“It’s like I have this large black hole in my brain and it’s sucking the life out of me. The answers are in there so I sit for hours and stare. No matter how hard and long I look, I only see darkness.” ― Katie McGarry
Lynda wanted to invite Gord and Margret Scot over on one of the Sundays for supper but she was a little hesitant that we don’t have a big house to show off. I told her that they don’t care as they know that we are just starting out and one day we will have everything you want. They came and brought flowers for Lynda. We knew that Margret was an excellent cook but they enjoyed Lynda’s cooking incalculably and they were so gracious.
Once in a month, I used to take my senior staff out for a nice supper just to recognize and appreciate how hard they were working and helping me to accomplish the targets that I had setup for each month. One month we went to a Chinese restaurant and when I got back around 8.00PM, I started having stomach pains. Right away Lynda told me that its Chinese food and you are not used to it. Just take a couple of Tums, you will be alright. I followed the “medical advice” and unfortunately, it started getting worse. It was killing me. The pain started shifting to my lower right abdomen. Plus, I got nauseated and started vomiting. She got scared and didn’t know what to do. So she decided to call Estelle to go to a drug store and get something for me. Poor Estelle ran around and found a drug store in the middle of the night and the pharmacist recommended something which she bought and brought it to me. Regrettably, it didn’t help at all. Finally, Lynda decided to call an ambulance.
Subsequently, I found out that it was the appendix and came very close to bursting which could have caused severe complications. I was operated right away and I was made to stay in the hospital for a few days. In the meanwhile, there was a serious problem at the office and Gord wanted to bring some technical people to talk to me to trouble shoot but Lynda told Gord not in so many words that she will not appreciate that.
Lynda used to come to see me at the hospital everyday with the kids by taking more than one bus. The sad thing was that our car was parked right on our driveway, she knew how to drive but she didn’t have a driving licence yet.
As soon as I went back to work I found out that Beaver Lumber Company had two Datacentres, the one where I used to work and the other somewhere else probably in Montreal. What they had done was they built a brand new building across from Fairview Mall in Toronto which was at least 30 miles, if not more, from the existing Datacentre. They have planned to consolidate both Datacentres in the interest of efficiency and productivity which is understandable from a business point of view but what I didn’t comprehend that why I was kept in dark about this initiative. The honest answer from Gord was that we just bought a house in Bramalea and it may upset Lynda to think about moving again. At the same time he realized that it was not feasible for me to drive all that distance day time and go back to driving again to do trouble shooting in the middle of the night. It was a messy situation and Lynda was upset.
The other change that I had to face was that I wasn’t going to continue to report to Gord. His office was going to be located on a different floor and I was supposed to report to a guy called George. I didn’t have any problem with that as George sounded reasonably intelligent to work with. In due course, I found out about George’s management style and I wasn’t too impressed. The good thing was that Gord was always in my office and he was dealing directly with me even though I was reporting to George. Simply because George had no clue about the system I was working on.
I suggested to Lynda that let me give it a try for a little while without exploring the possibility of finding another job. She was smart to realize that I was making pretty good money and that kind of jobs don’t come that easy to find. Furthermore, there has to be some additional compensation considerations for me as I am becoming responsible for additional staff working on two different computer systems.
