I've decided to become a hermit

I had to go into Toronto today. I had a meeting at 11:30am, but due to the location and that I do not drive, I had to leave the house at 8:15am, have my husband drop me at the GO station and catch the 8:45am GO bus. Now this bus is the only one going where I needed to go but it took 1 hour and 45 minutes because it had like a kazillion stops in between. By car it would have been 45 mins tops.

Once I got to my stop, I had to catch another city bus and finally arrived at my destination at 11:20am.

Here is my problem - I don't like being amongst people. The woman behind me on the GO bus smelled like moth balls. The city bus smelled like body odor, curry and cigarettes. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE curry, just not in that combination!

Since I quit smoking 8+ years ago, my sense of smell is extremely strong. I can smell a squirrel fart 3 blocks away! Theses smells on the bus were almost more than I could bear.

Then later I had to use a public washroom. Do normal people all turn into pigs when they go out? I checked 4 stalls before I found one that had been flushed and didn't have pee all over the seat! Absolutely disgusting!

Now the reason I was in Toronto today was for a job interview. Yesterday, I would have said it was my dream job. It is a full time job and completely work from home (well at least for the 1st year until they open an office in Toronto).

However, after the interview, I am not sure I even want the job. It is not exactly as it was described to me. It is not really my forte. It also consists of 25% travel throughout Canada & the U.S.

I'll wait and see what comes of it - I won't turn it down if I am offered it as I need to get back to work, and at least with this job, I wouldn't have to deal with people on a daily basis.

Still hoping to just win the lottery :)

What's been happening...

So kiddo came down with strep throat on Saturday. He missed school on Mon & Tues because of it and a high fever. Last week, he also had Mon & Tues off because he went hunting with his Dad - school knew he wasn't off sick. He returned to school Wed last week. It was pizza day but the grade 8s (his grade) had been gone all day touring the highschool in prep for next year. They returned to school around 3pm - and were given their pizza lunch (that had been sitting since noon). J downed his chocolate milk, realizing only after, that it tasted funny. A few other students noticed that the chocolate milk was expired - by about a 10 days!

When he got home he said he didn't feel very well and was soon suffering diarhea. This continued all night - so he stayed home on Thursday since the school doesn't allow kids to use the washroom much (stupid rule) and I didn't want any accidents.

So anyhow...on Tuesday morning this week, I called his teacher to say he wouldn't be in and if he could send homework home with a family friend, also a teacher at the school, so that J wouldn't fall behind. He said yes, but also informed me that he was obligated to report J's many absences to the school board because there had been so many in such a short time.

We went over the fact that the first 2 days were not sick days, the 3rd was due to the school providing expired milk and the 4th and 5th because he had strep throat which is highly contagious. He still plans to report it - whatever! J is not in any danger of falling behind so I don't care what the school has to say. If more parents kept sick kids home, maybe MY kid wouldn;t be sick now!

I had a telephone interview with a company in downtown Toronto last week, for a perm position. It went well. Tomorrow I have an in-person interview with them. As a consultant, I have interviewed MANY times, I still get nervious. Wish me luck :)

For the past 6 days I have been having fresh green juice every morning. It consits of 1/2 an English cucumber, 3 stalks of celery and an apple. The apple makes it tolerable. Celery & cucumber are supposed to be good in lowering blood pressure...so are husbands and kids who listen...just saying :P

Peanut has an ear infection and is on meds (ear drops). J is on antibiotics for his strep throat. I don't know which one is harder to administrate.

Christmas is coming! Did you realise that? I have to start deep cleaning my house so that I can start decorating at the beginning of December. Last year we didn't decorate until about the week before Christmas, I want to start much earlier this year.

If I get this job, I will have to start it right away and will not have time to clean - but if I am working, I can justify hiring someone to come in and clean right? :)

Interview Update - long

So I had my interview with the Ministry today. I think it went well. I won't know for a couple weeks if I got it or not.

I realized once there, that I had interviewed with the same two people, for the same position back in 2006 at the beginning of the project. Obviously, I didn't get the job then. I don't know if they remembered me. I didn't mention it to them.

I am still a bit concerned about the agency that submitted me for the job. Here is the back story.

Job ad is placed on Craigslist - not the usual place I seek work but anyway, I answer the ad and get called by company ABC (not real name:)).

They provide all the specs for the job and say they think I am a good fit. I say ok submit me to the Ministry. Couple days go by, company ABC calls and says I have an interview in a few days.

Day before interview, I am still awaiting interview details. I finally get a hold of recruiter at 6:30pm the night before the interview. He send me a contract to sign. I don't sign contracts unless I have a job offer. He wants me to sign a contract with his company before I interview.

The way the contract is written is that I work for ABC company from Mar 19. 2009. No end date. No client name. No way for me to terminate the contract. And all this for the crappy rate I accepted because the Ministry job is longterm and close to home. I explain to the recruiter that if I sign this contract, and I don't get offered the job at the Ministry, then I am still obligated to them (ABC) whenever they decide they need me. He says yes...he doesn't see a problem with this.

Note: Also in the contract is the company address which turns out to be a house in the next town over. He works out of his home office. This is a one man show. He's only been in business for 2 years.

I refuse to sign a contract until the job at the Ministry is offered to me, and only then will I sign a contract for that client for that amount of time. He finally agrees and sends me the interview details, which I haven't yet received. It is now 8pm the night before my interview and I am just now finding out where I am going and whom I am meeting. At the end of the email with the details, he writes..."Don't forget to mention you are from company XYZ."

WTF?! who is company XYZ?

I don't bother calling him back because I am tired of trying to make sense of what he is saying. I go to the interview today. The project sounds very interesting and challenging. I felt it went well.

I called him afterwards to let him know how it went and asked who XYZ was. Well XYZ is the vendor able to submit to the Ministry. They hired company ABC to find a writer. Are you following this?

Now in my business, this is something you disclose up front. The did not do that. This is very fishy to me.

The way it will work, if I get offered the job, is: Ministry will pay XYZ, XYZ will pay ABC, ABC will then pay me. Both XYZ & ABC will also take a cut of what they charge the Ministry before paying me. It is becoming clear why my rate is so low.

The way it usually works is if a consultant (me) charges $10 per hour (obviously not real amounts) then the agency charges the client $13 per hour and keeps $3 for themselves. In this case I will get $10 per hour, XYZ will get $5 per hour and ABC will get $5 per hour. I can tell from how low my rate is that they are gouging (taking too high a cut), and it is worse because they are both taking a cut.

I cannot accept this job without dealing with these 2 companies now. It would be professional suicide on my part to try to approach the Ministry independently since XYZ (ABC) submitted me.

I look up company XYZ. I have never heard of them before either and I am familiar with a LOT of agencies. There is nothing online about them except their website. Apparently, no one else has heard of them either. They have also been in business 2 yrs.

I will have to wait and see if I am offered the job, but if I am, I am definitely asking for more money.

Finally the last thing that concerns me is, the payment schedule. I am to invoice ABC at the end of each month. They then have 15 days to pay me. So I could work for 45 days and have them skip out and not pay me. It will also look unprofessional to the Ministry if I stop working because I am not being paid.

It would be so much easier if I could just win the lottery. Super 7 is 17 million tomorrow night...we have tickets. :)