The Day they Fired the Production Analyst....

Well, it may be a little pre-mature to say that I'm going to be let go, but I can feel myself on the chopping block waiting for the axe to fall.

How do I know I'm going to be let go? Cause Jobs are alot like relationships, and I've broken up with enough girls to know the signs.

The Analysis

Example 1. When you break up with someone, you start pointing out all of their faults, even though it wasn't something that bothered you before, it bothers you now. Much like the meeting I had with my supervisor the other day. She basically told me all the things she wants to see improvement on in the next few months. She didn't mention the good times we had, just the bad ones that we've been having recently. Now, even if this is the case, you may not find yourself breaking up. If you can change the way you do things, you might just be able to prolong your relationship. Unless example 2 occurs....

Example 2. You start getting annoyed at the littlist things like someones voice, or laugh. Over the past few days, my supervisor has made it a point to tell me to limit my personal calls at work, be careful of what I talk about when I do make personal calls, and to make sure that I'm in by 9 every day. Something that was never an issue before.

Example 3. It's all done in a very short period of time. When breaking up with someone, you want to make sure you can build up as many reasons as to why you two need to break up. This is done so that the person can see it coming, and so you can feel justified about your decision. You can have the most nonsense reasons, but you try to see if the person is willing to change, and if not, then you break up with them and move on.

The Alternatives

Now there are many solutions that are available. They are as follows:

1. Change yourself. Suck up like there's no tomorrow and do all you can so that you don't get dumped. This is more for the desperate, who realize that they aren't good enough for the other person and that they were lucky to be dating them in the first place.

2. Change a little. You make the necessary adjustments and adhere to what the other person has to say, but in exchange you remove certain priveledges that you feel they are taking for granted. In this case, there's no freakin way in hell I'm working past 5 from now on.

3. Cheat. This can be done by either party. The employer can start interviews and look for a replacement before even firing their employee, or the employee can play all nice and look for a better job so that when they are fired, they have something ready on the rebound.

4. Dump them before they dump you. If you're game is tight, then you'll be alright. ladies and fellas, if you got some charm, some charisma, and you've got good looks to boot, then dump that bitch, cause you're way too good for her and you know it. The equivalent in this situation would be a wide range of experience, degrees, and designations.

My Solution
Here's my take on all of this:

The issues that they have with me checking the reports more throughly is valid, and I'm open to making an improvement in this area. So, no harm there. The talking on the phone is valid as well, since some people may take offence to some of the things I say, and in jest or joke. Their problem with me coming in at 9:10 every now and then is total BS. It has no bearing on how I perform my job. I mean, I don't leave the office until at least 5:30-6 on most nights. I've even had a few nights where I'm in the office at 8:30 and I don't leave until 7. If you were to average the amount of time I work at week, it would equate well over the 40 hours a week that's required. I can easily say that I'm there for at least 45 hours min. I bust my ass to learn all the sh!t they ask me to do in my first month, and I don't even get some slack to come in a little late every now and then?

Now, in a relationship, it's real easy to know what I'd do in this situation and I think you all know as well. But unlike relationships I don't have alot of experience, and I'm still working on getting my designations. So what am I going to do? I'm going to grit my teeth, do what they ask of me, look for another job, leave at 5 sharp every day, use them to pay for my courses, and hopefully by the end of it all, I'll be able to dump their sorry asses for a hotter more sexy company.

The Day Russell Extended My Probation

On Friday, my supervisor asked me to join her for a little impromptu meeting. I didn't have a good feeling about it, and sure enough, I was right. We get to the boardroom, and she asks me how I thought the quarter had gone. I tell her that I didn't really see any major problems, and list the areas that I hope to improve on. One of those areas would be to go check over my reports to veify that they all updated properly. She agrees with me, and goes on to say that it was also a concern that alot of the other analysts had. I'm fine with hearing constructive criticsm, and it's something that I realized, and had made steps to improve, so that's not the problem. The major problems I have is that because of this, they've decided to prolong my probation period for another 3 months. I'm not exactly sure what difference this makes, but basically, it shows that my job isn't as secure as I had thought it was. Now, I'm not worried about being let go, because honestly, it's not something that I can't improve on, what worries me, is that my position is easily expendable. There the possibility that they don't even need a production analyst, and just scrap the entire position altogether. Another problem I had, is that my supervisor only pointed out the things I did wrong, and did nothing to make me feel good about the things I did right. It got to the point that by the end of the meeting, she asked "is there anything else you want to talk about?". And I say "well, is there anything during the quarter that was positive?". The worse part is that she just gives a mild compliment, and then says that the iniative I've shown to improve my report checking was good. but then she continued to talk about the checks. Anyways, with the lack of job security, and the feeling that my work isn't being appreciated, I've decided to start applying for jobs again to see if there's anything better suited for me. Sad times too, cause I really like the company and some of the people I work with.

The Day They Fired the Temp

I thought I posted the entry about the hiring of the temp, but I guess I just saved it as a draft. It was very short lived to say the least.

All the temp had to do was print out reports, put them together, and bind them. Now, I'm not going to talk about how a temp who get's paid practically nothing, can mess up the simplest of tasks, so much so that they're actually more of a liability than an asset. But i will say this...I know first hand what it's like to have to do this, remember, I was the temp not too long ago. The pay sucks, it's not challenging, and you know you're much too smart and talented to be doing such pointless BS. But here's the thing. It's a job. Not only is it a job, but it's one you've willingly accepted. For me, you do the job to the best of your abilities, print and bind that sh!t like you're in the running for temp of the year, and you squeeze as much experience from that job as you possibly can. If you have goals, if you have the slightest idea about what type of job you really want, then you need to work hard at getting there. Printing and binding doesn't necessarily show that you can produce this quarter's RoR for a given Seg. Fund, but the way you take on this very simple task speaks volumes about how motivated you are to do a good job, to be efficient, to pay attention to detail, etc...So, you move on from a temp to a lowly analyst, then to a senior analyst, then who knows, the sky's the limit if your willing to put in the time. Unfortunately for this bloke, a bad review from Russell can pretty much end any chance of getting another placement through the temp agency, and he'll be back to searching for jobs on his own.

And you know what the worse part about it is? Now that we don't have the temp, I have to print and bind all that crap again. Luckily production is winding down, and there won't be too many left....I hope!

The Day I got Chris Bosh's Autograph

Yesterday, Chris Bosh of the dismal Toronto Raptors came to First Canadian Place to sign autographs. How it works is, they give the first 100 people in line at noon wristbands. Then from 2:30 to 3:30, Bosh comes and signs autographs for everyone who got the wristband earlier in the day. I went down at about quarter to 12, got my wristband, and came back around 2:10. I was right in the front of the line, so I didn't think it would take to long...and it wouldn't have...had Bosh showed up on time. The man didn't come until 3 o'clock! At least, I was in the front of the line. It took me about 10 mins to get the autograph, make a little small talk, and leave. Actually, there wasn't much to say...cause the raps were 0-4, and they had just lost the night before.

After work I met up with Umu and Frosty to chill. Umu just finished his SOA exam so it's the first free time he's had in months. First we went to the Beer Market, but the place was jam packed, so we went to some irish pub next door. You can never go wrong with an Irish Pub. Umu got an Ice Tea. Frosty and I got a pitcher. The three of us just sat for hours talking about girls, our jobs, the job and financial markets, travelling and other random crap. Good times as always. I think this might be the new stage in my life. Progressing away from clubs and moving to more bar/lounge type atmostpheres where you just drink and shoot the sh!t.

The Day They Hired A Temp

So, yesterday, my company decided to hire a temp to alleviate me from some of my duties. This seriously makes a world of difference in my productivity. I guess my supervisor realized that I was having a tough time balancing the amount of work that was being thrown at me, and trust me, it's been alot! I wouldn't mind it so much if it were a few months down the road, where I eased into it, and gained some expertise in my deliverables, but right now, I'm still learning everything, and it's been confusing trying to keep track of what it is I need to do.

So, the temp we got in was hired from the temp agency that got me the job here at Russell. I would worry that he would try to usurp my job, but I've watched him bind for the past couple of days, and I think I should be safe. Not everyone can mess up every day for a straight week like yours truly.

The Day That I Messed Up at Work

The past week has been one of the worst weeks of work I've ever expereinced in my life. Since I've worked at Russell, I think I've done a pretty good job. I've been efficent at what I do, and have gotten everything done on time. However, that soon changed...

Over the span of a week, I've managed to delete a folder from the LAN that I needed to create the Comparative Monthly Profiles, I've made errors in the Equity Profile spreadsshet 5 times, I've deleted files that I need to create the Quarterly Investment Management Reports, and I've accidentally updated information on a report after all the final edits had been made, that had consequently reverted it back to the old report. It took me 4 nights of serious OT to remedy all the errors I made, and I still have some left to do on Monday.

Friday was an amazing day though....once work was almost over that is. There was a baby shower in the office, and there were 10 bottles of wine, and a spread of cheese, fruits, and dips. Even though it was only 3 o'clock and there was still work to be done, I threw back 5 glasses of wine to get me through the day. It was just enough to do that trick, and the last few hours of work went by w/o incident.

After work (which was about 7:45), I met up with Chris at Eaton's Centere who was actually meeting up with some of his UofT piano friends. Chris and Crystal were helping their friend Roger buy some new clothes, because apparently he doesn't really have much fashion sense, so they were giving him some pointers. It seems like this is a pasttime for people, because this isn't the first time I've heard of people taking their friends to the mall and telling them what to buy. The funniest part was when we were in B2, and the saleperson told Roger that she thought the shoes he was going to buy looked much better than the pair he walked in with. She said she hadn't seen his pair of shoes since she was 7. HAHA. When he told her that he'd take the shoes, she asked if he was sure he didn't want to wear them out of the store instead. though it may sound mean, it was all in good fun.

We couldn't figure out what to do after the mall had closed. Crystal said she wanted to get some bbt or beer. I was all for the beer myself, and though it seemed that we were all really tired to do anything, we somehow decided to go to a bar somewhere near bloor and university. On the way to the bar, we actually ran into another one of their piano friends, so her and her b/f tagged along to the bar with us. The unfortunate part about this girl is that she very much acts like Hillary Duff, and if you don't already know, I HATE Hillary Duff with a passion!! I managed to keep it civil, but man...did she annoy the hell out of me.

Now....I can't tell you what happened the rest of the night, because well, it was 1) WAY TOO HOT! 2) Not exactly PG, and I may have some minor's coming to my page from time to time, and 3)They might not want me to tell. ;) Just trust me when I say, it was FREAKIN HOT and definitely made up for my crappy week!