Sarasvati - Of Art and Knowledge

Some of you may know that last September, I lost my job. It was a sudden loss. Sudden enough that I saw my boss that very morning and he said nothing except to find out if I would be home at a certain time that day. I told him I'd be out, and wouldn't you know, that's when he called me to tell me I no longer had a job because the company shut down.

Their clients got an hour's notice until the service was terminated.

The next thing we heard was that the company would not be able to pay us for the time worked between the last pay period and the closing of the company, nor would they be able to pay us any banked vacation pay.

Rumours started spreading about how they were trying to reverse the deposit of the pay from the previous pay period, too.

Some of us went to the Labour Board and found out that indeed this was bullshit, and that they had to pay us for not only the time we worked and our vacation pay, but also 2-4 weeks of pay-in-lieu since they gave us no notice of our jobs being gone. For me, this amounted to around $1300, give or take. There were some exceptions to that rule, of course, like the company having to close because the workplace burned down or something, but it was ruled that this case was not an exception and they would have to pay.

Especially because I have a quote from the company's co-owner that basically amounted to, "Yeah, this wasn't really sudden at all, and we sorta saw it coming since the previous November."

Then came the delays. First they hoped to get us our money by the end of 2009, then hopefully between January and March of 2010, then maybe by June they might have it.

They tried to sell off all of their assets to get us what we were owed, apparently. They tried to sell the part of the company that acted as an answering service to B&Bs across the US. Another company was actually interested, so they were given control of the project on a 3-month trial period. If they didn't feel it was worth keeping up with, then they didn't have to pay a cent and everyone would go their merry way.

Unsurprisingly, since all the B&Bs got an hour notice of service termination, very few of them decided to bother staying on. I think 10 out of the 150 inns actually stuck it out, and the new company rightly decided that there was just no profit in that. No money came from them.

This could have been solved by the owners declaring bankruptcy. Not only would that take care of the employee debt, but also their debt to Revenue Canada, since they were reportedly quite behind on their payroll taxes, too.

But bankruptcy would have prevented the company's owner from starting up a new company in her name. Which is what she did.

Today I got a letter in the mail from her, saying that despite her "best efforts", no, we weren't getting paid a cent after all this. She said her biggest mistake was not closing the company down when she first saw the problems, but that we should all take comfort in knowing that if she'd done the right thing then, we wouldn't have had 3-4 extra months of employment from her when he did.

Not that it mattered to me, since I was on stress leave for 3 out of those 4 months anyway... But I kid you not; that's what she said in her letter. Thatwe should be grateful that she screwed up and that we weren't out of work sooner.

What I want is to find a labour lawyer to look at this case. I know that the company was incorporated, which acts as a sort of insurance for companies. An incorporated company is a separate entity from the owners, and so if it no longer exists, neither do its debts. However, incorporation only protects again so many contingencies, and I want to know if this is a case where they're protected or not. If the company still owed money to Revenue Canada that had to be paid before the employees got their money, then there's a chance that their incorporation isn't going to protect them here.

In which case, I want to sue them for all they're worth. For theft and for fraud and for health and emotional damages.

There are labour lawyers in the city. The big problem is that I don't know if any of them do free consultations, and even if any do, I'll then have the problem of convincing them to work only for a percentage of what I actually get as a result of the lawsuit. But if I can't, then I'm basically SOL and the ex-boss wins, gets away with everything. She won't have to pay a cent of what she owes us because she was an idiot and can't manage a business properly.

I'll email some lawyers tonight, see if any are willing to at least give me a free consultation. If it turns out that I may have a case but none are willing to work with me on fees, maybe just the threat of being sued might make the ex-bosses cough up the money we're owed. Since I don't have a job and can barely afford bread right now, I know I can't afford lawyer fees.

But we'll see. One step at a time.

And right now, my step is into the bathroom. Again. This issue has stressed me into having my second gut attack of the day, and I don't see it letting up soon.

My mother just called to give me a piece of good news. She's getting a pay-raise at work, as she's been transferred from calls to faxes, which involves slightly less work for slightly more pay.

Her training ended a week ago.

This is, I'd like to add, the job that she got which I didn't, in spite of the fact that I actually have greater qualifications for it than she does. I strongly suspect ageism and her tendancy to lie about all and sundry were large factors in why she got the job where I was refused.

I am jealous. I am annoyed. I am sad. I'm angry that it seems that no matter how often she screws up her life, she always gets the breaks. Where I try to make my life better and to avoid messing up, I get deeper in debt each day and struggle to find a company that will hire me even temporarily. She's left jobs with no notice in order to run away with my father, then lied to them about having a sick mother in England that she needed to visit (when she returned after the whole thing with my father not working out, of course) and apologized for her behaviour and asked for her job back. She used this tactics twice, and it actually worked once.

If I tried that, I'd be rightly accused of lying and told not to come back. But she's in the age group that's supposed to be responsible, and I'm in the age group that's supposed to get dead drunk every weekend, so of course they're going to trust her more.

So she gets a raise, and I get another round of searching on the job bank.

I'm so tired of having it shoved in my face that things go so right for her no matter how much of a mess she makes. I hate being young sometimes. I hate being young and responsible, because so few people want to accept that those two words can go together.

No, wait, I want to elaborate on that. I hate being young and responsible and somebody who doesn't give a toss about fashion and cosmetics. If people can see past the fact that I'm young to consider the fact that I may be responsible, I'm often branded a slacker and a slouch because I won't take the time to pretty myself up before I leave the house. But if my hair and skin and clothes are neat and clean, and I'm wearing the required business-casual clothes, it still won't matter because my lips are the wrong shade of pink and my eyelashes aren't thick enough.

It all makes me want to cry. I've spent my entire life trying to be what everybody else wants, to minimize conflict, and putting myself last in so many situations in order to please people. And now that I've gained confidence and am learning to like who I am, I see everywhere signs that the world prefered the meek little idiot I used to be.

And so I'm stuck in a seemingly never-ending round of "maybe this time, maybe this time" as I look for jobs, while my mother gets a promotion after a month of working for a new company.

The latest issue of Piecework arrived yesterday, and I enjoyed reading it. Aside from an interesting biography of Herbert Niebling, it also rekindled my interest in tatted lace. I still regret that I lost my tatting shuttle so soon after buying it. I didn't even get a chance to use it before it went missing. I'm sure I'll be able to find another one at some point, but they aren't very common anymore, so I might have to look around for a while.

The weather has been lousy lately, very damp and grey and chilly, but I've still been making an effort to go for a walk each day. Today's walk won't be until much later, since I plan to pick up some groceries before meeting Rei after work, so I have about 5 hours before I need to even think about going anywhere. Plenty of time for tea and anime yet.

I am, though, thinking about the delicious things I can bring home tonight. Bread, because I'm feeling lazy and don't feel like making any of my own right now. Late at night the grocery store tends to mark down their whole cooked chickens and hams, so one of each of those will be nice, and I can get each for under $10. A few vegetables to add to the still large pile of packets of ramen, so that we can get some nutrients along with something filling. I can pick up enough food to last us for a week or more in less than $50, and I'm even splurging a little to get the chicken and ham, which I may not normally buy.

The chicken will be good for sandwiches as well as providing some scraps to add to the ramen, and the bones and skin and pieces of meat that are too small to do anything else with will go in a pot and become chicken stock for soup. If the ham hasn't been deboned, I'll probably use that bone and scraps for the same thing, to make the food stretch a little further.

I do so love frugal tasty meals.

I'm hoping to hear back from the job I interviewed for on Tuesday. Since it's at a store that does a small of small loans and deals with private financial information, they ran a criminal background check on me, which is perfectly understandable. Rei thinks that they're strongly considering hiring me, since they took my information for the check (including copies of my photo ID) at the interview itself, and he reckons that if they weren't considering me seriously for the position, they wouldn't waste time running a check or taking my ID. It makes sense, and I really hope he's right, since that job has decent hours and fairly good pay, much better than what I was expecting. Not the kind of job that could change my life around entirely, the way some others that I applied for could, but it would still do a lot to help me.

[Edit] - Of course, the grocery store didn't have whole roasted chickens or any ham, so I had to do without that. I'll go back tomorrow to see if they have any then, and to pick up some of the drinks they have on sale. 99 cents is a good price for almost a litre of apple green tea!

I interviewed the other day for a night auditor at a nearby hotel, and was supposed to be called today if the position was mine. Business hours have ended, and I didn't get a call. I'm disappointed. I was really hoping for that job, since it would give me a schedule I prefer, good pay, would be close to home, and might allow me the chance to work on other projects during the very slow hours.

Back to scouring the job bank website again. Though every time I apply for a job and get nowhere, I get a little bit more discouraged. Often I think that I'm just unemployable.

It doesn't stop me from searching, though, and I even apply for jobs that I technically don't meet qualifications for, though of those I stick to ones I'm certain I can do anyway. A perfect example is a TESL position, once that requires completion of university (any degree) and membership in a professional association (any one). Technically, someone with a degree in physics and a membership to the Provincial Hog-Tying Association is better qualified to teach English than somebody who's motivated, loves learning and language, and devotes a portion of each day to independent study until they can afford to go to university.

I applied for it anyway. I won't get the job, but I wanted to try, and I said in my cover letter a more polite version of what I said above. Maybe if they don't get any qualified applicants, maybe they'll consider me.

Of course, getting certified as an ESL teacher also requires a university education. Again, I could have a degree in physics and know nothing about dealing with people, but still apparently be qualified to teach... I suppose those foreign people don't need somebody who actually cares about language. They just need somebody with a fancy diploma.

And I can't get said diploma unless I find a well-paying job soon.

To cheer me up, Griffin took a little money and bought me a few treats. A new notebook (we're both fond of stationery), and a box of daifuku from the Oriental market in the north end. Azuki daifuku, which are my favourite. That, the notebook, and the warm weather did a lot to improve my mood, and while I'm still upset about being unemployed, I can at least enjoy a few small everyday things, things that make my current life a little less onerous to go through.

I got my PFO letter from the company I had applied to for a job. With a simple letter, three lines long, went the hopes of getting a new apartment and going back to school. I know, logically, that this wasn't my final chance at doing such things, but I did have such hopes pinned on it. Finding out it won't happen has ruined my mood.

What is it that makes me so unemployable lately? According to every guide I've read, I used to do everything wrong and yet get a job anyway. Now I'm doing things the so-called right way and no company will hire me. It makes me wonder is companies actually was a depressed employee with little to no self-esteem, instead of an intelligent employee who seeks improvement and who can, at the very least, fake a positive attitude even when they don't feel it. Would I be better off going to interviews and acting like I don't deserve the job and that I'm profoundly uncomfortable, instead of going in appearing confident and smiling and with the ability to make small talk even when I hate it?

I wish I could just get a job transcribing audio and video, or doing copyedit work. More fields where you have to already have experience before somebody will give you a job to give you experience, though.

I'm going to try to cheer myself up with anime and leftover garlic bread. I won't get a job doing that, but it might at least be able to raise my mood a bit.

I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I can get the new job I applied for last week. If so, there's a very real chance that I can go back to university and, unlike last time I was there, can actually work toward a goal that I have clearly in mind, instead of just taking classes at random and hoping I get inspired. Credit where credit is due, though, since it was in my first Ancient Greek language class that I fully discovered my love of and talent for languages, so going to university when I didn't wasn't a complete waste of time and money.

I feel the urge to start studying now, though. Even though I don't know what courses I'll take, or even if I'll be lucky enough to get the job that will allow me to go back, I want to get ahead as soon as possible. At best I'll be able to coast through a few classes and perhaps bring up some interesting discussion, and at worst I'll have filled my hours with something productive and educations. It seems like a clear win-win situation.

I've been switching back and forth between playing Pokemon Soul Silver and Ragnarok DS. More Pokemon than Ragnarok lately, mostly because the quests in Ragnarok are repetitive and I can only stand so much of it at a time. It's quite different from the online game, which is what I was hoping for when I bought it. It's still enjoyable, though, and I should put Pokemon down for a day and advance Ragnarok's plot a little.

I've also been catching up on some old anime that hasn't been popular for the better part of a decade by now. I would have finished watching Love Hina today, if the final episode hadn't decided not to play. Rather than wrestle with it or find it on an anime streaming site, I just switched to Seirei no Moribito, which looks quite interesting. I can't see it becoming one of my favourites, but I think I'll enjoy watching it, as the plot looks intruiging and the animation is done quite well.