STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Special Treat ??“ From Me!

Nov 27, 2005? 

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First Day On The Job

Carol Roach

Oct 8, 2005

As you may remember from last week??™s column I was hot on the trail for a new job. I put my resume onto several internet job sites and lo and below the next day the calls started coming in. It just so happened that at the very same moment in time, a position became available where a friend of mine works. She told me to fax in my resume immediately. I?  I received a call for an interview for the very next day which happened to fall on a?  Friday. I went for the interview knowing I already had the job. I was to start Monday morning.

Nothing is easy as they say. You would think everything was smooth sailing for me, but of course it wasn??™t. I have three hours a day commute to make from one side of Montreal to the other. I have to walk from the metro (subway) which for normal people is a five minute walk, but for me it is a fifteen minute walk because I have arthritis. I am not sure if I will be able to handle this job in the dead of winter. I hate to sound like I am whining and I felt better when one of the young girls who started the same time as me and happens to live in the sector called Verdun, where I do, mentioned she too found it way too far from home.

Correct me if I am wrong, but for most people we work because we need money, or am I missing something here? My unemployment insurance is about to run out. I have just moved and I have so many moving expenses to contend with. In a word I am BROKE.

Since I started this job there has been expense after expense to deal with. Naturally, there was money to fork out for the bus pass, $61.00, money for luncheon food, money to have on me to if I want a coffee at work ecetera. Yet over and above these normal expenses the company required more from me.

They wanted a photo id, ($4.00), and five dollars for a building pass. The piece de resistance was that they required my birth certificate, health care card, and criminal check done.

I will be dealing with client personal information, such as name, address, birth date, social security number, credit card and banking information of our customers. It is conceivable that I, or anyone else can actually steal a person??™s identity from this information. We could commit credit card fraud. With all this information on employees, if need be, the company can release the information to the American FBI and the Canadian RCMP who in turn can easily catch the criminal.

I am not afraid of the criminal check I had one done for my previous employee. I am as clean as a whistle. But it is the expense involved for getting one that worried me. At least my last employer took that expense on - this employer will not.

Did my dilemma end there, should my life be that simple ??“ I wish!

In order to get a criminal check you have to show identification of course. In the move I lost all my important papers including my university degrees when someone threw the bag out in the trash by mistake. The only piece of identification I have is my social insurance card which for some reason or other was spared. I had to get a temporary pass for the health card, that was $16.00, and pay for the criminal check to the tune of $40.00. Remember, I do not have any money.

If you have been following this tale of woe carefully you might think where was all the time to do this as I had the interview on Friday and started to work on the following Monday. The answer is simply there wasn??™t any time. I had to take Thursday off to go to these government agencies and get it done. Of course I was not paid for the day and even then I ran out of time because I could not go for my birth certificate. It will have to wait until later, much, much later.

I crawled home the first three days dead tired. I was stressed out about these identification papers and worried about missing the training on Thursday because of it. As if that was not enough, my mother informs me that my sister??™s doctors are debating whether she can undergo an operation at this time. If you remember she is dying of cancer. She already had bone cancer. Now she has contracted throat cancer and cannot eat. She weighs all of 70 pounds.

The stress got to me, I walked into work on Friday and the walls felt like they were caving in. I handed in my papers and left ??“ but not before making sure I had a job to return to on Monday, Thanksgiving Day. Since it is an American company we work the Canadian Thanksgiving and have the American Thanksgiving off.

I am still ill as I write this column on Saturday evening and sure hope I will feel better by the time I get back to work, or my following column might be about once again looking for a job.

Addendum:?  This story was written in October.?  I left the job after three days, I could not handle it.?  My sister since had the operation and is doing poorly, and finding a new job is not proving to be easy at all.?  My French is not up to standard any more since I was working primarily in English environment.?  All the ads I see for jobs are for bilingual people.?  One of my options may well be to take some French courses to get my skills up to par.?  My unemployment benefits ran out on Nov 16^th.

Carol Roach

winterose@videotron.ca

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A Native of Montreal, Quebec, Carol is a graduate of Concordia, and McGill University.?  She holds a bachelor in psychology and a Masters in counselling psychology.?  Carol Roach is a published writer and newsletter editor.?  You can purchase her book: Picking up the Pieces: A Woman's Journey at www.publishamerica.com, or www.amazon.com.?  You can also go to your local bookstore and order it there as well.?  Carol??™s second book: Angels Watching Over is currently looking for a home. Stay tuned for details. ? 

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If you are interested in other stories feel free to join her newsletter: Storytime Tapestry at: http://subs.zinester.com/98907 , or email her directly at winterose@videotron.ca and she will be glad to accommodate you.?  Carol enjoys email and responds to every inquiry.

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