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."

Chapter 5: Graham's Proposition

Graham enters.

"Hey guys, how you doing? My name is Graham, it's good to finally meet all you guys. What's your name?"

"Danny. And this is my wife..."

"It's great you guys could make it." He moves to the front of the room after meeting one tech.

"Well guys, sorry I'm so late. I've been meeting with the reps for the past hour getting ready for what we're doing tomorrow. And darn, I got you guys some pizza but I guess the reps ate it all. So I guess I owe you guys dinner." Um, why would you tell us that?

We've been playing hangman on the whiteboard while waiting for the meeting to start. He walked to the whiteboard and asked if we needed what was written on there. We assumed he meant the hangman game and not all of Caleb's numbers and appointments and passwords and information that was also written on there, so we said no. He erased the entire board, while Caleb flinched as all his important info was wiped away. He then asked Caleb to draw a map of Alberta and named some cities for him to point out.

Meanwhile, he launched into his sob story.

As it turns out, our office hasn't been doing very well. Somewhat true. We were promised 30 days and we've been having 18 days at best, so yeah we're not doing the greatest, but things have been picking up lately so we're happy. I mean, it's a Tuesday and we did 15. That's our best Tuesday in a month! But apparently Graham is not as happy as we are. Graham is concerned that he is losing his best reps in our office due to depression. He sent one home just today who he met earlier in the lobby sobbing because she was so depressed because of this job. And you know why they're depressed? There's no feeling of unity in the office. The reps don't feel like they're friends with the techs and vice-versa, which can create tension and cause things to fall apart, so it's probably good that he's worried about this as an issue in the office.

But wait! Why isn't there rep-tech unity? Let's back up.

Caleb and Richard planned to have a rep-tech bbq right at the beginning of the summer. It was going to be paid for by the company and it was going to be a blast. It was going to be on a Sunday so everyone could come. And that's about all the details I can provide you with. We didn't know until that Sunday the location of the bbq, and then we found out it was at a campsite 2 hours away. It was supposed to start around 2, but that's when all the reps left. We found out later that all they brought was beer, so it wasn't much of a bbq anyway. We obviously decided not to go due to the lack of planning and had our own tech party like we'd been doing every Sunday thus far.

There was another opportunity for mingling when Caleb called a special meeting for all the reps and all the techs to work out any differences as far as work is concerned. They showed up for the meeting and were told to wait in the hall while Caleb met with the reps. Then all the reps came out in the hall and the techs went in the office so Caleb could meet with them. So...no joint meeting. ?

Caleb also promised for the entire first month that he'd come over for a tech meeting so he could get to know everyone and he never quite made it out.

Basically, if there was a lack of team unity it was because the reps failed at mingling with the techs. Which usually happens, so no big deal. Besides, there wasn't really a problem with team unity. The techs were doing their job for the reps, and the reps were getting work for the techs, and that's all that needs to happen. No problems on either side. So back to Graham.

Graham proposed a solution to the lack of unity in the office. He said that another of his offices was having similar problems and our office needed to do the same thing they did.

"So what we need to do and what worked in the Winnipeg office is I want to take you guys camping. We'll go for a weekend camping trip and just have a great bonding experience. Every night around the campfire we'll just let loose and get to know each other and I know that after this weekend the morale in this office will just sky rocket. And what we need to do is hit up the northern cities where no one's been. Everyone up there wants a security system and there's not a company up there. So if we take this weekend and go camping up north it will boost our numbers and we'll all feel better about life."

He added some details using the map on the board about the northern cities that are just gold mines. Meanwhile we're all thinking...Camping?

Wait, seriously? He wants to have the sales crew camp? He wants to have the technicians sleep on the ground after working 14 hour days? This is like a really sick joke or something.

We then spent the next two hours discussing this idea with Graham. Someone would ask a question and he would make a ridiculous promise. Examples:

Q: So, when would this be happening?
A: We're leaving at 9 am tomorrow so we can get up there in time to hit the doors by about 4 pm.

Q: And you're providing the tents and stuff?
A: Actually I was just at Walmart today and they have these two man tents for $20 and then you guys can use them later.

Q: How far of a drive is it to where we're going?
A: It's about 3 1/2 hours (it's really 7)

Q: Will our gas be paid for?
A: Yep I'll pay for everyone's gas (he later amended this by saying he'd pay for anyone who got to the gas station at the same time he did and then later didn't pay for anyone's)

Q: What about my wife?
A: Your wives and kids are all welcome to come, I'd just worry about them being cold.

Q: What about sleeping bags? Those aren't very cheap...
A: What you can do is just bring the blankets you have here (Graham, have you ever been camping?)

Q: When is this bonding supposed to take place?
A: Right when all the techs get home.
Q: So at 2 am?
A: Well what time do you usually get home? Not 2.
Q: I usually get home between 12 and 1:30...

Q: What about equipment? You guys can only sell as much as we bring equipment for...
A: If we need equipment, I'll go get it. You guys won't have to worry about that.

Q: We've been getting a lot of crap from the reps about techs being more than 20 minutes to a job. Are you promising that no one will get upset if you keep us backed up?
A: Oh absolutely not. I'm happy when the techs are backed up, that means there are tons of sales. No problem there.
Q: Plus if we get backed up that means the next day will be completely full of schedule-outs. Is everyone going to be understanding about that?
A: Oh absolutely.

Q: Can you promise this will be the absolutely last time this ever happens all summer?
A: Well, no. What if you guys love it and want to do it again?

Q: What about the paperwork for the office? (the office manager took a week off because of a miscarriage so she was way behind).
A: I've already talked to Joe, he's going to take care of all your paperwork for you. Just send it to him. (Um, yeah right)

Q: How long are we going to be up there?
A: Just three days, then we'll come back to Calgary and we'll rock it here.

Q: What if we don't want to come, or if we can't?
A: If you can't come we've got about 10 jobs lined up for you here (no, just 2) so you'll be taken care of. And if you don't want to come that's your decision.

All through these questions all the techs had kind of funny looks on their faces. Basically what everyone was feeling was that they had no choice. If they didn't want to go they wouldn't have any work here. Everything he brought up I negated publicly, so he really wasn't happy I was there :D At one point he got very frustrated with my opposition and said "Ok fine. Let's not do this. I give this office 2 weeks before it shuts down." That made everyone realize this really was the only choice for them to make money.

When you sign up for this job you do it with the understanding that you'll be residing in an apartment, the SAME apartment, for 4 months. You'll be working in and around the same city the entire time. Things like this do not usually happen, and it was quite a proposition to be given at midnight the night before all the changes are to take place. We sat around discussing it for another hour or two. Everyone wanted my input because I seemed very opposed to the idea. Richard went out in the hall to discuss things with Caleb and Graham.

A couple techs came in late because they had late jobs. When they entered we all told them we were going camping, and they were immediately excited. Who doesn't love camping? But as we explained a little bit further they started going "...huh." Those two ended up being the two who did not go the next day.

As we discussed it, Marilyn came up with a solution to most everyone's problems. See, we hadn't been getting very much work, so all the techs were kind of poor. She decided to propose to Graham that if he would give everyone $100 for gas then everyone would be excited to go. When she brought this idea up to Graham his response was to look at his watch and say "Well I guess I better get going..." He totally ignored her and didn't answer the question at all.

At some point the guy who works next door came out of his office to complain about the noise level. He brought up the concern that there were children that should be in bed and that it's after midnight. Graham asked if he lived there. The man responded quite curtly "No. I'm working." and Graham retorted with "So are we." and just stared the guy down until he slammed his door. It was 1:30 am.

We continued to discuss the idea and try to decide if we were going to boycott or actually go or what was going on. Eventually it was decided that everyone would meet at our place at 9 to load up with equipment and that Richard would be up later that night after he took care of some tickets and last-minute things in Calgary. Richard would be getting a hotel for anyone who didn't want to camp.

So...I was not excited because I would not be going. Marilyn would also not be going, and I was planning to sleep at her place so we both wouldn't be lonely. But I guess we'd wait and see what tomorrow would bring. Who knows, maybe this would be a good thing...

Chapter 4: Moving...

Canadian entropy started with a stupid idea.

Graham had four offices. Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg. They were all doing okay for the first month, except Vancouver. They were doing okay for the first week and then sucked. So Graham decided the best thing to do would be to move the office.

Wait, what? Really? You think that's the best solution?

There's a city between Vancouver and Calgary called Kelowna. It's a resort town right next to a huge lake, and Graham felt they could do pretty well there. The biggest problem with deciding to move an office in the middle of the summer is that the company pays out the entire summer contract in housing, so if they leave they've already paid for the apartments back in Vancouver that no one's living in. Graham doesn't really care. He had an agreement with Tyler, the manager out there, and corporate that they would sell a certain number of accounts in Kelowna before they'd be able to try moving again. I forget the number. Also they had to have pretty cheap housing out there. No biggie. Especially if this is the only office in the company this is going to happen.

Burt was the lead tech out there, and he wasn't to pleased with the idea, but it wasn't that big of a deal for him because he just had himself. It was bad for his office because a lot of his techs were local guys. This meant that a lot of them ended up with equipment and tools that never got turned in, not to mention being out of a job all of a sudden. They had to move like, tomorrow, so there were a lot of installs that didn't get put in and it was just a mess. Burt got charged for all the missing equipment as well, which was dumb.

So they were off to Kelowna. Not too shabby I suppose. What do I care, it doesn't affect me at all, right?

The second step to Canadian entropy was Burt going on vacation.

Burt was probably the only person who could talk any sense into Graham at the beginning of the summer. I don't know if Graham planned out the entire fiasco beforehand or if he just decided to stop caring about everyone after a few weeks, but either way he respected Burt for a few weeks at least.

Burt planned a trip with his buddy Matt across Europe for about two weeks. He can't really leave his office for two weeks without a lead tech, so he paid my brother an exorbitant amount of money to run things for him. We were all pretty shocked at how much he was going to pay Jay to babysit for two weeks. Well, all of us except Richard who knew the full story...the VancouverimeanKelowna office was moving again! and Jay was going to be the one to do it.

Graham had decided to move the Kelowna office, but not to where they originally planned. There's a city two hours north of Kelowna called Kamloops that's pretty big, and that was the plan for the office. But then Graham heard that Gabe, his arch-nemesis (who knows why) was planning to go to a city called Prince George. Gabe was residing in Grande Prairie at the time, which is about 5 hours east of Prince George. Let me back up a bit. The summer started with Gabe in Fort Mac, which is an oil rig city full of people with money who all want security systems. He's taken his crew up there for a few years and they always do really well. Graham found out about it, so he sent his entire crew up there at the same time Gabe was there and they destroyed the city in less than a month. Gabe was planning to be there for 2 months then Grande Prairie for the rest of the summer, but instead had to go to Grande Prairie at the beginning of May and was planning to finish the summer in Prince George. Graham found out he was planning to go there and got there first, the little stinker.

So Jay had to move Burt's office up to Prince George, which is about 8 hours north of Kelowna. They didn't have apartments up there, they were staying in dorms. ? I don't know. But the dorms were really small. Jay had to find a storage unit for all the equipment, and there were a couple techs who decided they weren't going up because they had families that wouldn't fit in a dorm room the size of a closet. Makes sense to me, but who knows.

Now when Burt left on vacation he didn't just leave responsibility behind...he gave Richard his phone and Richard took all his important calls from corporate and Graham and all that. So when Tyler heard that Miguel, Burt's best tech, wasn't planning to come up to Prince George, he gave Richard a call on Burt's phone to figure out what was going on. Richard explained to Tyler Miguel's situation and made a few suggestions of how to get him up there. He said since Miguel is the best tech he should be provided with a hotel instead of a dorm room, and that the money they'd pay to house him in a hotel would be made up through the work he would do. Otherwise Miguel can spend the rest of the summer working for someone else who will actually take care of him. Made sense to Tyler, but he didn't like the idea. So then Graham called Richard to figure it out. I think he started out the conversation politely enough, but when it became clear that he was not going to get his way on the issue he told Richard to pack his bags and head back to Utah unless he can get all the techs up to Prince George.

....?

Richard's not even in charge of that office, for crying out loud. Anyway Richard said something like "wait, you're going to throw your entire tech crew in Calgary down the drain just because one tech won't drive 8 hours to live in a dorm room?" and I think Miguel stayed in Kelowna doing service tickets for a few days before driving up to Prince George.

K let's count, Richard's been fired once by Graham.

Well, time goes on and Graham is still not seeing the numbers he wanted for his region this year. What can he do to boost his numbers? I mean, obviously his offices aren't doing well in the biggest cities in Canada. I guess the answer is to send them all to the smallest cities in Canada instead. Hey, that's a great idea! Someone tell Graham!

Someone must have told him, and the Calgary office was his next movable target.

Here's how I found out what was going on. I was at home, making rolls with Marilyn and Carol and probably playing American Idol on the ps2 while several small children ran around. My phone started playing Styx, signalling a call from my sweetheart, and I excitedly answered.

"Hi Love!"
"....I wanna go home."

Uh oh...

Richard went on to explain that Graham and Caleb had decided to turn the Calgary office into a moving office. For the rest of the summer the office would be moving to a new city every two weeks. I guess Calgary just got too knocked out too quickly, which is weird considering they'd only knocked in two parts of the city. But then again I'm not a sales manager and I'm definitely not Graham, so I must be missing some vital information on the subject. Richard told me there was going to be a meeting at 11 that night with all the reps and techs to discuss the new plan, and Richard wanted all the wives and children to be present to give Graham a good idea of how many people he'd be affecting with this stupid decision. The hardest part for me was going back inside and explaining to Marilyn and Carol what was going on without telling them anything. It proved harder than I thought since Marilyn immediately assumed there was a problem with immigration and her husband was going to get deported. So I probably should have just told her what was going on in the first place. Live and learn, right?

I spent the next hour or so texting all the married techs to make sure they brought their wives and kids to the meeting, and around 10:30 we all drove down to the office to get ready for the meeting. I was already in a bad mood, and all the kids were a few hours past their bedtimes. Richard looked like a family member had died the whole time we were there. We got there just before 10 and found out they had pushed it back to 11:35 to give the reps time to get there. Then they pushed it back to midnight, and we heard that the reps weren't actually coming, we were just meeting with Graham and Caleb. Yipee.

It was the worst meeting I think anyone had ever been to. I sure had fun, but that doesn't mean things turned out the way I wanted them to...