Guessing game at work

Quick anecdotal post, I have something to tell. We have team building activities at work, about once a week, we spend time on a Zoom or a Teams call and we play a game or two, sometimes there are incentives with it (early finish on Friday, freebies, etc.) We played one this afternoon, when we had to guess what objects was hidden in a bag held by our manager. We could ask questions about the nature of the object. One of them, our manager explained that it was "something you put on your body to protect yourself". I could not help it, I said: "Is it a condom?" It made everyone laugh. But no, it was sunglasses. Still, I think my little witticism deserves to be a new great unknown line.

"Hey man, love your jumper!"

This is what my manager told me this morning at the end of our one to one meeting: "Hey man, love your jumper!" I thanked him, told him that I had beenw aiting forever to wear warmer jumpers. Not that it is that cold now, but it is cooler and often rainy, so you need warmer clothes. This is an old turtleneck jumper my mum bought me a couple of years ago, kind of thin but it does the job when it is slightly beneath 20. Anyway, I am grateful for that reminder: autumn is most definitely here and I can now wear comfy clothes.

The Printer That Worked

A friend of mine shared that picture on social media a few weeks ago and it made me laugh so much that I decided to share it. It is funny (or tragic) because it's true: the printers we have here never work. Or they never work for long. They fare a bit better at work, but not that much. So, yeah...

La Fête du Travail

C'est la Fête du Travail aujourd'hui, du moins en Amérique du Nord. Ici, c'est un lundi comme un autre (en fait non, c'est la rentrée, mais pour un travailleur c'est un lundi comme un autre). J'essaie de souligner la Fête du Travail chaque année, même si je ne peux pas en profiter depuis que je suis un expatrié. Je préfèrerais et de loin un congé en septembre qu'un congé en août. Pour mes impressions sur aujourd'hui, lire ce billet de 2015 et celui-ci de 2020. Sinon, je vous souhaite un bon jour férié, chanceux que vous êtes.

Dernier jour de juillet

Je commence ce billet par un lieu commun: nous sommes le dernier jour de juillet. C'est toujours un peu délicat quand la fin du mois tombe un lundi et que l'on est au travail. Ce qui est mon cas aujourd'hui. Mon 31 juillet ne sera sans doute pas tranquille. Cela dit, comment a été votre mois? Ici, ce fut somme toute assez plaisant, parce que la température a été assez fraîche, comparée à celle du mois de juin (le plus chaud de l'histoire) mais aussi comparée à celle de juillet 2022, qui nous a donné une très mauvaise canicule. Je n'aime pas l'été, juillet est le pire mois de l'année pour moi à bien des égards, mais cette année il a été clément.

Assam Tea

You may remember that a few eeks ago, I had to face a sudden and dire situation of tea shortage. On weekdays. On working days. So I had to quickly run to the nearest corner shop and buy an out of price bag of tea bags. Well, I have temporarily solved the issue and in the meantime, I rediscovered a pretty nice brew. So anyway, I stopped at a Co-op a few days ago and bought a box of their home brand Assam tea. I had forgotten how strong it was and how good a kick it gave, especially in the morning, especially when you needed to get on with things and stay alert. So Assam is now my go-to tea and will be for the next few weeks at the very least.

Socks for railway journeys

I won (again) a few Amazon vouchers at work and I decided to spend it on, well, stuff that can be as useful as they are nice. As my socks quickly get full of holes, I always buy new ones. I bought these. You probably noticed why I bought them in particular. I love the steam trains on them. It is not the first time I buy socks with train motives. It won't be the last. I haven't worn them yet. I intend to wear them for our next railway journey, which will most likely happen on our next holidays. We haven't decided yet when and where, but that should be sorted out soon. I love having little traveling rituals like this.

Tea Shortage

You may remember (I mean really, you probably don't) that in January 2022 I received from my employers a good supply of Tetley tea bags. I cannot remember how many they were, but it was a lot of tea bags. Last week, tragedy stroke: there were no tea bag in it. Not a single one. Now, it was not the only bit of tea stock I had been using over the last year and a half, I had bought loose leaf tea and various other brands, but this was the only bag I had left. And as I had taken it for granted, it was suddenly empty. So I spent a whole working day without tea. It was a long day. I finally bought some at the nearest corner shop, a much smaller bag of Tetley tea, enough to get me going for a few weeks. I intend to stock properly soon.

The Day Agent?

 My wife has been having this job for the last few months and it is not very deanding overall. It is kind of a boring admin job where not much happens. She mostly stares at a screen and waits for emails to come in. At first she was almost worried about it: she thought they might terminate her contract for lack of work. But I told her not to worry: if the job requires that she waits for something to happen, then that is her duty to do exactly that. "You are a bit like the Night Agent," I told her, which I think deserves to be a great unknown line. She has not seen the Netflix tv series, but I have and I thought it was fitting. For the record, I enjoyed the series, found it entertaining enough, albeit derivative. And yes, I know it's based on a novel. But in any case, there are works that don't require much work, yet they still need to be done.

The Train Money Box

 I received a few Amazon vouchers from my employers as a thank you gift for being a high performing employee. It happens sometimes. So I bought some Amazon stuff to make my life nicer. Apparently, it works like this. Things I did not necessarily need. As I have a lot of spare change and I never know what to do with it, I bought myself a money box. I mean, I could just give it to Wolfie, who would put it in his own piggy bank, but I thought he gets enough money as it is, just for the sake of dropping it in his piggy bank. So, I got this one for me. Hand mande and all in wood, it of course has a train on it. It looks elegant on a desk and there's a train on it, which was a very good reason to buy it. It is not the most practical piggy bank: I cannot take its content unless I take it apart. And I'm not so sure how to do it. So the highest value coin I dropped in it was 20p. It won't make me rich, but I like looking at it.

Les dards

Je suis allé au bureau la semaine dernière. Je le faisais une fois par mois, maintenant c'est rendu une fois aux trois mois. Je ne m'en plaindrai pas, c'est pas mal de voyagement et c'est épuisant. Mais c'est quand même assez plaisant de voir les collègues et le bureau, ça me fait changer d'air un peu. Et je trouve toujours un truc intéressant sur lequel bloguer. Cette fois-ci, c'était le jeu de dards. Des dards sécuritaires, sans pointes de métal. Je n'ai pas eu l'occasion de les essayer, mais j'essaierai un de ces quatre, bien que je ne sois pas très doué.

Les bureaux vides

Il y a un édifice avec des bureaux juste derrière chez nous. En fait, les fenêtres arrière donnent sur leur stationnement Il y a quelques années, le stationnement était plein de 9 à 5 au moins. Depuis la Covid et le confinement de 2020, c'est vide, ou presque. Il y a parfois quelques voitures stationnées ici. Quand les restrictions ont été levées, ça n'a pas changé. Ma femme a appris récemment que l'espace de bureau est à louer. Il semblerait donc que nous avons parmi nos voisins des bureaux vides. Ce qui ne me dérange pas: ça rend notre environnement beaucoup plus tranquille. En fait, nous espérons qu'ils ne seront pas loués de sitôt. À une certaine époque, j'avais espéré trouver du travail là-bas, comme ça j'aurais été proche de la maison. Et de l'extérieur, ce n'est pas un environnement laid. Mais c'est encore mieux quand ce sont des bureaux fantômes.

Blackout

 Something happened yesterday while we were on lunch break: there was a blackout in our neighbourhood. It can create a serious problem when you work from home, like my wife and I do. And it was my wife's first day at work, which she found embarrassing. We received a text from our electricity provider saying that they were expecting to have things fixed by 5:00PM (or 17:00 as they say, which sounds way later). Far too late. I was texting my manager asking himif he wanted me to go downtown in a café when we got power back. I must say, I almost regretted it. I thought going out of the house for the rest of the afternoon might have been fun. In any case, I had a longer break and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

First day (back) at work

Good and surprising news: today I am back at work and in more ways than one. You may remember that I am being made redundant. On Monday, I was officially unemployed. Well, Monday afternoon, I received a text from my former eployer, telling me they had a new client and thus a new position was available for me. By any praxctical means, my redundancy was, so to speak, cancelled. So today I am back at work. It's the same job, bu for a very different solution, so in a way it is completely new to me. All the same, after the uncertainties of last month, I am very happy.

Quand on parle de l'oie...

Je bloguais récemment à propos de Canada Goose. Or, j'apprenais hier que la compagnie fermait son usine de Boisbriand. Quand on parle du loup, ou dans ce cas-ci de l'oie... Cela dit, je suis triste pour les travailleurs de Boisbriand, je sais ce que c'est que de tomber au chômage, je suis dans la même situation qu'eux aujourd'hui. J'espère qu'ils se trouveront tous du travail dans les plus brefs délais.

Strange Holy Monday

Today is Holy Monday. It is a strange one for me and I'm not sure if I should be happy about it or not. On the plus side, Wolfie is on holiday, so I will be spending a lot of time with him this week. When I was his age, it was a school day although not an usual one: the teachers were going full Catholic on us for the whole Holy Week. The problem for this Holy Monday is that I am officially unemployed as of today and as I am typing this I have no job to fall back on. I have one interview lined up and I need to keep on job hunting, so it will not be a proper holiday for me. Usually, I am just eager for the week to be over so I can enjoy Easter. Now my feelings are ambivalent.

Mon mars (et le vôtre)

Bon, ben mars se termine aujourd'hui (cliché retentissant ici). Comment a été votre mois de mars? Moi, assez ordinaire: je perds mon emploi (c'est ma dernière journée de travail aujourd'hui). Au moins il y a du mouvement dans ma recherche d'emploi et ma femme va commencer un nouvel emploi au cours du mois d'avril. Mais mettons que ça n'a pas été un mois facile et que je suis bien content qu'il finisse. Et vous?

Updates on the work front

 As you may remember, I am being made redundant. It came off as a bit of a surprise and since then I have been job hunting. I have been to some interviews, but so far none have worked out, either I didn't suit the role or the role didn't suit me. Thankfully, things are nevertheless looking better. First, because my wife got a job last Friday. It will start in the middle of April. It's only a temping job, but it will keep pressure off me for a few months. Also, I will have at least one interview this week and I am fairly confident about this one: the role suits my background pretty much perfectly and I have a pretty good feeling about it. And I know I am getting noticed for other roles. So yes, things are looking better.

Redundancy again

Oh darnit, it happened again: I am going to be redundant at the end of this month. Through no fault of my own, thankfully: my (soon to be ex) employer subcontracts work and the client I am working for has suddenly and unexpectedly ended his contract. So the account is shutting down and I cannot be moved on a different project. Henceforth, I am being made redundant. I am of two minds about it. I was not really expecting it and my personal performance was great, so on the one end, I am not too happy. Especially since I liked that job. And my wife is also looking for a job, so that makes me a bit nervous. But on the other end, my still employers are being very nice and helpful. They even told me they would definitely rehire me should new accounts open. Furthermore, I already rose the interest of some recruiters. So I don't feel as bitter as I felt when I lost the job I hated, in fact while I am nervous I remain positive that I should get something fairly quickly (touch wood). It's just frustrating that it happened so suddenly.

Motivation du lundi

 Bon lundi tout le monde. Pour ceux qui travaillent et qui veulent se trouver de la motivation, voici un meme qu'un collègue français m'a envoyé la semaine dernière. Je crois que le meme est québécois, à cause du "pis". Dans tous les cas, je l'ai trouvé très comique et ça devrait vous tenir motivé.