Friday, January 12, 2007

When it rains, it pours..

Where to begin? This has been one of the worst weeks I've had in a while. Lets start the list of things that went wrong in chronological order.

  1. I realized I lost my membership card to pricesmart then inadvertently voided my visa card.
  2. My mechanic calls me and tells me he has given up hope in finding replacement rims for my two damaged rims for my car. This has been the only thing that has been keeping my car from me these many weeks. So I went and picked out a set of new rims $$$ which the insurance company will only partially subsidize.(They are only paying for like 1 rim)
  3. I realize my freezer is only partially working, the front 3/4 is at 0C and the back quarter at -20C while the compressor is at 80C and been running non-stop** all week, running up my electricity bill, whilst the meat in my freezer still thaws out. I figure that the sands of time has run out on that fridge and its time to buy a new one.
  4. My boss casually* tells me that I need to be on a plane to the northern state of New Hampshire before the end of the month to perform an evaluation of a new system being offered by one of our vendors... My us visa is expired.
  5. I rushed to get the visa application forms filled out, ask my friend where is a paymaster and she sends me to Superplus Liguanea. There is no paymaster there so I ask the staff where is the nearest paymaster they point me to hi-lo Liguanea.
  6. While walking over to hi-lo I noticed that the sole of my boots has started to tear off.
  7. At hi-lo there is no paymaster either I asked the staff at hi-lo and they point me to Sovereign Center, I proceed to walk there in my 1/2 dead boots only to find they don't take credit card nor debit card for US visa applications. I asked them to point me to the nearest ABM which wasn't far then came back, paid and had to walk all the way back to my car which was parked at superplus.
  8. I came home to enter the paymaster the receipt into the embassy's site and make my appointment, the only to find the the only date available to me is 1 day after I am supposed to leave. I accept it and send an email to the embassy requesting an emergency appointment they email me back the next day stating they don't give out emergency interviews so early and I should continuously check the website for earlier dates... wtf I check the site and find the next available date is now 2 weeks after my departure date.
  9. One of my friends told me she was pregnant, I ignored that statement and she said nothing more on the matter. She called me again today(a few days later) and she said it was just a joke. Ladies, this is not a joke to any man who isn't actively trying to get you pregnant.
  10. I received a fax from my union earlier this week stating that I was getting a 35% raise on my basic pay backdated to April of last year. Later I checked my HR records online and realized after crunching the numbers that the raise is only 12% and also conflicts with another raise I got back in April.. with my luck my pay stub will not reflect the new raise in pay due to this conflict.
  11. I had a meeting with my boss reviewing my performance over the past 6 months and I lost a bit of points due to things beyond my control. His explanation was that one person in the dept. can't get a high score and everybody else scores low. That is understandable but this lower score hurts my yearly bonus.
  12. I found out that the camera I ordered online earlier in the week is now almost hopelessly lost in shipment via USPS at some post office in Florida... I called their main IVR and it says it has no records of that tracking number and after arguing the IVR for over 20minutes I got to speak to a real person!! who said that the package was at a local post office in Florida and gave me a number to call them directly. Of course they had no clue about the package.
  13. A girl stalker just called me on my house phone as I was typing this post and said she has been trying to reach me all holidays.. its a good thing I don't answer my phone much. This girl has had a crush on me since the first year of UWI and always tries to talk to me whenever she builds up the courage. She somehow managed to squeeze my number out of me before I left UWI. She also somehow managed to squeeze my new number out of my parents after I moved out of their house too and left them strict instructions not to give out my home phone number.. She just now seems to be making renewed effort into starting something with me.. what am I to do? I've already told her a few years back its not going to work and I don't want to be mean to anybody.
So as not to dwell on the bad I shall also list a few of the positive things for this week in no particular order.
  1. There is a chance the raise goes through properly and I get almost a year of retroactive pay+benefits.. if not I have to sort it out with HR and wait till next month.
  2. I notice my boss and his boss goes on all the business trips but this time my skills have been noticed and I've been selected to go even though the US embassy may throw a wrench in this project. Hey, its the thought that counts.. unless they put it as one of my objectives then I am screwed.
  3. I spoke to someone at my company who made a few calls and gave me a one last chance procedure to get an immediate interview at the US embassy. I am still doubtful of this as what I have been told directly clashes with the consulate's instructions which they have bolded on their site. Failing this I will be stuck in Jamaica for this trip. I still have faith as they came from somebody with clout.
  4. I had quite a bit of apple martinis tonight while typing this as my fridge is on the fray and some of the ingredients are perishable. So as to not be wasteful I will be using up as much as possible without killing myself. On the flip side I've had quite a bit of meat(my breakfast this morning was all meat) as I had a freezer full of meat that I also don't want to spoil.
  5. While searching for my lost USPS parcel online tonight I found a way to make free calls to select business' in the states. I also suspect I've located the post office the parcel is at currently. I just have to wait till Monday before I give them a call to see if I can get it re-dispatched.
Only 5 good things to list? meh

* my boss always throw things like this on me.. he has called me at 11:30pm to ask me a question only for me to go in the next day to see an email from him stating he is now in another country??! The other guy and myself normally have a good laugh when we find out these important details by accident or many days later as we are always left in the dark.

**Coincidentally JPS bill just arrived via email 39minutes ago and it has an actual reading up to yesterday. As suspected the consumption for this period is significantly higher due to the fridge. At least its not as bad as the 2005 Decembers bill where they doubled my bill for no good reason. That month stuck out like a porn star in a convent, I was hardly at home then and didn't have any Christmas decorations up.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Boss..don't want to shorten your positive list but re #5..Monday is a holiday.

Didi Roby said...

Because I love to read, I'm about it give this post a run for it's money...lol

Unknown said...

Man, you had some serious case of misfortunes, lol. Things can only get better from now on.

I would never use USPS for things like a camera. I used them for suppliments and I thought they got lost, as I couln't track my package and there was no confirmation that it was delivered to my overseas courier's address. UPS is much safer and faster, and they have good tracking.

Dis is one long post!

Anonymous said...

So does it feel good to vent on all of that? That could be number 6 on your positives - I've vented and am getting sympathy from random people who don't even really know me!

Anonymous said...

Look at the bright side. At least you have positives.

And ditch the stalker pronto before it gets ugly!

Scratchie said...

We are both in the same boat where the fridge is concerned. My light has shown significant increase since we discovered that busted door gasket. Repair man says that it is more than just the gasket...bodywork required so spend $25000 on a 10 year old fridge or buy a new one? The new one looking more and more attractive as the leaks grow bigger and the bottom of the fridge gets hotter. :(

Anonymous said...

Did you get through with the visa?

Adrian said...

@gela: Nope, that visa thing has been an ongoing thorn in my foot.. i've stopped worrying about it and accepted my fate, which is me sitting out this trip.

I went to the embassy on Monday as instructed by my company, closed, Martin Luther King day. I went back today, gave the standpipe man them(I not sure how they will split it 6 ways)$100 for parking only to come out 5mins later after the embassy staff explained to me my company led me on a poppy show.

@scratchie: My fridge is about 10 years old too, I borrowed it from my sister coz her place comes with a fridge already. I called a fridge repair place to come look at it last weekend but they were a no-show. I have good mind to tell them dont bother come and just buy a new one when I think of it. I have always had my eyes on stainless steel fridges [drools]

..

I forgot to list this item, I'm not sure where it would fall (bad/good) but my bed was broken too ;-) I got it repaired over the weekend though heh.