"Keep a Journal: How else are you going to get a good look at who you were?"

Saturday, January 25, 2003

Today, we write of the End of an Era...
Yesterday, January 24, 2003 marks the final day of operations at DC504 in Richmond...

WEEEEEEEEE'RE OUTTA THERE!!!

Had a very nice party over at 507, with a gigantic Team Building Exercise, and a Parade! If my wife knew how much fun I had yesterday, she'd probably shoot me...

Ah well, she doesn't have to know.

Arpac is still installing the racking at 507, which brings back some real memories...nine years ago, Arpac was still installing the racking in Zone 72 when I started at 504. Randy, Yogi, Myself and very few others remember how 504 was originally configured. The building has been through 3 or 4 major re-configurations since then. We've also been through 3 changes of leadership in the first few years. Tony retold the story of when he first met Sarah Lepore, in our Zellers office. She asked him point blank; "How long are YOU here for?". To her, (and many of us) Tony seemed at first like some drone that Hudson's Bay Corporate office in Toronto parachuted in to take the reins whilst some REAL management could be hired (I have NOTHING good to say about Tony's predecessor, Dan Riordan...except good riddance!). Nope...Tony was in for the long haul, and now, several YEARS later, we all got to stand in His Vision, and BOY is she a beauty! The Central Stock dept. has a Tuesday to Saturday shift...so I get an extra day off...hooray. Things are looking a little choatic around 507 right now. Just as they were the first few months at 504...wayyyy back when.

Coral went in for her Surgery...and although the operation didn't go COMPLETELY well, she is making a normal recovery and should only miss a week of school or so. Her breathing sounds a lot better (quieter), even though the tissues are still swelled from post-op trauma. She's pretty miserable, despite getting all the popsicles, iced juice, ice cream, etc. that any kid could possibly WANT. I'm a little jealous, I think...

Kwy stopped by to see how I was doing...which was nice of him...I need to give the new 'ad gimmick' a try in promoting my new biz...soon, real soon.

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

SICK Sick sick sick sick...illness, unwell-ness, the slow death...

Ah well, 'tis the season, I suppose.

I was off Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week with Bronchitis. Laurie got real worried about Coral's apnea and took her to the ER at Children's Hospital...during the peak of the pediatric flu season. SO: Coral came home contagious, L caught it, then Colin. Coral ran the course on Sunday, Colin on Monday, and today was my turn. So I took ANOTHER day off work sick...sigh. I hope it's the last one. I have eaten a couple of biscuits and a sandwich...and two glasses of iced orange juice. Water, LOTS of water! So far, it all seems to be travelling in the correct direction. In order to take one of the sick days last week OFF my record, I volunteered to work a dayshift at 507, the new building. What a blast! Felt good to be back in the saddle again. I have a few observations that will be brought to management attention, as soon as they all come back from the summit meeting in Toronto.

There is some concern at 504 whether or not we can wrap everything up in time for the expiry date on our lease. Some aspects are moving along nicely, the transferral of CS items from the floor at 504 to the new (used!) racking at 507 proceeds apace. We are still not ready to ramp up the sorting conveyors, as they are still being installed and tweaked. There is SO MUCH that still needs to be completed at 507. We'll all be moved in by Jan31, but it may be Mar01 before everything is even close to completed. Our 3rd party contract with R/R we are fufilling using the Brute Force Method: 504 has become an annex to 507, dedicated (for the moment) to handling R/R product. First thing out was...patio furniture; like we haven't seen THAT before! Did a good job with it - handled their product better than we handle our OWN.

We are definitely living in "interesting times". The news and politics pages I read are becoming more alarmist by the day. Makes you feel like striking off for the horizon to discover a New World...oh wait, we ran out of those...
I will write more later...as the mood strikes me...