When it comes to finance, my roommate is clueless about it. She’s probably clueless about a lot of other things because she’s in her own little world, unknowingly to her is a whole other world outside the front door. I don’t know if she understands the full consequences of her actions. I’ve told her plenty of times before but it seems like it’s far beyond her level of comprehension.

She lost her job about a week after I left for Hong Kong but she didn’t bother to do anything about it. I didn’t find out about it until a few days after I came back into the country. She didn’t even have the common courtesy to tell Jenn’s mom about her situation. Jenn’s mom is the one who’s dealing with her rent while I’m away. She had to find out from Jenn who’s thousands of miles away before hearing it from my roommate. That’s a very inconsiderate thing to do given the fact that these are the people who are trying to help.

When she first moved in, things started out just hunky dory. She had money for the rent and the bills. As time went by, the bills slowly started to climb while the money slowly declined. Every month I would have to ask her for the rent. Every pay day I would have to ask her for money to pay the bills. This went on from the time she moved in until now. I assume that certain things are due on certain dates so it’s known when they’re due. It’s not rocket science.

I’ve told her time and time again to conserve electricity and water because that is where all the money is going. But she doesn’t listen. She’ll load up the washer, load up the dry and take a shower all at the same time. I don’t know where she goes if she needs to wash her clothes every other day. She can’t even afford to pay for those commodities and yet she abuses them. At least, I think she’s abusing them because I don’t know anyone who does their laundry after other day. It has gotten to the point where I am only willing to pay for my share. It’s doesn’t make sense to pay for half the bill anymore when I use less than half of the resources. Before I would pay for the whole thing and then wait for her to pay me back but she has gotten too far behind on paying that I’ve stopped.

The most recent hydro bill came up to $428.66 which is fairly high considering the fact that I wasn’t in the country. Before I left, I left her a note telling her to converse because I wasn’t willing to pay for anything while I’m gone. Of the $428.66, my portion is only $77 which is half of one month’s bill. I wasn’t at home for most February so I’m not paying for it.

Ever since my roommate started falling behind on rent and bills, I recommended that she get financial assistance because she cannot afford to live in this house. According to my calculations, the best that she can do with her pay cheque is a $200 rent with utilities included. There’s nowhere in Hamilton that you can rent for that low. I took the time to find her the phone number and address of the difference government services that will help her if she applies for them. But all she has done with my recommendation was listen. She did not act on it and now she’s in trouble.

When she lost her job, I recommended that she apply for Employment Insurance. She should have applied for that as soon she lost her job but she didn’t. I don’t know why she didn’t but she didn’t. I think her best excuse was because she didn’t have her record of employment from Walmart. But countless times I’ve told her that she doesn’t need that right away. The important thing was to apply for it as soon as possible. I’ve even went as far as asking her if she applied on a daily basis. Every time I asked, her replied was always “no” which made me mad. Here I was, trying to help and she’s not willing to accept it. Well, too bad for her because went she finally went to apply for EI, she was too late.

Now she has no job, no steady income and the bills are piling up. I told her that consequences of being behind on her financial responsibilities and I hope that the threat of eviction is enough to get her to wake up. She did not pay first and last month’s rent so she doesn’t have the luxury of getting a warning before eviction. She’s taking her situation a bit too lightly and she’s just going to get herself into trouble. It’s not fair to me and to everyone who’s trying to help her. I’d hate to say it but people like her deserve what’s coming to them. If someone wants to help you while you’re down, you best take their hand.

I wasn’t sure where my career was going before working here. But after working here for almost three years, I started to see it as a place where I can further my skills and improve myself. There were a few times when I wanted to jump ship because I didn’t quite understand where the company was going. I saw where the company was going but I couldn’t follow where my organizational unit was heading. I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to grow professionally in my current role when the next role I could get was a manager position. I don’t think my manager would like it too much if I told him that I wanted his job.

My first few months in the company were great. My manager knew how to manage people and get things done but as the days go by, my manager slowly drifted away. Eventually, he was promoted and another manager took his place. After a year or so, that manager was replaced. The bad thing about getting these new managers was the fact that they were stationed at another location. This made things harder because when I needed to get in touch with them, it had to be done through email. Sometimes I would get a response and other times I would be waiting days, or even months for a reply. These managers have their own subordinate to take care of so my coworkers and I were always second priority. It was bad enough when he basically told me that my job can be done by any random person off the street. Apparently, he’s not here often enough to see the type of work that I do so he doesn’t know what I’m capable of. My first manager knew exactly what I can and can’t do. You can’t manage people that aren’t under the same roof as you are. It’s hard because there’s no visibility. You can’t lead if you can’t see where you’re going.

I’ve been doing the same task every day. Well, not exactly the same task but it does become a bit repetitive. When I first started working in I.T., I assumed that I would fix a problem and would hear about that problem anymore but as it turns out, the same problem keeps occurring. And this isn’t just problems that are caused by the users, these are problems that are caused by other I.T. guys. After a while, my job doesn’t seem as challenging as it once was. I even try to get training for other I.T. task in hopes that it might make things a bit more challenging but even my request for training was shot down. I’ve been applying for training for a couple of years now and I still have heard back as to whether it has been approved or not. Now, it seems like it’s pointless to ask for any more training.

A while back, there was a project that was started to save the company money. This meant that a lot of things had to be cut in order to provide a savings. It’s a weird internal structure that I didn’t quite understand. At the end of the day, the company saving money is the same company who’s doing the charging. So in order to keep me at my site, my job had to be justified. The daily work that I do justifies itself. I don’t know how much they charge for my work but they must be charging a lot and paying me a little.

I like working here because the pay is okay, job is good, the people are great and it’s close to home. There aren’t a lot of people these days who can say what I say about my job. Yes, there are a few people whom I have problems with but that’s a part of almost every job. This plant seems to be big but at the same time everyone knows who the other some is. I could walk around the plant and wave to just about everyone I see. It’s a very laid back environment to be working and I’ve never worked in an environment like this. I highly doubt and can only hope that my next place of employment will be like this. I’ve been told that my two coworkers and I will be relocated but I see this as an opportunity to move on to something bigger and better.

4 sec | f/5.6 | 55mm

When I was younger and got hurt, my mom would apply tiger balm to everything that ached. If I fell and scraped my knee, tiger balm. If I got a headache, tiger balm. If I cut myself in any way, tiger balm. Growing up, I thought this thing was a miracle worker.

0.7 sec | f/5.6 | 55mm

I’ve had these guys for a while but I never took them out of their containers. Jenn and I got them in Hong Kong from those vending machines. They’re small but they look badass.

0.67 | f/5 | 38mm

After getting back from Hong Kong, it took me a day or two to unpack. Most of the time, I was sleeping and trying to get rid of the jet lag. My room isn’t as messy as it once was but there’s still a bit of cleaning to do.

1/2 sec | f/3.5 | 18mm

When I was in Cambodia, I drank a lot of beer. I think beer cost just as much as water so why not?

1/10 sec | f/3.5 | 18mm

I’m not sure if Dunkin Donuts knows that this store in Shenzhen, China was selling burnt coffee. Coffee should be hot but when they’re extremely hot, they’re burnted.

6 sec | f/5.3 | 46mm

I bought these flowers for Jenn for out anniversary. We’ve spent three years together, full of ups and downs.

1/4 sec | f/3.5 | 18mm

The IFC is a very tall building in Hong Kong and it’s probably one of the most recognizable ones too because it looks like a razor.

1/3 sec | f/3.5 | 18mm

This appears to be some sort of artwork. It wasn’t there the last time I was in Hong Kong though. I’m guessing it’s either artwork or it’s actually chairs.