Getting screwed...

Another warning... work rant... only for those who care about how pissed off I am...

Do you ever feel like someone is constantly jerking your chain and they have a smirk on their faces while doing it? I don't know about everyone else, but I'm kinda feeling this way since I came out to Calgary for this job.

I flew in last Thursday night, stayed with my in-laws in Airdrie, and went into Calgary on Friday for what I thought was going to be a full day of work. It turned out that, since the crew I was meeting was already well into their project, they only really needed me for 4 hours. That was fine, since it gave me more time to visit with my wife's parents, and make a trip into Calgary to meet up with my grandparents. Then, I was supposed to meet up with a crew over the weekend to hammer away at a project, and wouldn't ya know it... there was a confusion among managers and they had no work for me. Although this was frustrating (since I'm broke and came all the way out here to make some paper typically referred to as CASH!), it wasn't the end of the world because, well, first weekend in, no big deal. I'll make up the time.

The I got a call Sunday night. It was the guy that I was supposed to be meeting Monday morning. He thought that since the weather channel was forecasting a touch of snow for the airport (like 1-2 mm), that his guys shouldn't paint in the southwest of the city (30 min. drive and always 3-4 degrees warmer), so he cancelled the whole day. After trying to arrange work with other managers, I was unsuccessful. Monday turned out to be beautiful, which is why you should never cancel work due to weather until THE DAY OF! So I sit around all day, hoping that my phone will ring with work for me to do. Again, sorely disappointed.

Tuesday involved a meeting up in Red Deer, which killed my whole day and I'm pretty sure I didn't get paid for it. Now things are getting ridiculous. I got a voicemail last night at about 9 0'clock stating that, since the weather was kinda ugly last night, that the manager I was working for today just said that he wasn't starting until 1:00. I look outside right now, at 7:48am, and the sun is freakin' SHINING! Sure, it's not 20 above, but it's sure good enough to paint in. So I'm stuck at my uncle's place with a whole lot of SFA to do until 1:00. I emailed my bosses last night about it, and I haven't heard a thing. I'm supposed to be WORKING while I'm out here, and in 5 days, not including today, I've worked 4 hours. That's right, 4! For those math wizzes out there, that works out to about 0.8 hours/day. Sure, I'm making $14/hr, but that's not even great wages for someone in a type of blue collar management position. And, it works out to $11.20 per day that I've earned. Considering my goal was to hit 180 trainer/manager hours and about $2500 by the 23rd of May, it's not going according to my plan. Stupid bastards.

Oh well, you live and learn I guess. I'm not going to be Mr. Happy-Fun-Times on the phone, that's for sure. But I guess it's a lesson in the "too good to be true, this only looks realistic to suckers" category. Ciao for now...