Chapter 10: Calgary and the Next Stage - Kelowna

Ah...Calgary. How we missed you.

The reps took about a week to settle in before they were going to start selling hard again. Then they took another week to settle in some more. We were having fun playing together and having some time to relax in an apartment instead of a hotel, but we still needed to work. So Richard made a decision. We had been watching the service report pretty closely, wondering if corporate was ever going to send someone to clean up the messes Graham was leaving behind. I should probably explain.

Graham's reps are probably some of the dirtiest around. Here is how a normal sales pitch usually goes:

Rep talks to customer about "advertising" for Pinnacle by putting a sign in their yard and paying monthly monitoring for a "free" system.
During the talk, rep checks customer's credit to see if they "qualify" for a "free" system.
Customer completes welcome call with corporate, and fully understands what they're getting themselves into.
Tech shows up and installs system. Customer completes QA call just to make sure one more time that they know what they signed up for.

Here's how Graham's operation works:

Rep talks to customer about getting a "free" security system with Vigilon. He asks for some information, and calls to see if the customer "qualifies" without telling the customer that's what he's doing.
Rep somehow gets the customer to go through the welcome call, or he does the welcome call for the customer.
Rep calls for the tech using words like "Hey Jill, can I give you an address?", playing that call off as part of the qualification process. The customer has no idea a tech is on the way.
Tech shows up (within 20 minutes or Graham throws a fit) and starts installing system. Rep stays and chills with the customer and keeps them calm and makes sure they're somewhat okay with what's going on.
Customer completes QA call, coached by the rep.

Most of Graham's reps offer not a 3 day, not a 10 day, but a 30 day trial period. Whatever they scribble onto the contract stands at corporate, so that's what they get. After 30 days most of these customers realize what's going on, now that money has started coming out of their accounts that they didn't think was going to happen, and they cancel.

When a customer cancels, the lead tech is supposed to go out and pick up the system. That's most of the service work Richard was doing in Calgary. I would make his appointments so he would have 2 or 3 days a week pretty much booked with pulls and other fixes. I would then box up all the pulled equipment to be reused. Let me tell you, there were A LOT of pulls in Calgary.

Since Graham had decided to waltz all over Canada and never go back to the cities he'd sold in, there was a problem with getting the old equipment. The Vancouver office was now in Manitoba somewhere, and they had hit up about 6 cities on the way there that none of the other offices were within 20 hours of. So Richard was watching the numbers in one of their cities, Kelowna, and wondering if maybe we should take a road trip out there to pick up a bunch of systems and then come back. He would make $40 for every one he pulled, and he might be able to get paid for gas. We eventually decided it would be a fun roadtrip either way, since we could be in the same car for once, so we packed up and left.

I spent the week prior to our leaving calling all the pulls in Kelowna and the two surrounding cities, Vernon and Penticton, to see what kind of a schedule I could make for Richard. I ended up being able to schedule just about every pull, so we were excited. We left on a Sunday afternoon. It was about a 7 hour drive to Kelowna, which was hard for Rachel, but since there were two of us in the car it was a little easier since one of us could be back there playing with her. We had to pack extremely light, since the car needed to be able to hold all the pulled equipment. We brought one suitcase, one diaper bag, and ourselves. No church clothes, since we were planning to be back the following Sunday.

The drive was really fun. We got to drive through Jasper again, and we got some better pictures this time. Kelowna is a pretty town, but I didn't end up seeing it until a few days after we got there. We stopped in Vernon, which is 30 mins north, since all the hotels were full for the holidays. They have a huge holiday every month in Canada, just an extra long weekend for everyone, and I think there was something big going on in Kelowna for it. Anyway all the hotels were full so we stayed at a Super 8 in Vernon. It was one of the crappiest hotels I'd seen, but it wasn't terribly expensive. All three of us slept in the same bed, and that was not comfortable. But Rachel got to try bananas for the first time, and she sure liked that.

Richard spent the next day doing all the work down in Kelowna, then came and packed us up to move down there for the next night. The following day was scheduled for Penticton and Vernon, so we kind of did things backwards. But it all worked out. We got to eat at some nice restaurants (the hotels gave us coupons) and I had fun being a mommy in a hotel room again :D The second hotel we stayed at was actually run by one of the customers Richard did service for the night before. He brought us a playpen for Rachel, so we didn't all have to share a bed, which was really nice. We also bought a backpack carrier for Rachel so I could take her on walks a little easier.

As we did work in Kelowna, we kept in touch with everyone back in Calgary and found out that the reps were still not selling well. They had sold about 5 since we'd been in Calgary, which is nothing near what we needed for our 6 or so techs. So. We decided to keep going on our little trek. I started making calls up in Prince George, about 8 hours north, and got a few days' worth of appointments lined up for Richard there. This would be fun, because Prince George is an hour away from where Richard was born, and we would be able to go visit his cousins who still lived there.

So off we went :D

Chapter 9: Jasper, B.C.

I feel the need to give a little geography lesson before explaining this trip much further. For those of you living in Utah, Calgary is pretty much straight north. From there, Lloydminster is 5 hours northeast, right on the border of Alberta and Seskatchewan (sp?). Like driving from Provo to Rexburg. From Lloydminster, Bonnyville is about 2 hours northwest. Then from Bonnyville to Slave lake is about 7 hours west. From Logan to Las Vegas. From Slave Lake we drove to Grande Prairie, which is another 5 hours west. From there to Calgary is 8 hours if you take the direct route, so back to Logan from Las Vegas with a pit stop :D If you wanted to go the more adventurous route, it took closer to 11 hours. BUT you had the chance to drive through one of the prettiest national parks in Canada. Jasper is right on the border of Alberta and B.C., which puts it just below Grande Prairie and just west of Calgary. We decided to make a road trip of our journey back home, so we drove through Jasper instead of desolate western Alberta.

We left around 1 p.m. on Sunday in a mini caravan with Richard's sister's family. We had 3 walkie-talkies, and that made it a lot more fun. We told jokes, sang goofy songs, and played "name that movie from the quote" the whole way home. It also made deciding where to stop for dinner a lot easier. We got to Hinton, which is where Burt's office was the week that Jay was covering for him, and stopped at a Boston Pizza. Boston Pizza is a fancy Pizza Hut that wants to be Chili's. Pretty good pizza, but way too expensive. We stayed there for like two hours, which was a nice break for the kids and Rachel before we got back in the car.

Rachel liked being out of the car far too much to go back to sleep when we got going. She screamed for about 45 minutes before I couldn't take it anymore. I pulled off the road and everyone else went a little further to a turnoff where they said there was a sign for a waterfall. I drove to catch up after feeding Rachel and we went on a little hike. It was so cool! The waterfall was amazing, but I was shocked at how little fencing there was. You could walk around whatever flimsy chain link they put up, and there were some other groups of people that were clear out right next to the water where it dropped down into a gorge. I was about to be sick it was so crazy. But it was beautiful, and we got some great pictures. It was a nice break to keep the babies awake just before bedtime, and the rest of the trip went really well.

Driving through the park was amazing. I really regretted driving, since it didn't allow for many great pictures. I was holding my camera the whole time and trying to snap random good shots without really looking. I managed to get some good views of the mountains and rivers and even some of the wildlife, but you really just had to be there. Every few seconds one of us would say "Woah! Look at that! Hey, look to the left! That's amazing!" It was just such an incredibly beautiful place, and I'm so glad for the circumstances that let us see it, however retarded they were :D

After the waterfall we drove through the glacial area of the park. Wow. I just can't even describe. Entire mountains that were formed by ice, and were still covered. You could see from the shape of the mountains where the huge glaciers had slipped off to form the river below. At one point we just had to stop and turn around. There was a beautiful lake that we could drive almost all the way around to get close to an amazing glacial formation on the other side. Rachel was asleep by now, and luckily she slept the rest of the way home.

As we neared Alberta we drove through a huge construction zone, which added another hour onto our trip. But all was well when we got home to our bed in Calgary. It was so weird and so great to be back. We were all really excited to see how well the reps would end up selling in the area that Graham's guys couldn't sell in.

Chapter 8: Living out of Hotels. Yeah, you heard me right.

On July 1st, 2009, we packed up much of our stuff and left for Lloydminster, AB. Lloydminster is northeast of Calgary, and getting there involves a lot of backroads. Well, most of Alberta involves a lot of backroads, and probably most of Canada. I think there are more people in California than Canada. Anyway. We packed up everything we thought we'd need for the next two months, leaving a lot behind that we would come back for on our way home. We weren't worried about the apartment since it was basically the warehouse for equipment. A couple weeks before corporate had decided to shut down the downtown apartments for the Calgary office, since they wouldn't be returning. Remember that Graham said they'd be back after four days? They never did come back. All the reps didn't care, since they didn't have much stuff to begin with, but all the techs had to make trips back to get all their stuff out of the apartments before they were shut down. Ridiculous, no?

It was about a 5 hour drive from Calgary to Lloydminster. Rachel did pretty okay most of the way, but we had to stop a couple times to feed her and try to get her back to sleep. She was getting to the age where she didn't like being in her carseat unless she was asleep, and she was awake more now so that was a bit difficult for her. But we made it without incident. Richard did a job or two in Lloydminster that night, and I hung out with Marilyn and Carol in their hotel room. Oh and it was my birthday, by the way.

Walking into a hotel room-turned-apartment was bizarre. Marilyn and Danny have three kids, and they were in a 2 bed hotel room. There was stuff everywhere. Every drawer was packed, and there were food and dishes and toy boxes stacked to the ceiling. This is not how the summer was supposed to go at all. We found out that night that we'd be moving in the morning, so we didn't bother unpacking our stuff from the truck. We were moving on to the greener pastures of Cold Lake, AB, by way of Bonnyville. It was about a two hour drive, which to us at that point was nothing. We were starting to forget Graham and his stupidity in the wake of our moving and being reunited with old friends in the Grande Prairie-Lloydminster-Bonnyville office.

In the mess I kind of disregarded my birthday, since we had to be moving and there wasn't much to be done. But on one of our first nights in our new hotel, Richard and Danny showed up with a cake and two boxes of ice cream. I have the best husband in the world :D

The Bonnyville hotel was awesome. The staff was super nice, and they let us move into bigger rooms without charging us extra. (They also let us keep my birthday ice cream in their kitchen freezer so it wouldn't melt, and we came down periodically to get it for a late night snack.) Marilyn and Danny, as well as we and Carol, were put in rooms with one king size bed and a smaller room with two twin beds. It was perfect. Carol lived in our smaller room, and the Wilcken kids lived in their smaller room. It was really nice. We had tons more space and ended up shipping some of our stuff back to Utah. It's amazing what you can live without, and that was the biggest thing we learned that month.

The hotel served hot breakfast every morning, and we usually grabbed a couple slices of bread and some fruit for lunch. We were determined not to eat out every single night, and we did pretty well for a while. We learned how to make rice in a microwave, and Marilyn had brought her griddle so we were able to grill chicken and come up with a pretty good chicken 'n' rice meal. The boys were super impressed. There was a grocery store not two blocks away, so we were able to buy fresh food and try a lot of experiments. The first day we decided to cook was pretty gross. We had just gone shopping in Calgary the day before we moved to Lloydminster, so we had a ton of chicken and veggies and juice that we tried to bring in a cooler. The chicken of course leaked and ruined the juice and some of the veggies, but we ate the chicken :D We had also purchased a barbeque in Calgary for some cookouts we were planning with all the techs, and we brought that to Bonnyville. We barbequed at least once a week while we were there. Such. Good. Meat. It was awesome.

The hotel had a hot tub, and that kept the kids pretty entertained. Marilyn got a swimsuit for Rachel so she could try it out, and she seemed to like it. Like a really big bath :D She was only four months old, so I didn't let her soak in it too long. But it was fun. We spent most of our time playing games and watching TV (blech). Some days we went to the park, and the kids loved that. There was a pretty good park not too far from the hotel that we drove to a couple times.

Then we discovered the beach. It was about a half-hour drive to Cold Lake, and let me tell you, it's called that for a reason. All we did there was enjoy the sun, but the kids sure loved the water. We found a restaurant about 2 blocks away that we ate at a couple of times. They had really good food. Some days we were able to meet up with our husbands and eat with them. One day we went to the Cold Lake Mall. What a mall. It closed at 6 pm lol. There was a really nice store there called Ricki's, and I spent way too much money on clothes. Richard had told me once that if I got down to a size 4 he would let me spend $500 on new clothes. I wasn't quite there yet, but I spent over $100! Not bad, but I only bought 6 things! For someone who does most of her shopping at Walmart and DI that was unheard of! But it was a really fun day. After our shopping we ate at the Pizza Hut in the parking lot, enjoying ourselves until the boys got jobs and had to take off.

Living in a hotel loses its novelty after a while. We stopped trying to cook all the time, because washing dishes in a bathroom sink is the pits and microwaving everything just wasn't all it was cracked up to be. We were never opposed to pizza nights. And we got quite sick of our activities consisting entirely of watching TV all day.

Right about the time we were sick of our lives, excitement came in the form of the Winnipeg office. Graham's Winnipeg office. They had been kicked out of Manitoba and had migrated to Alberta. Which was fine, because the Calgary office had migrated to Manitoba. Makes sense, I guess. Anyway they had heard that Cold Lake was a good market, so here they were. Some of the reps had confrontations and it was all stupid, and once they had sold more in a day than we had they were satisfied and left. Which is stupid, because we had 9 reps and they had 25. Whatever. We were done with Cold Lake anyway.

We moved on to Slave Lake towards the end of July. Well, the rest of the office did. Richard stayed behind to take care of some unfinished jobs and tickets that had shown up. We came a day or two later. Which was once again ironic, because we arrived just as they decided to move on again. Turns out Slave Lake wasn't as green a pasture as everyone thought. They had a huge debate over where to go next, and decided to "hit up" Grande Prairie one more time, now that they'd been away for a month. Basically it was a glorified vacation weekend. We stayed in the townhouses they had rented for the office, which were pretty nice, and I think they sold 3 jobs while out there. We had another bbq and it was fabulous. Jake's birthday was coming up, so we decided to have yet another bbq in honor of him. It was really fun. They found a kiddie pool and all the kids had fun swimming while the adults had fun eating grilled pineapple and shishkebobs. All in all it was a nice relaxing weekend.

There was one exciting event in Grande Prairie. One of the techs had an old car that had broken down in Grande Prairie, so he'd bought a new one to move to Lloydminster. He decided it would be fun to trash that car (it was a Lexus...), so they took it out to the sand dunes to run it into stuff. Kids. Anyway one of our techs, Jordan, was driving when they went down a small hill and hit a rock. This caused the airbags to blow, hitting Jordan in the face since he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. He spent many long hours at the hospital that night. Getting medical treatment in Canada when you're American sucks. They charged him through the nose and wouldn't see him until all their other patients were taken care of. Anyway he lost his vision in one eye for a couple days and wore a huge bandage over it for a while. Eventually it came back, but his doctors now tell him he'll go blind in that eye soon. Moral of the story: WEAR YOUR SEATBELTS! Even when you're digging in a beat-up Lexus!

On Sunday everyone packed up the stuff they had left behind to move to Lloydminster and we headed back to Calgary! Somehow we'd managed to convince Gabe that Calgary was still a fresh market. I think he was out of ideas at that point, since Graham had stolen all the cities Gabe had planned to move to. So off we went, back to our own townhouse in Calgary, the home we'd left behind, and hopefully better sales!

Chapter 7: Reactions

The rest of the evening of Richard's firing is kind of a blur. After Richard got off the phone he went down to let Carol and Marilyn know what had happened, then came back upstairs to talk to me about it (I was putting Rachel to bed). He said he'd been on the phone with a couple people at corporate, and there were several options for him for the rest of the summer. We just kind of tipped the iceberg of what were we going to do next and hadn't gotten that far into the conversation when Marilyn came running up the stairs to tell us that Graham was yelling at Carol on the phone. We booked it downstairs to make sure everything was okay.

By the time we got there she had hung up, but she let us know he was just making sure she was okay since he fired Richard. I think he was confused and thought she was his wife or something, I don't know. Basically Graham likes to make sure he's still on everyone's good side about everything, so he just wanted to butter Carol up a little. She was pretty diplomatic about the situation and just wanted to hear from Graham what the problem was and why he had to fire Richard. He said something about having already offered Richard another position (ha) and that was about the end of that conversation.

At this point we were all pretty filled with adrenaline about the whole evening. I took it upon myself to start a text war with Graham. Oh I need to back up: Have I mentioned I never got paid for all the scheduling I did in May? Caleb told me that Graham would get me paid the same that Kristy was getting paid, which I assumed to be $1600 or so. He told me I needed to send Graham an email and he would make sure I get paid. I sent the email early in June and never saw a dime. Honestly, I didn't expect to. Graham may promise the world on a silver platter, but he never tells the platter makers that they need to get the platter made, and whoever he did talk to doesn't know who can fit the world on it. I knew he didn't know any details about what he needed to get me paid, but I still wanted the money.

Here is our text war:

me: Can you pay me for scheduling all through May like I was promised? $2050 American. I'm going to have a hard time feeding my baby if my husband is fired.

Graham: $2050!!!!!!????? Did u never switch plans? I was told your phone bill was high for first week. So I said to tyler we would help. But I thought u would be ok (Who is Tyler? He obviously doesn't know who I am)

me: No that's salary for office managers...do you even know who I am? I was Caleb's office manager for May since you guys never hired anyone else.

(He didn't say anything for 10 minutes so I thought now was a good
time to start yelling)

me: I don't understand how you can do what you do. Do you have no conscience? No heart? Do you not realize what you're doing to people's lives? You only care about yourself and you're just going to end up empty. Completely heartless and full of lies. I just can't believe you.

(Half an hour later)

Graham: Well why r they not paying u? R u american? Let's not be mean. Let's get u paid. Keep in mind I have 150 people. I'm sorry I forgot I will work on it for u. Is your husband cdn. Can I pay him?

me: I was not hired because Caleb didn't want techs wives scheduling. I only did it because no one else was available. It was a favor that Caleb promised to pay me for. My cell phone bill was $1603. And yes my husband is Canadian, his name is Richard maybe you've heard of him?

Graham: I think your husband is great. But the way he fought me today saying it was a bad idea. We ended up doing 34 most quit early. (Not true. We did 41 and they knocked until 10:30) Then he said no to doing vistas. So now my reps r angry (no they're not). Your husband is great
but stubborn. If he walks away positive he will still have a job. (He has 3, thanks though) He needs to listen to his managers. (Here's a big part of the problem - Graham is NOT his manager, he's his partner. But he treats Richard like a slave, and that's not how it's supposed to be.)

Graham: And again. R region finished first with 4 offices (that's not true either, his region isn't even in the top 5). Next closest has 8 offices. So I'm not happy I got so much attitude (ok I was pretty rude in the meeting, but he was being a jerk). But the future will be better. Your husband is a great hard worker. I actually really like him. Just did not see eye to eye.

me: I don't know if you realize this but I know more about what's going on than you do. I can see through all your lies so you can stop feeding them to me. I just want to know if you're going to follow through on the promise you made to pay me. My cell bill in May was $1603 and in June it was $950. You promised me salary and that would have been $2050. I'll watch for it to come in through Richard's account.

Graham: I never talked to u. How did I promise anything. Good night.

me: Proof right there.

This is a good example of how he always talks to people. Once he gets cornered he just shuts down and runs away, thinking he still has the upper hand. This is also a good example of how I talked to him at the late night meeting. Not the nicest you've ever heard me, eh?

Oh and don't worry, I apologized to him for this whole rant a few weeks later. I really probably shouldn't have ever opened my mouth, but as you can imagine I was a little ticked off.

We spent the rest of the evening getting some ice cream and candy bars at Walmart, then played games with the kids while Richard talked to several people on the phone about what had happened. As it turned out, his tech crew was pretty upset about the whole thing. No wonder, considering how great of a manager Richard had been thus far. They held a meeting where they discussed a boycot/walkout where they'd all strike until Graham was reasonable and some other similarly silly ideas. Richard encouraged them just to do their work and get through this hard time without him. He still helped them out whenever they called throughout the summer and followed up on what happened after the fact, but it kind of all went downhill from there.

Now the original plan was that the crew would be in Slave Lake for the weekend and then come back and tear up Calgary with their renewed vigor for sales. That being the plan, Jesse left his wife and son behind to keep running the office. They found out on Monday, however, that Graham never had any intention of going back to Calgary. Another strike for him: What was he thinking? All the techs only brought 3 changes of clothes because he said that's all they'd need! Danny had left his wife and three kids behind as well, taking their only means of transportation. And they had only brought 5 days worth of equipment anyway! Ridiculous. If he had laid out this plan a little better I think people would have been more anxious to participate in his ludicrous trek across the small country of Canada...oh wait, Canada's kind of big, isn't it? But I'll get to that later.

I actually quite enjoyed having my husband in a jobless position. He had been working 16 hours a day for the past two months, and now we had a few days to spend time together. It was really nice :D We went to a movie with Rachel, which was fun because I wasn't sure it was going to be possible. She actually slept through Transformers II. But she was only 4 months old...

Two weeks ago we signed up to feed the missionaries the last week of June, which was the coming Sunday. I had to go to the Superstore on Friday anyway, so we figured we'd be able to find something. We were also planning to make Tres Leches for them, but I got a weird feeling that I shouldn't buy the stuff for it yet, so I didn't. Funny story...we decided that weekend to go move in with Gabe's office. Gabe was our sales manager in Portland our first summer together, and it was such an awful experience because he made weekend trips to a city 2 hours south all through August. So awful! Such a long drive! We hated it! Well, Gabe's crew is now living out of hotels hitting up any city they can find in northern Alberta, and that situation was far more appealing than staying with Graham. Anyway we got to church that Sunday and they asked us to speak in a couple weeks. We ended up leaving in the middle of the week, so that wasn't really about to happen. The missionaries cancelled our dinner date, though, not us :D

So that brings us to about my birthday and the exact middle of the summer. I think that's where we'll pick up next time :D

R-E-S-P-E-C-T ... I told them what it means to ME

I'm sorry to digress once again from the Graham Saga. I felt a renewed urge to finish that earlier today, so the next chapter should be coming soon. I had an experience I really feel like writing about though, so here goes.

As you may know, I've been teaching German at Lehi High school since late August. It's been quite an experience, and I've really enjoyed it. Although I am a first year teacher and I'm quite laid back, my students are really learning the language. It makes me so happy to see their progress. They really are smart kids, and when they apply themselves they do so well.

Each of my classes has its own unique personality, and that makes teaching both challenging and interesting.

My first hour is very quiet and kind of awkward most of the time. There are only 8 students and on any given day at least 2 are missing, plus it's early in the morning so they're all asleep. My class is kind of dynamic, and their sleepiness makes it hard to be so. But we push through and they're doing great. They're kind of like my handicapped class...their teacher last year didn't teach them as well as he was supposed to, so we're trying to catch up from last year and push ahead with this year at the same time, and every day I'm reminded of things they should have learned but haven't yet.

My third hour is by far my best class. They're my first years, and I love them. They're doing so well. They get a little loud sometimes, and most of them are C average students who don't try very hard, but we have fun and they are learning German!

My fourth hour has always been my struggle. They are mostly sophomores, straight from the junior high where they took German 1 and 2. They are all friendly, and they're all friends with each other. This means that no matter where I put them, they will talk to their neighbors. I've given them a seating chart designed around partner work with the person nearest them, because they work really well in partners. There are three students who are actually in German 4, but they're not really at that level so they just work on the German 3 stuff I'm giving everyone else. This class is very noisy. I've worked hard all year getting them to understand my procedures and when I need them to quiet down so we can move on or transition to lecture, and they've gotten much better. I also struggle in this class for two other reasons. The biggest is that I'm not 100% up to snuff on my own German, and when I teach them something I don't know completely I kind of look silly. The second is related, and that is that I have an exchange student who obviously knows more German than me, and sometimes that causes conflict. Most of the time I look at the other side of the room when I'm teaching to pretend he's not there :D

Last week Rachel was sick with a high fever. I felt awful that I went to school on Tuesday with her in that state, so when she woke up still warm on Thursday I decided to stay home. I pulled together last minute plans for all my classes and got a sub very last minute, so it ended up being the school sub. Nothing wrong with that. She left me a nice note about each class, and for the first two it was the same. They were a good class, but some of the boys didn't do the assignment. I will now quote her note from my 4th hour:

"This was not a quiet class. Most of the students were quiet and did what they were assigned to do. However, there were some students that were noisy and loud, and didn't want to settle down when I spoke to them about the loud talking, laughing, and playing. One girl spoke up and said "Mrs. Graham, these students are showing you more respect than what they show their teacher." If this is true, I feel sorry for you. And then the girl said that the only time she was quiet was when she was asleep."

...

Ouch, right?

I was so mad. I got this note when I came in on Friday for our professional development day, and most of that day was wasted because I was so upset at my class. I had planned to spend the day getting ahead in all my classes and getting organized for the coming lessons, but instead I spent two hours being frustrated and planning my rebuttal to the class. I was annoyed when it was time for me to leave and I'd only gotten one class prepped for and none of my copies made or anything to show for my day except free pizza.

I spent the weekend formulating my coming diatribe. It went from very guilt-laden to very didactic to pretty reasonable and back again several times. What I ended up with was a speech that should have lasted about 5 minutes simply outlining what it was they had done wrong and the way I expect to be treated as their teacher.

I started out by quietly sitting on my desk. This is how I always start the day, and since I didn't say anything some students tried to quiet each other down so I could get class started. I appreciated that, and it made me feel like what I was about to do was probably a little unnecessary, but I had already made my decision.

I let the class know that I had worked incredibly hard to get to where I am as a teacher now, and that for that hard work I deserve to be respected. From the second they walk in the door they owe me respect, and they should give it for no other reason than that I'm an adult, older than them, and I'm in charge in my classroom. I let them know it was upsetting to get a note from a professional who they informed of their lack of respect for me, because now that person knows that I haven't earned the respect I deserve from my students. It was a lot better worded than that, but this was over a week ago so bear with me. Anyway, as some of you may know I have a problem confronting people. The problem of the leaky waterworks variety. It's annoying, but I think it helped get my point across. I ended by letting them know the class would be run very differently. We will be going back to Jr. High where you got your name written on the board for talking out of turn. In addition, there will be no fun activities in the future, and no partner work. No talking. And I won't be putting up with electronics or anything either, so don't even think about it.

I felt this lecture was really good for me as a teacher, and I feel it worked on a lot of levels. As I was talking I made it a point to look at every student in the class, not just the 5 or 6 I was specifically targetting with my remarks. As I looked it became clear that most of the class genuinely listened and cared about what I was saying. The few who knew I was talking to them were looking at the floor the entire time. I felt like I got my message across, and the non-problem students understood that it wasn't their fault.

The rest of the day was awesome. I gave them a worksheet and they worked on it silently for the entire class period. No one said a word. Every few minutes a student would come up and ask a question, and I felt like this exercise provided me with one-on-one opportunities I hadn't had time for before. I felt like everyone understood the concept beautifully that day. It was marvelous.

Since that day I've been more of my laid-back self in class, but I'm still not putting up with anything I don't feel I deserve. I haven't had to ask anyone to leave class, and I haven't had to take any cell phones. Thursday was another marvelous day. I gave everyone a writing assignment, and instead of all shouting out words they wanted me to look up for them, which is what usually happens, they all pulled out dictionaries and I didn't hear a word.

Anyway, just a little insert about my day of teaching. It would have been more dramatic sounding if I'd finished it the day I started when all the emotions were roiling, but you know how life goes.

And now back to The Graham Saga.

An Anniversary to Remember

Sorry, we have to take an even longer break from the Graham Saga to introduce the best story you'll ever hear.

Yesterday was our 3-year Anniversary. Yay us! We've been trading years, so this year was Richard's. He had all these crazy plans that he wouldn't tell me so it would be a surprise. He eventually gave me a rough outline, and I was so excited. All I knew was Wednesday was going to be a super busy day. Not only did I have work and Richard had school, but it was the only day possible for family pictures and we only had an hour to do it in. I had to leave school early to get home by 3 so we could start at that time, and Richard had to go get Rachel early. Then Richard had German Choir at 5, so it was a mad dash. Then I had to get ready for dinner in like half an hour so we could be gone by 6:30 to enjoy dinner and get to a movie and home before 1 am. So that was the plan. Now here's what happened:

2:15 - My school got out. I had exactly 10 minutes to pack everything up and leave so I could get home by 3. Richard should have Rachel and be home by now, but I have no idea where he is. He called me while I was driving and let me know that he was able to find a dress for me after all (that's another story, but he got me a pretty dress for an Anniversary gift and had many complications therewith) but that he was going to be late coming home because of it. I figured that would be fine, and it would have to be.

2:45 - I got ahold of my dad to let him know Richard and I would both be home around 3.

2:55 - I was in Springville on Main Street, just as planned. Main Street in Springville is kind of a mess. The area has grown a lot in the past few years, and most of the people in Mapleton and Springville work in Provo. Just avoid Main during rush hour, basically. Plus they've been working on the road for the busiest on-ramp, so it's even worse. The speed limit is 30 in town, but you usually have to drive slower because of all the cars and there's always a hold up in the right lane for some reason. As I approached 4th South I entered one such hold up. I was on the phone with Richard at the time, so I didn't mind the slow/stopped traffic, so I didn't bother changing lanes or anything, I just stopped as traffic forced me to. A minute or so after I came to a stop I was rear-ended. Ouch! The last time that happened I don't remember getting hurt at all, but this time man! I had a headache for about an hour afterwards. I didn't expect it to hurt like that.

My Accident: 3rd South and Main in Springville. Some punk kid with gauges in his ears hit the back of my car because he "didn't see me slam on my brakes". Pretty sure I was stopped, so whatever. Once I finally got back on the road after insurance exchanges and everything I called my dad, who was pretty annoyed that it was 3:15 and no Jill and no Richard for pictures. Once he found out about my accident he was okay with life, and I hurried home.

3:30 - I arrive home to find the entire house in an uproar. I don't think we've had family pictures since I was 12 except for weddings, so this was a huge deal and everyone was freaking out. Except Beau, he was just watching TV. Richard showed up soon after, and we then heard from Trevor who "didn't know about family pictures but was on his way". So we were coming close to having less than an hour of pictures.

3:45 - Commence pictures. We went up the canyon where there was snow, and it was pretty cold. But it was fun, and they went super fast. I think we got done just before 4:30, giving Richard just enough time to go to choir.

4:30 - Back home, Richard tells me I'm not allowed to go in the room because he has to get my present set up before leaving. He came back upstairs 20 minutes later and announced he was skipping choir to get the car vacuumed out for our hot date, and that once he leaves I could go downstairs and get ready. I was all bubbly :D

5:00 - I went into our room to put Rachel down for a nap (didn't happen. We have since dispensed with the early evening nap.) to find a GORGEOUS purple dress and shrug on the bed. So pretty!! I'll have to take pictures sometime when I have an occasion to wear it again. I fell in love. It's so pretty. And my husband found it all by himself and it was the perfect size and the perfect fit and everything. So wonderful! I have the best husband :D

5-6:00 - Rachel hung out with Grandma while I got ready. My hair and makeup have always haunted me, but somehow they agreed with me and I ended up looking pretty darn good in my brand new pretty dress. I was also able to lower Rachel's crib (she can sit herself up now) and give my mom some last minute babysitting instructions all before 6. I was pretty impressed with myself. I was expecting Richard back any minute, so I hung out upstairs waiting for him.

6:15 - I started wandering around the house, trying to find productive things to do, while wondering where Richard was. He said he'd only be 30 minutes and it's been 45, so I'm worried of course. All these bad thoughts about accidents and my poor husband with roses smashed on the side of the road somewhere. I'm just waiting for the phone call saying he's been in an accident when I realize my phone is downstairs so I'd miss that call. I'd better go grab it.

6:25 - I find my phone and notice I've missed a call from Richard. I call him back and our conversation ensues thus:

Richard: Guess what!
Jill: What?
Richard: I got in an accident! (he's using an excited voice so I can pretty much tell he's joking but decide to play along)
Jill: Really?
Richard: Ya.
Jill: Really? (I'm starting to actually believe him)
Richard: Ya. I hit a cow.
Jill: You hit a cow?
Richard: Ya.
...
Jill: Richard are you serious?
Richard: Yeah the car's completely smashed.

Great. Not only does that make 2 accidents in the same day, the day of our freaking Anniversary, but I'm pretty sure that one isn't going to be covered by the cow's insurance. Oh well, we'll figure it out.

6:30 - I went upstairs to discuss bedtime and tell the cow story and wait for Richard. When he got home he told my parents that the cow actually was covered by the farmer's insurance and we wouldn't have to pay to fix our poor smashed car! The whole time he's picking glass chunks out of his hair, btw.

7 - Somehow we managed to get everything under control at least for the night and leave for dinner by 7, only half an hour behind our original schedule. So I guess things are going okay, but I'm worried about my baby and her bedtime. Oh well, we'll get to that later.

7:30 - Arrive at The Chef's Table. Best restaurant in Utah, no contest. The food was fantastic, the waiters superb, the drinks never got less than half full. It was marvelous. And I ate duck! It was pretty good.

8:45 - As we were leaving the restaurant we walked past a table occupied by another couple that arrived the same time we did. The wife was in the bathroom (she was pregnant) but the husband stopped Richard and said "Wait, I know you. What's your name?" Turns out his family fed Richard on his mission about once a month for 9 months. What are the odds? We got to chatting and found out they were also celebrating their Anniversary. Weird...but weirder is it was their 3rd Anniversary!! Crazy, huh?

9 - We decided to go to a movie at the mall in our spiffed-up outfits, so we headed in that direction. When we got there I thought the parking lot looked sparse, even for a Wednesday night, but didn't think too much of it. We walked up to the box office to find little papers covering every single movie that said "Cancelled" on them. What? I guess they had a fire in the theater so they had to cancel all the shows. Ha ha ha! We ended up at the other mall's theater and saw 2012 there. I hated it, Richard liked it, whatever.

12:30 - We arrive home to find my mom downstairs about to check on our small one who had whimpered a moment before. She had already gone back to sleep like a good girl, but we chatted for a minute and found out she hadn't gone to sleep until 9:30!! Crazy kids kept her up half the night! Haha!

That was pretty much the end of our crazy day. We went to bed laughing about the triple fail of our Anniversary date, and relating it to our fail of a Honeymoon 3 years before. But we woke up today to the reality of insurance claims and an un-drivable Corolla (the cow broke the driver's side window) and that's always an adventure.

Don't worry, I will someday finish the Graham Saga. Unfortunately this little write-up took way too long and now I'll be up too late finishing my powerpoint for tomorrow, so it might not be finished until around Christmas.

Chapter 6: Slave Lake and the Final Straw

Wednesday morning. I woke up later than expected and people showed up later than expected to get their equipment. Around 11 everyone was finally ready to go, including Danny's van packed to the brim with all the equipment they'd need for the next three days. Jason and Amanda finally decided they'd go, but they had no money, so Carol ran to an ATM with Richard's credit card to get them some cash. We sat around discussing the plan and trying to be in a slightly better mood about the whole thing for a while, and then everyone left.

Richard already had appointments for the entire day, so he got right to work on those. Meanwhile Trevor and Tony, the two techs who got to the meeting late, were planning on knocking doors in Calgary. If they got any sales they'd install their own, or switch it up. I thought it was brilliant :D The other Richard was unable to go because his girlfriend is in and out of the hospital every few days, so we kept him busy with the two unfinished/scheduled jobs for the day.

It was interesting to experience Slave Lake from a distance. Carol didn't go, so she, Marilyn and I worked on scheduling and taking care of the kids just in Calgary. Richard spent the day at all his appointments and came over to Marilyn's late that night to talk about things. He decided he'd leave Thursday afternoon to get up there and help everyone catch up with all the jobs that were coming in. It's a crazy phenomenon that reps seem to sell better when they're in a new place, even one as ghetto as Slave Lake. They did over 20 that first day, and the rest of the weekend hit 30's and 40's. The techs were super busy and were for the most part pretty happy because they had so much work. It really made up for all the slow weeks in Calgary.

That first night the reps made an effort to hang out with the techs when they got home. They all shared a fire and were talking with each other. Graham, by the way, was camping in a huge trailer. What a great role model of male bonding, eh?

Graham found out that Richard had not yet arrived. He was kind of ticked. He called Richard and basically told him to head home to Utah if he wasn't going to be a part of the team. Richard explained to him that he was taking care of loose ends in Calgary and that he'd be up on Thursday evening. He explained that if he didn't stay behind to fix all the leftovers that Graham's team left, Graham would end up losing more money than he'd be making. Graham didn't buy it, and told Richard he was through. Richard told him he doesn't really have authority over Richard, and Graham told Richard he'd call Mikey to see about that. Um, ok. So he called Mikey and Mikey told Richard not to worry about it. This would be firing #2.

One thing that needs to be said early on: Richard and Caleb worked out some details about this Slave Lake trip. They decided it would be best for everyone if the reps didn't sell any Vistas up there. Vista equipment takes twice as much room as the other systems, and they ALWAYS have problems. Since the reps were only going to be in Slave Lake for a few days, it would be wise to not leave problems behind that require a 5 hour road trip to fix. Caleb agreed. No Vistas. The techs didn't bring any Vista equipment.

Fraser, one of the assistant managers, sold a vista the next day. I guess he didn't get the memo. Or it was a special circumstance or something. Anyway Richard figured if it was just this once it would be okay, and since he hadn't left yet he could bring some Vista equipment with him on his way up that night.

The next day, Thursday, was quite comical. Richard actually planned to leave pretty early in the day. He had a couple appointments to hit up in the morning, needed to stop and get some equipment, and then he'd be off. Calgary's finest had different ideas.

In Canada your registration and insurance isn't stickers on your license plate, it's stickers on your window. And I guess the cops are HUGE sticklers about making sure it's all up-to-date. The other Richard was sitting in the parking lot of Canadian tire waiting for something to do. He leaves his house at 8 am every day to keep from being a bum, but I guess on this day he hadn't had anything to do yet. Anyway the cops saw his van and noticed from his insurance stickers that his insurance had expired the day before. So they towed his van. ? Anyway so Richard's plans changed and he spent several hours helping other Richard with his car situation. It was quite ridiculous.

When he got back from that adventure he found out the corporate inspector was in town! How funny. The company sends around a couple techs who go to each office and inspect two jobs for each tech to ensure quality. Last year in Dallas one of Richard's techs got fired by the corporate inspector for doing such a poor job on an install. They usually come out without telling anyone in the office that they're there, just so the techs don't step it up just for that one week. That way the inspector gets an accurate showing of the kind of work the tech does for the most part. Then, when he's completed his rounds, he calls the lead tech and lets him know he'll be at the meeting the next day to go over what he saw. This is why it's so funny...there would be no meeting the next day. So Andrew, the corporate inspector, came over to our house to shoot the breeze and talk about the inspections for a couple hours, then decided he'd drive up to Edmonton to do some more inspections up there, since he didn't need to stay for our daily meeting in the morning. Richard explained the whole situation to him, and he didn't exactly approve, but he's high enough up in the corporate ladder that he kind of agrees with whatever the reps do to get the job done so the company will keep functioning. Which I understand, but I wish he'd been a little more on our side on the issue.

Anyway by now it's pretty late. Richard got an emergency call from a couple customers who needed immediate help with their systems, and he still hadn't gotten that equipment he needed. He headed out around 5 to take care of those last-minute errands. The girls and I were making rolls and watching kids, waiting to hear from Richard. I wasn't sure what he wanted me to pack for him. It was getting dark, so it must have been around 10 when Richard came in. I heard him park and heard him talking on the phone. He came inside and ran upstairs. He was on the phone with Fraser, one of the assistant managers. As he walked into our room he said to Fraser while looking me in the eye, "Well Fraser, I'm sorry but you're not getting your Vista. Graham just fired me for the third time."