The Church of Dan

So I’m amused, overwhelmed, and nervous all at the same time.

I was denied the opportunity to apply to the position in accounting because management wants to ‘continue to see exceptional performance’ out of me. I thought about this for a couple of days, and realized they have no legal ground to do this to me based on opinion. There have been no letters of warning, no attendance issues, and no ‘action plans’ (which are 30-60-90 day) monitorings. IE if I have attednance issues, they say for the next 30 days you cannot call in sick, if you do, you get written up. Such plans prevent you from moving out of your position. The last requisite is that you’ve been in your position for at least a year. Well its been 1.5 years now.

Soo…

I applied to TD Bank Financial Group as and Administrative Assistant. I could apply internally without previous approval. TD Insurance and TDBFG are two different entities despite being under the same ‘umbrella’. Sadly when I clicked ‘submit resume’ I read that my HR representative and my manager had to be notified. SO I did just that. I mentioned to my HR Rep, and she asked if I’d told my manager yet, and I said..

“No actually, I haven’t because the due date for this position was today, and I didn’t know I actually HAD to say anything until I clicked it. I was going to save it for tomorrow, but since I HAD to use her name in my application (current supervisor etc) I had no choice.

The moment of truth. I told Lori. Her face went as red as her shirt, but she maintained her composure – the same way I felt when they told me “No” on Monday about the accounting position.

A subtle slap in the face I’d say “You won’t let me apply and move on here? I’m going to start looking elsewhere”

I’m overwhelmed because I didn’t know I’d have to tell her right away.
I’m nervous because I don’t know what hell they may be planning for me now (if any)
I’m amused because I finally had a chance to make a strong point without saying a word.
I’m excited because I may be out of this place… Wish me luck? Whoever may read this..

So it’s 2:20PM, and I have to start getting ready to head over to my aunts for Easter lunch – without my dad. It’s unfortunate that his back condition hasn’t improved and he finds it difficult to sit in one position for extended periods of time, which means that he won’t be joining us for lunch. I really hate leaving him home on any holiday. At Christmas, I took the train (express go-train) to Newmarket and had my cousin drive me home. I don’t even remember if he went for Thanksgiving, I think he did and left early. Bleh. No matter what we do his condition just isn’t improving.. for anyone that may read this ( I doubt theres anyone else to read my crazy random thoughts) but anyways, he has Spinal Stenosis, and his feet go numb after a few minutes of standing/walking/sitting and the pain is pretty much chronic. He can’t take strong pain medications because they upset his stomach. Bleh, indeed.

I’ve cancelled my Warhammer account and have moved back to Final Fantasy XI. I figure, why pay for a game that I have to play 3 different classes in order to prevent boredom from setting in. Shouldn’t the game be interesting enough that I’d WANT to get to level 40 on one character? Sadly no.. The game is the same from Level 1 to Level 40, the only difference is how fast you die – or how fast you can kill someone else. The more and more I think about it, the more I realize how rushed and unfinished the game was before release. They probably should have taken everything from Dark Ages of Camelot – and just renamed it in Warhammer – then they’d have a decent game.

Now a quick rant about why I HATE Blizzard and World of Warcraft. Before this game, MMOs had a different feel to them. Everquest and FFXI are the only two examples from experience I can provide. These games did not give any ‘quick’ rewards. Anything you did, achieved, found, or wore, pretty much took a lot of work – with a fair amount of risk. The risk in Everquest being much higher because when you died, you had to go back to where your corpse was and get everything. This added to the thrill of adventure – you could die, lose your corpse, lose a level in certain circumstances. It made dying something to hate, and avoid. It also provided a rush of adventure. Moving forward, games starting to stray from this sort of ‘challenging’ environment, and made it into a quick reward, low risk style game.

Oh no! I died in Warcraft! It’s ok, my stupid ass ghost can run harm free back to its body and just have to pay to repair my armor. Oh no I died in Warhammer, now I just pay a silver to restore all my health to full. Oh no, I died in FFXI, lost 10% of my next level xp (1000xp if you needed 10k to level) and I’m back to the city that is my home. Now I have to walk back to where I was and get all that experience back. The other factor are monsters. IN the previous 2 games mentioned in this paragraph, monsters stop chasing you after a certain distance. In EQ/FFXI they keep chasing.. and chasing.. until you zone into another area. In most cases, you die. Even after you make it to the zone line, when you load you could still be dead (if the monster was still hitting you)

If they remade Everquest, with updated graphics, mechanics, and skills, but kept everything else the same, I think people would love it. Not the majority though, because most of the MMO community has been infected with the easy-mode mmo disease that World of Warcraft has spread.

If FFXI fails to keep my interest, I’ll likely be leaving the MMO world and going back to console games. Time to get ready to go!

Ok so I’m horrible at blogging and it just hasn’t worked it’s way in to my daily routine yet.  I used to blog to vent/cry/emo about just about everything.  Now there isn’t anything bothering me, and I’ve forgotten what it’s like to just.. blog without much purpose except to get thoughts out on to the internet and just express a day-in-review, or in this case a month in review about everything.  Hopefully I’ll get better at this.

Exams. Ugh. I have one on Monday and am dreading it. This is the same exam I studied so hard for back in November.  To go over everything again is so un-motivating.  Alas, if I want to get re-imbursed from work, I better pass this time!  But I’m allowed to bitch, right?

Exercising. I love it.  I have more free time to myself during the week now, and will have more after monday *shakes fist*.  I’ve made up a spreadsheet and plan out my workouts for 5-6 days a week now.  Lower body 3x and upper body 2 or 3x.  I think I may alternate weeks when I do 2 and 3 of each section, either way I’m aiming for a defined and toned body by late may/june – for the sake of confidence and health.  Some workouts are finished in about 30-40 minutes, my upper body days take closer to an hour to complete – then add time to make my protein shake, have dinner,  it’s about 8:30-9:30 before I sit to do anything at my computer!  But they are great workouts!

Warhammer Online.  I wish Aion Online would be released, it looks so cool.  But Warhammer fills the gap for now, juggled between 4 characters.  Tyrannize my Zealot is my healing-guy.  When I play him I generally want to keep the whole team up while trying to do some damage on the side.   Finalize the Sorceress is my “I shoot magic at you from afar while looking sexy, and you die” character. She’s hot.  Immobilize my Witch Elf is when I want to make people smash their keyboards in frustration when I always kill them FROM THE SHADOWS, and last, and probably least – Womanize the Marauder – he isn’t anything too special yet, except that his arm turns into WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!

Work.  Work is work, but thankfully it isn’t as stressful anymore.  I’ve worked on a project in Excel to record all statistics of incoming courier and what department they go to and have numbers recorded by day/week/month meaning now total numbers can be tracked on all fronts – and the amount of work said departments recieve will also be recorded.  It’s a tool that has gotten more attention than I thought it would.  I also just found out yesterday that management in Accounting is asking as to why I haven’t applied for a position there yet – so I may be looking to apply there temporarily while I decide what direction I want to move in my career.  Stay in Insurance, or the possibility of Accounting courses to move in to the Bank.  Or maybe a financial analyst for an insurance company… who knows?  All I know is I am good with numbers.  Really really good.

Chess.  I love chess, and downloaded Chessmaster 10th Edition, and may just go out and buy it too.  It’s a hobby I’m glad I’m working my way back in to. And PS – the chessmaster kicks my ass all the damn time.

MUDs. *gasp* Jess did you read that?  Anyways, Ive been musing about the idea of returning to a game that I haven’t played in about 7 years now.  Realms of Despair. Thalasian the Drow Mage – probably peaceful again or I was thinking of Naislaht the Drow Nephandi/Cleric/Idon’tknow.  The real trick is getting the name authorized or deleted (if the deadly one is still around)

Which brings me to my final update!  My budget in excel.  Holy crap, it is AWESOME!  I have cleared all my credit card debts in 1.5 months.  I actually see the flow of money I have coming in, and what goes to bills, other expenses vs mandatory expenses, food, and pretty much everything else.  Creating the spreadsheet and updating it was very hard at first, but now I spend about 10 minutes a day looking at my budget, update daily, and plan AHEAD meaning, I mark things as expensed before I even buy it IE Monthly bus pass is always $109 at the end of the month, so I record it as such, and I am able to see the total amount of money I have available for the whole month.  Best tool ever.

After Monday – assuming I pass the exam – I have no stress.  For the first time, in a very long time. I. Have. No. Stress.  WOW!