Walking in a winter wonderland

As I'm sitting here I'm staring out the window at a fence, trying to remember how tall it is, because it is almost gone.

Yes, I am in one of those cities that has been experiencing apocalyptic weather over the past week (and the entire winter). Well, apocalyptic is more in jest - everyone has been saying that. I, however, believe that the apocalypse will cover more than just part of North America. But who am I to judge, right?

It's our own freaking version of The Day After Tomorrow, if you've ever seen it. Not that I remember the plot or anything. I just remember there was a lot of snow and some kids were stuck in a school. But you get the idea. Snow. Piles of it.

A friend of mine runs a snow removal business and their clients' snow banks are so high they are having difficulty getting more snow on top of them - this was before the 50 or so centimetres we received this weekend (49 to be exact - and if you are loathing my Canadian-ness right now, that works out to 19.29 inches according to Google, my favourite measurement converter).

God, this is bad. It's my brother's 16th birthday today. At the other end of the city. And according to the news, if you get stuck, you are on your own, because there is no one available to help you. That's harsh.

I'm fortunate enough to own a Nissan Pathfinder. But it doesn't have snow tires. And it has a tiny volvo parked behind it that I will have to move to get out of here. The snow bank in the actual driveway, which was plowed a few days ago, is higher than the bottom of the car. Most certainly. And I am home alone. Because as I mentioned, my host runs a snow removal business. He may never come back.

Alright, alright. I need to get my act together. Wish me luck.

Need any help with that?

My staff have a favourite story to tell about one of my first days managing them. Some of them have worked together longer than I've been alive, so we all had to do a lot of adjusting and getting used to each other that first summer together.

I had higher expectations than I probably should have initially, although now I know them so well I know exactly what to expect from them.

This particular day we were doing an equipment delivery. It was me and 3 grown men, plenty of muscle for moving our shit around.

I directed one of them to untie the equipment while I checked something on my car. Once he was finished, himself, this huge guy, and I all went to pull it off while the other guy watched from the ground.

We started to struggle pretty hard, which was somewhat unbelievable considering there was 3 of us. so we kept pulling, until we all realized our guy on the ground was laughing hysterically.

We turn around and look at him.

"What are you laughing at??"

He continues to laugh.

"You know those are still tied on, right?"

To this day, he says it was the funniest thing he's ever seen.

Calling in sunburnt

One of my favourite stories of calling in sick is with my cousin, who used to work for me here and there to pick up some extra money on his time off from school.

I have a lot of casual employees because my work is often weather-based, and the day before the shift, while he was working for me, I had asked him to work the next morning. Because it was my cousin, I forgot to confirm with him, but I knew he likely would have called me to let me know if he absolutely couldn't so I was counting on him.

That night, around midnight, my phone rings.

"Hey Lisa, it's your cousin... I just wanted to let you know, I can work tomorrow. I'll be there at 11."

I notice he is slurring his words. "Where are you calling from?"

"The bartender's phone. She's pretty cool. She's giving us free drinks."

Whatever. It's my cousin, I know he drinks, as long as he can work, it's cool, right?

Not so much. The next morning I receive a call about an hour before his shift.

"Lisa.... it's your cousin....... listen, I think I got a bit too much sun yesterday, and I don't think I'm going to be able to work today. I'm dehydrated and I have a headache, and I just feel awful."

"Cousin, that is a hangover. Lots of people work with them. Suck it up and come into work!" (I'm sympathetic, really.)

"No, no, really Lisa.... I'm not hungover, I swear, it's just the sun, I didn't drink very much last night, I just got too much sun.... I need to go back to bed."

Later that day, I was eating dinner at his family's house when I happened to mention the phone call from the bartender's phone the night before and that I knew full well he was hung over.

"Oh man..... did I call you?"

Home sweet home

You know, I haven't been home a whole lot lately, between work and crashing at a friends close to work, I just haven't been around much.

Still, I surprised myself about 10 minutes ago when I referred to my apartment as, "My roommate's place".

It seems it has begun to belong to him and not me. But he is still my roommate.

Foot in mouth

OK, so apparently guys don't like it when girls say romantic things like, "It's okay, I'm not really visually stimulated anyway."

Not that I would say something like that.

Printer follies

Yesterday at around 12:15pm I tried to print an assignment that was to be handed in by 1pm. My printer decided to have a bit of a meltdown in the emotional sense and refused to print anything at all because I didn't start it off with enough paper and it would not accept more paper once it realized this fact.

Overly long story short, 20 minutes later I am using someone else's printer and then frantically driving to school at the speed of light (or at least slightly higher than the speed limit), where I managed to submit it in the knick of time.

Anyway, about an hour ago (just over 24 hours after I sent the original document to print), my printer spit out the whole damn thing while I wasn't paying attention.

Am I the only one with a printer that needs this much discipline?

Phone confusion

I was woken up this morning to the phone ringing repetitively downstairs.

A few minutes later, a knock at my bedroom door.

"Your phone has been ringing off the hook, I just thought you might want to know."

"Uh, my phone is in here. That's your phone."

"Oh. Well they sound the same."

"Your cell phone and your land line?"

"Well, I knew the landline was for me."

We both really have trouble with this whole, phone-answering thing.

20 minutes of reflection

With the snowfall yesterday morning, we opted to cancel a few of our staff in the morning - it was slow, and since we work outdoors we try not to subject the staff to crazy weather if we don't need to. Sometimes they are receptive to this, other times I am met with disappointment, so I typically dread making those phone calls, never knowing what to expect. The girl we were canceling is a friend of mine who had just been booked the day before, so it could have gone either way.

"Hey, it's me. I'm just calling because I don't think we are going to need you for today - it's still snowing pretty hard and we may close down altogether in an hour or two."

"THANK GOD!" she said, with a sense of urgency, "I had no idea when I was going to do that French assignment. I'll stop by to drop off the money I owe you, though. See you soon!"

I was relieved to know it wasn't a problem and 20 minutes later, she showed up to drop off the money I had lent her earlier in the week.

"By the way, when I said 'thank God' earlier... I actually meant, 'that's no problem at all, I will just have more time to work on my assignments.'"

Oh how I love delayed tact.