A Very Different Interview

I was scheduled for the second interview, this one a face-to-face, in one of the towns of Alberta last week. This was as the second part of a job application with one of the major manufacturers in North America which I had a telephone interview with nearly three weeks ago. However I have started this job which I have started two weeks ago (not that anyone cares!) and I had to make up a story to sell them to be able to leave for the interview on time. 

This guy that I work with, or I'd say I work for, is a fruitcake (whom I will write about later) and I told him that I had to see a doctor. The nut-job agreed to let me go at 13:00 but kept forgetting and when I told him I was leaving, almost 1 hour and half before the time said that he had forgotten! I was going to say: Why the hell don't you fucking forget the bullshit you say to me every day and when I forget something you get mad! But I didn't. I hope I get a chance to give him shit one day before I go! 

Anyways I left at 13:00 and that was the worst time due to traffic. I hit a few red lights as well and by the time reached The Chef's where I was supposed to change based on our appointment, it was already late. I left quickly and followed the damn GPS but that was a mistake! 

The damn machine took me through Metis Tr. where the speed limit is 60 and 70 Km/h! I eventually got myself to QEII, of course after wasting so much time and drove to the said town but it was a very bad time for driving and I was already 30 min. behind the schedule! I was going over the posted limit at times and I have to say that while I admit it was a mistake, everyone does that! I didn't see even one single cruiser and if there had been, there would have been barely any car without ticket on that highway that afternoon! 

I decided to pull over and call the recruiting lady and ask her to call the interviewers and let them know that I would be late. I called but she didn't pick up and I don't think she even bothered checking the voice message I left. Pulling to the side of highway, where the shoulder is narrow, could be a fatal mistake because you're not supposed to do that and I even think there might be a penalty for it and then the drivers don't care, most of them. They speed off by you and miss you with 1 feet! Some drive so fast that the wind they create pushes you aside! 

I continued the trip to the town but I realized that there was a road construction on the way and then I was diverted into the town where the speed limit is 50 Km/h! I was so mad at myself, the freaking stupid supervisor and the damn company which selected the worst time of the week for this interview that my head was about to explode! I finally reached my destination with 20 min. delay and I was admitted in. I have to add this that I had already postponed this interview once because the recruiting lady called me once at about 16:45 and wanted me to go there the next morning! I could go but I was worried about the current job, especially because it is through a recruiting agency. I told myself: What if I don't get hired by them and lose this freaking stupid job too? How many more weeks or months I would have to wait to get something? 

I made an excuse and sold it to the lady, I hoped! The other reason that I postponed the interview was that I checked the interview panel people's profiles in Linkedin and I didn't like any of them! Actually there were only three of them had profile but I liked none! I think regardless of the fact that I have tried different jobs here in Canada and the old country and mostly worked with everyone easily, I'm not generally a type of person who can work with others easily at the beginning. I either have problems with people right at the beginning or when I leave the job! That's a different topic which I might cover later. 

Only two out of the four interviewers were available. It certainly was in my favour. Unlike what I had expected the main person who interviewed me and would be my manager if I get the position was a very nice guy. The other one was not a bad one, at least in the first encounter. He seemed less impressed and he mostly listened and asked a few questions only. That was because he was much younger and almost a recent graduate. Plus he was from here while the older gentleman was a foreigner like me. The interview took about 01:30 hour with the second person, the sidekick(!) leaving 15 min. before the end. I was told that there would be another interview if I'm successful in this one! 

I understand that completely. This is a hard job in a very successful company which offers good salary and benefit and perhaps lasts for years. They want to make sure that they have the right person for it. 

I and The Chef were supposed to go to a local bar that he had been to once and liked it after the interview but I felt a very bad pain in my right foot and I know it was because I hadn't have any water for nearly 5 hours. The drive back to the city was a very irritating and disturbing one. Not just because the pain I had in my right foot but also because the highway was almost packed with big trucks, 18-wheelers and SUVs which all were being driven like crazy and all, without exception, were over the speed limit. I called The Chef to see if he's ready to go to that bar when I reached the city limit (to avoid long distance call!). He didn't pick up the first time and then when he picked up the second time he sounded sleepy and drunk, both and said that he didn't want to go!

That added more to my miserable day and I missed an exit when I was going home. When I finally reached the nasty apartment building I was just looking for someone to break his jaw with a kick or punch! Fortunately that opportunity didn't present itself and the day ended peacefully!
(Photo: Fortunately I didn't experience such a craziness on my way to the interview but in this image from a dash camera clip you see a crazy stupid driver trying to pass two cars from in between them! This was handed over to CTV, I guess and I hope they don't mind me using them here now that I mention their name. However what baffles me is lack of police presence during the entire trip)

A Disappointing Visit/Interview

The strange recruiting company sent me to a company for work about two weeks ago. It was a small food company in SE Calgary where many of the small industries are located. A lady, I guess one of the supervisors welcomed me. I am not a freaking pervert or anything like that but I can't compliment a beautiful lady when I'm writing about a job opportunity, particularly now that I'm freaking single and in continuous torture! She was a tall, blue-eyed, blond lady, taller than an average woman and taller than me, with a nice smile and charming character. This is absolutely right that they say THE FIRST IMPRESSION IS THE BEST IMPRESSION. I would love to work with or for such a woman even if she's married and have kids over 20 years of age! There's nothing more important than having a good colleague and boss at work and I barely have experienced that for years! 

We sat for a few minutes and he asked a few simple questions and obviously he was satisfied with all. We then dressed up for the working environment and went to the production floor. I always wanted to work in food industry and I worked for three food-related companies in Canada with the first one could have been my first and last job in the country, the second one a good opportunity to grow and the third one perhaps not that good and blowing them all! 

She took me to the part of the warehouse and asked me to operate a machine which I shortly operated that back in 2010. I got on it and I was not comfortable at all. I tried to perform the task she had assigned to me, while two bastards were watching, and realized I was not able to. So instead of doing something that I would regret later, I told her that I could not do that and we left the floor. 

We went back to the office and it sounded to me that she was as disappointed as I was but for sure not as humiliated as I was because she said that she would offer me other jobs but she had to talk to talk to managers! I don't know why someone would say something like that in that situation! I screwed up and I was not a good candidate for that job. That's all. I moved on. So should she. 

Food Poisoning

I felt really sick one night after supper about 3 weeks ago. I could feel that the food had remained in my stomach. My body was able to neither digest it nor to reject it. I guess I had too much and too mixed! I passed the night without a major problem but in the morning I felt sick in my stomach and I was able to to say that the mixture(!) was still in my stomach. I went to work because every hour would have been deducted from my pay-stub.

My stomach reacted to the undigested mixture(!) a few times and I threw up, once in one of the isles and twice in the bathroom. That was when I decided to talk to the supervisor and told him that I needed to leave. I was out at about 10:30 (which later led to losing 5 hours, I guess!) and as soon as I stepped out of the main entrance my stomach reacted. Not once, but I think at least 5 or 6 times. I felt a little better and drove away!

I still am trying to figure out what the cause of the sickness was. I originally thought that Kashk, which is a dairy product used in Iranian and a number of other cuisines, was the cause. Mom thinks that I ate, or better to say, usually eat too mixed. I don't think the latter is the reason why I got sick because that's what I always do: I eat my meal, then usually a half of an Astro Balkan Yogurt and then some Peanuts! However Mom could be right in this specific case. I might have overate and too mixed! 

That was the second time in the past 20 years that I became sick that bad. I had a similar situation once back in 2006 and that was due to, I believe, old fish we bought from a Co-op but I could be wrong.  The same thing happened to Far a few days after that! That proved that Kashk could not be cause. After all I have heard Kashk poisoning could be fatal! I don't think it's that bad because Kashk a dairy product and being poisoned by a dairy product could not be as bad but I don't know. I actually have never experienced that.

Astro Balkan Yogurt is the only yogurt I eat because, and I hope it's not a lie, the only yogurt that all other disgusting crap, including the nasty Corn Starch, is not added to it.

Nevertheless I think the incident could be one of the reasons that they asked me to leave. I had good performance but I made a few mistakes too. I had a foot injury once and told the supervisor about that although I didn't miss an hour. This might have been added to the other things and they considered me unreliable. That's only mu assumption. The bastards of the recruiting agency never gave me any feedback! All they said was that the employer had indicated that their business was slow!

(Photo: I am not conveying a wrong message, I hope! This is Kashk Bademjan, an Iranian cuisine which is not used as a main course and uses Kashsk, as a garnish but the sauce, if I can call it, adds flavour to the food and without it the dish is not the dish!)

Nightmares of a Voluntary Job

I was away from the voluntary job that I believe I'm good at for nearly 6 months. When I came back and checked the website (which I have to use to submit my work), I realized that a large portion of my work has been sent back for rework! 

This is not the first time that I see the reviewers of my work, send parts of my submission back and want me to rework and resend it. However at times I see stupid comments and silly and disgusting reactions to my work that pisses me off. 

An example of that would be a work that I corrected it based on their stupid comments once and now I see it back again. Some of them seem so fucking mean and disrespectful in their disgusting messages that I have to be careful not to say something back because I certainly don't want to lose this job for the sake of my resume. There's a disgusting fucking East Indian amongst them, who I'm not sure weather is the same person that I met in the last year's dinner. He has mostly stupid and meaningless comments. In fact I'm even ready to take courses to help me perform better on this job that I like it very much. 

The problem, that I realized probably a long time ago, is that we people have a very little capacity when we're criticized or questioned! In fact we have no tolerance in that area. ±0 is what we consider when we're in any relationship: Work, business, life, fun, you name it. There's absolutely room for that. So when someone says something against my work, that I believe I've spent a lot of time on it to have it completed, it's very difficult for me to accept it. However I'm working on this bad feature of mine and have been trying to improve myself. It's very hard mentally. Many people use alcohol here but I can't do it. I neither have money, nor the guts for that. Not to mention the place to drink and habit of that! My problem is I haven't done any exercise (jogging, weight-lifting, cycling, hiking, etc.) of any kind. That always helped me to relax. I need to do one of the above as long as it doesn't interact with any job that I have or going to get. The stupid, disgusting job that I had for 7 weeks, completely threw me away. 

(Photo: I hope this person doesn't mind that I'm using his picture for this post but at times I really feel like this and once even considered e-mailing the manager, telling him to consider me out of this work!)

CFLRS Notes (40): Sergeant P (P for Psychopath!)

CFLRS has a big group of instructors who have come from different elements and trades. They are needed to train the continuous flow of recruits, arriving in the school on weekly basis, particularly in summer. The flow increases in the summer and I will explain why in a separate post later. It's not hard to become an instructor because for theory stuff, they all read the material from their notes or a PowerPoint file! At times they even don't bother reading. They ask the recruits to do that! Sometimes when a question is asked they might even give you the wrong answer because of language barrier! This one rarely happens. However it's at times hard to remain an instructor because as an instructor you have to deal with lots of people and some of them are really slow. Some others, like me, are simply resistant to orders although they eventually follow it because they have to. The second number is very small. Refusing an order could result in a charge although I don't know the detail because I never refused one. I was once considered, if I may say, disobedient and then I was revealed from that order. That is a separate story.

Most of the instructors I had were good people. A few of them were disgusting. Just a few! There was this Sergeant that started going on me the minute I stepped in the platoon's office! I call him Sergeant P here because if I wrote his name and someone read this and told him, he would go after me, although everything is true.

This guy was a good instructor but for whatever reason he didn't like me. So I tried to stay away from him but it was not sufficient! I had a word exchange with a freaking idiot, who misunderstood me and that become a reason for Sergeant P to be tougher on me. He said that he would dot every I and cross every T to make sure that I would not get away from that! This actually was a refresher for my English because I had not heard that expression for years! Then there was a time that I made a joke in the class about a guy and although he didn't have a problem with that, the Sergeant made a case out of it and despite my apology, I got a Note to File for that as well! 

Up to this point things were bad, obviously! However my performance was not so bad. I finished 8 Km March successfully with no issue while some had problems. He didn't like that either and on the way back to the rooms, while I was going to help my fire team partner with his duffel bag, he got mad, for no reason and used F bomb as usual! Generally I had not seen someone like that amongst instructors and I guess because of his rank, experience and age, others could not say much. Even the Platoon Commander was silent in front of him. I even remember that he farted just near the commander without seeing a reaction! Generally he was a nasty person but you should see why. 

This guy similar to many other staff in CFLRS had been deployed to Afghanistan and over there, I heard, either from him or other recruits, that their LAV was attacked and shot by rocket or something like that and he got knocked out unconscious. He was transferred then to a medical center and was treated for his injuries but I don't know anything about the detail. He said that when he came back, shortly after his return or later, I don't recall and it's not important, his wife left him for an Officer! Divorce is not so uncommon in Canada but the rate is high in CAF, it's said. Even staff told us that if anyone thinks of having a family life, he or she should consider not having one after joining CAF although many staff are married. That didn't surprise me. In a society that only 49% of the population lives as family, having a high rate of divorce, in an organization which requires its members to travel and displace a lot, is not such a big deal. 

I even heard, from another person that his second wife had left him too! So a person with such history cannot function normally and always looks for something to defuse his anger! 

I saw him once after I had already left the platoon. The thing I told him the second I saw him was: Sergeant It's so good to see you again! He had a very short pause, as he probably didn't expect that, and replied by saying: It's good to see you too! He then asked me how it was going. I told him that I was waiting to be released. He asked me if I had considered other opportunities within CAF, to name becoming an NCM. I was going to say: Are you freaking nuts!? Of course I didn't! If I'm not good to become an Officer, which is not much different from becoming an NCM in terms of the course, how would I be successful in becoming an NCM where the living conditions is harsher and the number of assholes in the platoon is much higher!? I simply told him that it had not been recommended by the members of PRB. He told me I could request that and I, in order to end the stupid conversation, with the one who repeatedly had told me to f... off(!), thanked him and he left! 

Nobody ever told me that I was not good and I should leave the school. He was the only one who said that several times and on different occasions. Now he wants me to become an NCM and says the pension is the same! He also yelled at me in the office, in presence of all the other instructors of the platoon and another platoon that I was there for pay-stub and the money comes from the tax he and other instructors pay! I didn't tell this sick idiot that I used to receive the same amount from the Government as my EI benefit and just by sitting at home! And I didn't say that I paid my taxes every year since I came to Canada as an immigrant and all these years that he had been paid, it was because of me and other hard-working people who paid their taxes that he could be paid! What would be the point of talking to an asshole like that. I hope he or one of the people who were in the room reads this.
Everything I indicated here is truth and nothing else, in case someone wants to use it against me. once when we were in Farnham one of the insane girls kicked me in the leg and I was limping for a while after that. When a staff asked me about the way I walked I told him and then the Platoon Commander had a little talk to everyone about that and asking people not to touch others unnecessarily. This aggressive psycho stepped forward right after that and said: If you are such a person who don't like to be kicked, get the f... out of here! And the Platoon Commander was just silent! meaning powerless. I'm sure if it had been me kicking a girl, I would have been in a prison cell awaiting my trail now!
This ignorant freak, when we were in Farnham as part of the training, referred to a scene from this stupid movie Starship Troopers where women and men are seen naked in the locker room! What he was trying to say was that we, the recruits who had been arranged to stay in three big rooms, males and females together, should be OK with that fact. There was actually no complain about it. I don't know what type of massage he was trying to convey but that was wired!
I easily can forget this maniac and I have already moved on but I'm sure he will have his issues with him to the day he dies and he suffers from them. I just feel bad for the other ones who might get the same treatment from him!
(Photo: A scene from the 90's cheap, stupid ridicules science-friction movie Starship Troopers. This was referred to by Sergeant P just to show what kind of ignorant fuck he is!)

Contradictory Feedbacks

I worked for these disgusting people through a freaking recruiting company. It was the exact example of TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. It was given to me quickly and they said there would be possibilities of a permanent job. I didn't want to work there permanently but just having a job to pay the bills while I'm looking for work is very helpful. 

I received positive feedbacks from the supervisor but I had mistakes too which eventually was faded away. I had an argument with an asshole as well but it was not serious but him and the two other fucking disgusting East Indians could be the reason why I'm not working there anymore. The last day of work I had a serious injury which was not the direct result of work and I was thinking of applying for one position which didn't require physical job but that was for a night shift position and I changed my mind in the last minute. I had to get he manager's signature for the application form and now I wonder that asshole, who gave me positive feedbacks and then asked the recruiting company to stop my service, would have said. 

It's over now and I have to get over it. It was a disgusting job, in a disgusting shift and far away from home but brought me a few hundred dollars and I felt secure for a few weeks. Now I'm back to job searching and have been trying to find something like that at least until the time I get a real job. Sucks!
(Photo: Private Joker, played by Matthew Modine, with his helmet and peace symbol button which is also asked by a higher ranking officer in the movie, is a good example of contradictory comments. I couldn't think o anything better and more popular than this for this post's picture)