Bad news, good news…. Autumn 2012 edition

October 13, 2012 by Shannon Fennell 2 Comments

The last couple months have been a bit of a roller coaster for us.  Some major upheavals in our lives and it isn’t over yet.

First, the owner of the company that I work for in my day-job passed away in August.  There had been meetings and assurances from him and the heirs that operations would continue, we didn’t need to worry about our jobs, etc.  But I was pretty sure things would be changing at some point as none of the heirs live here.

They’ve been actively marketing some of the different companies in the group so we knew they were downsizing.

Last week my boss/supervisor, the “operations manager,” gave three weeks notice – she was head hunted and offered a job which suited her life and stress levels so she accepted it.

Then this week I got a call from the owners.  I was told that they were turning over the commercial properties that we manage over to a property management company.  And if I would stay until the end of December they would give me a bonus.  I won’t say how much but I make more in one weekend face painting.  I was honest and said while it was a nice “bonus” it was not an incentive to stick around if I found another position.

Needless to say workplace morale is currently non-existent!  There are three of us – the operations manager who is leaving on October 26, which leaves me and the bookkeeping assistant (she was just hired in July so she is thrilled to bits as she had turned down another job offer when she accepted ours!) who is trying to learn everything the manager did in order to keep operations running.

We both are actively looking for work elsewhere.  So if anyone in Grande Prairie needs some very excellent office staff – there are two of us here needing a new position as soon as possible!

So that’s the bad news.  Now for the home life…

Mom’s full-time aide gave us eleven days notice on September 1st by phone, which was the Saturday morning of a long weekend.  Oh great.  So I posted the ad on Kijiji, and emailed it off to the college nursing program (I usually hire nursing students as our casual aides).  We were willing to hire multiple part-time people if we had to.

I got some responses and we interviewed.  I hired one to start, full-time, on Thursday, September 13.  She came to work on Thursday and Friday, left saying see you next week.

Guess what?  She was a no-show…

I was sitting here, waiting… called her cell at 7:50 a.m. to see where she was (she was supposed to be here at 7:45)… went to voice mail so I left a message asking what her ETA was.  I called work to explain why I wasn’t there.  Swore a bit, then reposted the ad on Kijiji.  Emailed the no-show saying “I hope you are okay and nothing has happened but as you have not shown up for work, and have not contacted us, consider yourself terminated.”

Within 10 minutes of posting the ad on Kijiji I had a response from a decent candidate so I phoned her to see if she could come for an interview right away.  She was there in half an hour, was willing to start the next morning, her references checked out, she was very sweet, tall enough for mom’s comfort.  So we hired her.  She is bloody FANTASTIC!!!!  We think we may be dreaming her.

That’s the good news!

Unfortunately while the good news is very good, the bad news is going to keep my stress levels pretty high until I find another day-job!  I have some truly excellent gigs coming up, and Halloween is always a great earning week, but reality is that we need the steady income from the day-job.

On another, happier note, tonight I have a great gig and I hope to have some photos to share tomorrow!