rent parody of a Marilyn Monroe character.  When she gets a text message, her phone announces in a very loud voice, "YOU GOT A MESSAGE FROM... MARK!"   She interrupts meetings without the slightest big of self awareness.

Greg, Ed, Tom: *discussing important big brain stuff.*
Brenda: "HI TOM I JUST NEED TO CHECK WITH YOU AND MAKE SURE I HAVE THE PACKAGING INSTRUCTIONS RIGHT THIS IS REALLY CONFUSING YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?"
Tom: *goes to assist, returns a few minutes later.*
Greg, Ed, Tom: *back to discussing important big brain stuff.*
Brenda: "HI TOM CAN YOU HELP ME WITH THE SHIPPING? THE FED-EX WEBSITE IS JUST SO CONFUSING YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?"

Perhaps once she is trained and used to how everything is supposed to work she won't need constant supervision, but I just have a feeling that her personality type is the sort of person who will continue to constantly interrupt everything. She just seems like the kind of person who thinks that whatever she's working on at that moment is the most important thing in the whole company, with no awareness that everybody else is working on things as well. Perhaps I am being overly judgmental and overly pessimistic, and perhaps this negativity is because she is pretty much my polar opposite in terms of personality. But I find her even more irritating than Old Economy Steve, and that's pretty irritating.  With all the changes going on at work, I am glad to have been shifted into this role where I spend most of my time doing work for Greg and Ed, because I feel more comfortable with them than I feel with the new and growing crowd in the production side.


Summer weather has arrived and I'm super happy about that. I am doing lots of outdoor stuff now.  Things with my special girl are going ok.


 -k