Wonderful.

My return to my blog is not without updates. First of all, I finished my first year of theatre arts in April. After that, I pretty much just lazed around and did a whole helluva lot of nothing until I started working for my dad on May 2nd.

Working with my dad was definitely unsuitable for me. Yes, the hours were fixed and the location was close to home. Yes, the money was better than anything else that I have ever had before. BUT, the work itself definitely didn't suit me. You might think that I'm being fickle when I say that the people that I was working with weren't a good influence on me. They swore, smoked, had thick Canadian accents, and weren't educated. So, I stalled. I worked for two weeks, then I started making excuses why I couldn't go to work. True, I can pretty much say "Yeah, I'm going away for a few days" two days before I go and that'd be fine 'cause it's a family business...But I knew I had to get out.

Anyway, last Monday was the...Uh...Today is the twenty-sixth, so...Twenty-fifth, twenty-fourth, twenty-third...Seven days before that was the sixteenth. Oh hey, there's a calendar on my wall. . .So! I went for a job interview last Monday for a job with "Alberta Education Learner Assessment," which is the new name for Alberta Learning. My interview was through a company called Executrade, which is a company that hires and regulates human resources for larger businesses like this one. My interview went pretty great, and afterward I took a test on a computer that evaluated my "data entry" skills. It was just a bunch of random names and addresses that I had to enter in a time limit. She let me do that on my own after the interview and then she said that when I was done I could leave. So, I checked my score on the syllabus before I submitted it and it was like: Intermediate. There were four levels, and I was second from the top - which is...Intermediately good, I suppose. . .Anyway.

The lady who did my job interview said she'd get in touch with me as soon as she could, and lo-and-behold, she called me on Tuesday and asked if I wanted to start on Wednesday morning. I snapped up the opportunity, and away to work I went.

Let's talk about my job now. Wait. Am I boring you? My job isn't that exciting, so describing it might be boring for you. Yeah, maybe I won't describe it in as much detail as I was planning on doing. Well, summing it up: I work in a warehouse with a bunch of retired teachers and a few other students. We unpack boxes of diploma exams, bundle them into bundles of twenty-five using elastics, then they scan each diploma exam into the computer. Yes, they have thousands. Huge tables consisting of open space, and a computer station are set up for this purpose of holding stacks of these diploma exams. Anyway, they have lists of schools that this stuff needs to be sent to. Like twenty-eight pages of schools that all want diploma exams. Go figure. So once they're scanned, each person starts making up the orders for each school. One person scans and makes up the orders for one subject for all schools. It's sorta complicated, because you have to set up the order with one less than needed, because you need to include a teachers copy. Yes, this process takes hours upon hours upon HOURS. Days. Yes. Once that's all said and done, you place each bundle (that you had to label with the corresponding school number) into a bin on a conveyer belt that is by the table. Each table does this with the corresponding bin number. At the end of the conveyer belt, there are three people at computers who monitor this list and do something else which I don't know. There's one lady who takes each bin and organizes the entire contents of the bin (so each subject is in the bin for that school) and she hands it off to a guy who puts it through a machine which shrink wraps it into nice little packages. There is a guy on the other side of the machine who takes the packages and hands them off to another guy who puts them into boxes which two other guys organize, make labels for, and categorize in an open space against a wall as to what boxes belong to what jurisdiction. Note: A jurisdiction is a thing that has a whole bunch of schools in it.

Hey, here's where my job starts! That's right. I have a corresponding list with all the names of each school that we're shipping to, their school numbers, and the jurisdiction that they're a part of. What I do is, well, a few things. My supervisor indicates which any special instructions or varied shipping methods or companies on my list before hand, to make things easier for me. I walk around and examine the labels on the boxes, checking the jurisdiction number first, then the school number on the label with the place on my list. I check to see how many boxes I am supposed to have for each school, and if they are all there. I then write the number of boxes beside each school. When I have all the boxes I need for the jurisdiction, I print off twelve pages of packing slip information, adjust it (because the computer doesn't have the correct numbers), add it to a box called the jurisdiction box (which goes with the shipment) and add the jurisdiction box to the rest of the boxes for that jurisdiction. THEN, I have to get it ready for shipping. We use mainly one company for most of our stuff, and I have to put a sticker on each box to indicate that the material is sensitive and secure. Then we put the boxes on a dolley and wheel them to a scale that weighs the boxes. Then we type up a shipping tag for that company, tag each box, then place the boxes on a pallet that gets shrink wrapped and stored until picked up. Sometimes I have to send boxes through other companies which is a little different, but that's what I do for each of the 9000 jurisdictions. Yep. That's my job. I really do like it because it keeps me busy all day.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Also I am moving into Edmonton on June 12 with Aniceto and Phill my fronds. Aniceto and Phill are already pretty much moved into the shantee, and I will be last to arrive.

And that is my blog update. I will update it more specifically as time goes on. This blog update was brought to you by Leah, that girl who actually reads my blog...Sweet Leah.

The End.