Banff
As I went in to work on Wednesday, I glanced innocuously at the new schedule. I did a slight double-take, however, when I realized that my name was curiously absent from it. Naturally somewhat surprised by this, I quickly called down to the supervisor who confirmed that it was a mistake due to the creation of a training schedule, and a new one would be posted. As a benefit to the little shock, fortunately, I got friday and saturday off work. Well I don't know for sure, but I figured that since the schedule was up for a day and a half already, they wanted to make sure people saw the updated one. So to take up some of the free time I decided I would take my first trip down to Banff, since I had some errands to do anyways. Drew was off on the Saturday, so we decided to go together.
Things have mostly settled down around here. The giant wave of new people has ended and work is becoming more and more routine. So relatively minor things become more noteworthy as a result. Owen, after waiting a couple weeks, finally received his Xbox 360. Since he had Friday off he and I goofed around on that for a good amount of the day. It's been a long time since I played a video game, I realized. Still fun though.
The trip to Banff is, like most trips, quite scenic. About 45 minutes on the bus, we left at 10:45 and arrived on the main tourist strip in the town.
Banff is a very pretty town. Granted it more or less has to be since it's raison d'etre is tourism. It walks that delicate line that so many tourist towns do of quaint, rustic charm and familiar big-city amenities. The sort of place that probably has a population (as far as people actually living there) of 5000 but has two Subways. And every single store had a help wanted sign in the window. It must be sickeningly easy to get a job in Alberta- it seems that everyone is hiring. In fact I know so- I saw a news clip that was saying that Alberta's dropout rate is over 25%. I don't know how that compares to other provinces but it seems really high. They cited easy money on the oil sands as the main reason . Makes sense, I guess. Until the bubble bursts at least.
We didn't really do a whole lot in town. Walked past the Banff Springs (SO much nicer to look at than the Chateau) did some shopping and hopped on the 3:00 bus back. The rest of the day was pretty lazy.
On sunday, naturally the first thing I did was call home to wish my mom a happy mothers day, since I'm such a good son. I was working at 2, and until then I got to watch Return of the King on one of the movie channels (so great having these things. So much time can be wasted.) However things started going downhill from there. First of all, I had to get my float for my shift, but had a inordinate amount of difficulty getting the bloody safebox open. Once I finally did, the shift was quite busy- I was going to take a break around 6:30, but then Lauren left and there were only two of us working and a lot of prep to do, so I decided to delay it until we were more caught up. Bad idea.
First of all, on top of the prep, Katie, who I was working with, got called down by In-room dining (which shares a department with us) for about two hours because they were swamped. And I had customers the whole time so I couldn't really do any prep. Then I realized something- I was scheduled to end my shift at 10 or 10:30 (if I took a break) and I was the only one with a float. In other words, I couldn't leave until the 11 o'clock shift got there with his float, and cashing out takes about half an hour. So I ended up working for 9 1/2 hours straight... and then waking up at 6 to come into work again this morning for 7.
But something I have come to notice is that if I get 6 or 7 hours of sleep, I tend to be more "awake" than if I get more than 8. And not just because I usually go drinking before the times I can sleep over 8 hours. I'm not sure why that is, but it's fairly consistent. So I wasn't nodding off on the job or anything. But it is rather annoying that they messed up the schedule like they did, whether I get overtime or not (I do, but that's beside the point.)
One thing that Andrew (one of the leaders) asked me about was whether I wanted to be sort of.... the "night shift person"- in other words, working most of the night shifts so that everyone else doesn't have to screw up their sleep patterns all the time to work them. I'm considering it. It would be nice to have a set shift every time, and can probably get myself to adjust to it- both the time and the job. There are a couple things against it though. First is that I haven't done one by myself yet, so I don't know really what a typical shift would be like, except that it would be a lot more routine than any other. Second is that it's not exactly great for one's social life. I know I didn't come out here for a social life but it's nice to have one. Graeme recommended against it, but Arnt works the exact same shift constantly and he rather likes it. If I can dictate my days off as two of the three popular bar nights, I might consider is more seriously. Sound off on the comment board if you have an opinion.
I'm still working on getting my pictures online. They will be worth the wait though (or will they!? (yeah I think they will)).
Stay Frosty
Trevor
Things have mostly settled down around here. The giant wave of new people has ended and work is becoming more and more routine. So relatively minor things become more noteworthy as a result. Owen, after waiting a couple weeks, finally received his Xbox 360. Since he had Friday off he and I goofed around on that for a good amount of the day. It's been a long time since I played a video game, I realized. Still fun though.
The trip to Banff is, like most trips, quite scenic. About 45 minutes on the bus, we left at 10:45 and arrived on the main tourist strip in the town.
Banff is a very pretty town. Granted it more or less has to be since it's raison d'etre is tourism. It walks that delicate line that so many tourist towns do of quaint, rustic charm and familiar big-city amenities. The sort of place that probably has a population (as far as people actually living there) of 5000 but has two Subways. And every single store had a help wanted sign in the window. It must be sickeningly easy to get a job in Alberta- it seems that everyone is hiring. In fact I know so- I saw a news clip that was saying that Alberta's dropout rate is over 25%. I don't know how that compares to other provinces but it seems really high. They cited easy money on the oil sands as the main reason . Makes sense, I guess. Until the bubble bursts at least.
We didn't really do a whole lot in town. Walked past the Banff Springs (SO much nicer to look at than the Chateau) did some shopping and hopped on the 3:00 bus back. The rest of the day was pretty lazy.
On sunday, naturally the first thing I did was call home to wish my mom a happy mothers day, since I'm such a good son. I was working at 2, and until then I got to watch Return of the King on one of the movie channels (so great having these things. So much time can be wasted.) However things started going downhill from there. First of all, I had to get my float for my shift, but had a inordinate amount of difficulty getting the bloody safebox open. Once I finally did, the shift was quite busy- I was going to take a break around 6:30, but then Lauren left and there were only two of us working and a lot of prep to do, so I decided to delay it until we were more caught up. Bad idea.
First of all, on top of the prep, Katie, who I was working with, got called down by In-room dining (which shares a department with us) for about two hours because they were swamped. And I had customers the whole time so I couldn't really do any prep. Then I realized something- I was scheduled to end my shift at 10 or 10:30 (if I took a break) and I was the only one with a float. In other words, I couldn't leave until the 11 o'clock shift got there with his float, and cashing out takes about half an hour. So I ended up working for 9 1/2 hours straight... and then waking up at 6 to come into work again this morning for 7.
But something I have come to notice is that if I get 6 or 7 hours of sleep, I tend to be more "awake" than if I get more than 8. And not just because I usually go drinking before the times I can sleep over 8 hours. I'm not sure why that is, but it's fairly consistent. So I wasn't nodding off on the job or anything. But it is rather annoying that they messed up the schedule like they did, whether I get overtime or not (I do, but that's beside the point.)
One thing that Andrew (one of the leaders) asked me about was whether I wanted to be sort of.... the "night shift person"- in other words, working most of the night shifts so that everyone else doesn't have to screw up their sleep patterns all the time to work them. I'm considering it. It would be nice to have a set shift every time, and can probably get myself to adjust to it- both the time and the job. There are a couple things against it though. First is that I haven't done one by myself yet, so I don't know really what a typical shift would be like, except that it would be a lot more routine than any other. Second is that it's not exactly great for one's social life. I know I didn't come out here for a social life but it's nice to have one. Graeme recommended against it, but Arnt works the exact same shift constantly and he rather likes it. If I can dictate my days off as two of the three popular bar nights, I might consider is more seriously. Sound off on the comment board if you have an opinion.
I'm still working on getting my pictures online. They will be worth the wait though (or will they!? (yeah I think they will)).
Stay Frosty
Trevor
posted by Sibtiger | 3:23 PM
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