Canadians NOT Against The Temporary Foreign Worker Program

Fair is fair? Sure it is... if you also believe a job is a job. Fairness is dependent upon one's expectations. Such an axiom is about as useful as decrying, "It's all good," or some equally equivocating moot utterance that sounds cool but means nothing.

Yesterday my attention was drawn to a Facebook Page entitled, "Canadians Against the Temporary Foreign Worker Program," and the insight it provides into the prevailing attitudes of those affected is, as you might expect from Canadians, incredibly diverse. Now, I hate to see any good person lose a job through no fault of their own, but I hate it equally when people blame the messenger for their own misfortunes.

About a decade ago, I was at the West Edmonton Mall with a couple of chums, and I distinctly recall one of my cohorts' retort to my objection over his offhanded remark concerning the predominance of Asian workers behind the counter of his beloved grease-slinging mega-giant, McDonalds.

"Yeah... as long as THEY stay at McDonalds."

Yeah bro... of course they're entirely content with wage slavery. Of course they're inferior to a company warehouse worker like you who's bright enough to fulfill the complex demands of a computer subroutine... part of an inventory program written by some idiot MIT graduate. A program that your employer trained you to use over the course of one whole week, right? You're actually expected to... enter data and not fuck-up! Wow. Just imagine... before long you'll be the one training other people to use the software... software that has netted it's designer more money than you could hope to earn working forty-thousand hours as a shop-hand. Aren't you the man on the fast escalator to the glass ceiling?

I mean hey, for all these foreigners, isn't just mastering the art of dropping baskets full of chips into deep fryers more than enough? Some poor Korean immigrant could never outpace you in the labour pool... after all, you've mastered the English language to a solid grade nine level, and ain't nobody gonna step on your $14 / 16 / 18 / 22 / 27 / x  per hour.

Despite my good pal's ignorant and unfounded mistrust of ethnic otherness - his  narrow mindedness... or what would be interpreted by many as outright racism, a mere twelve years later, his offhanded comment proved to be a resonant snapshot foreshadowing bigger changes to come.

Of course, my having already read through Angus Ried's "Shakedown", I was thoroughly convinced that seeing foreigners holding all the crappy jobs in my country was merely a precept to a rapidly shifting movement toward a global economic outsourcing that would be sweeping-up North American jobs faster than a Croatian in the Athabasca region. A litmus test of tolerance, and a move toward conditioning we born-and-bred, multi-generational Canadians to become accustomed to interacting with people from other cultures as we go about our daily, consumerist lives.

"So long as they stay at McDonalds" becomes "Glad someone's willing to work as the janitor" becomes "Hey! What the hell are they doing working skilled trades in the oil patch?"

Sounds like someone wasn't paying attention in Social Studies class, eh?

In this day and age, people who successfully alter the status-quo aren't gathering en-masse for a rally on the steps of the legislature building. The real agents of radical change aren't using Bristol board and Sharpie markers to make their point. Not at all. Rather, they employ lobbyists, law firms, and private security forces. They act subversively through social media... not obtusely on a Facebook page.





  

NAAI - What does it take to "get into" the pipe trades?

Question: What measurable results might one expect to attain ten months after an initiative calling for the following administrative positions?

1.  Apprenticeship Program Coordinator
2.  (2X) Program Operators
3.  (2X) Apprenticeship Support Coaches
4.  Administrative Assistant / Bookkeeper

Answer: A desperate sounding 4X4 classfied ad in the regional newspaper.

Really I don't know the whole story here, but can you not admit it appears as though someone is grasping at straws prior to a major deadline? I looked-up the Northern Alberta Apprenticeship Initiative (NAAI) on Google, and all I could find, apart from a Provincial Government website entry, was a Facebook page entry dated from April of last year. I get the impression that there's a hell of a lot more "programming" going-on than coordinating!

The wording of the classified ad itself is sadly amateurish with it's paragraph-long introductory sentence. Was it written by the bookkeeper? The operator? The coordinator? Maybe one of the coaches? At any rate, it really doesn't reflect well on the overall functionality of this initiative. I wonder if I could find some work writing copy around these parts. 

A brief stint in the oil patch was enough for me to realize from my general observances that the road to becoming a journeyman of whatevertrade is no walk in the park. While you might think it's all downhill after the red seal, the work doesn't get any easier, you're not getting younger, and your performance expectations and responsibilities will generally get tougher.

Imagining myself as an applicant to this program, I might just be thinking, "Fuck this trades shit, I'd rather get into a career path that demands little to no work for a respectable salary.  Why would anyone want to crouch under pipes for hours at a time, scraping at metal, risking their neck, and getting screamed at every time their boss screws-up? All that headache, when they could be inside an air conditioned office surfing the internet all day under the esteemed title of Program Coordinator for a cool $40K - $90K / year?"

Whatever. I have no idea what the pay scale looks like for bureaucratic flunkies running shit like this, but I do know what contractors in the oil and gas industry are primarily looking for in their prospective employees:

• "How would you feel about working weekends?"

• "Do you have a problem working ten hour shifts six days in a row?"

• "Can you pass a drug test?"

• "Are all your safety tickets up to date?"

• "Can you repeatedly lift a hundred pounds over your head?"

• "Do you have a criminal record?"

See? Complimentary, solid advice for "getting-into" the trades. If you have any doubts about being able to meet the above requirements, there's little point to sitting through day after day of "ground school" to learn how to identify obvious hazards, choose the right pair of work boots, and be told not to ogle the only three females on your job site. Unless of course you're being paid to be in class... then it's easy money to simply appear as if you're not sleeping, and who's going to fail an open-book test?

In other words, these are jobs requiring a considerable constitution, dedication, and a committment to succeed... and even then, you shouldn't be surprised to show-up at work one day, only to find your position has  been summarily handed to a fast-tracked temporary foreign worker!

If you're deadly serious about achieving gainful employment as a recognized tradesman or tradeswoman, you've got to show-up and show interest. Don't go against your own grain. If you're clumsy like an absent-minded professor, find technical work uninteresting, or you're just one of those lazy-sort of slacker-types like myself, it's doubtful you'll get any kind of satisfaction in the skilled labour sector. But if you're mechanically inclined and enjoy getting down to the nuts and bolts, the wages are generally well above average. If you think you've got the mustard to git 'er done, get on that phone and don't make yourself scarce!


       

Twice Divorced. Recently Bought A Plaid Jacket

So let me guess, you're one of two-thousand people over the age of forty from eastern Canada who's currently residing in my home town to chase after the big wages offered by area oil-patch conglomerates during a temporary, but acute labour shortage. A shortage that's currently being addressed by fast-tracking foreigners willing to do exactly the same things you do, but for half the money. Day after day, you trudge through cold muck, schlep greasy equipment around, drool over the pinup girl in the filthy lunch room, complain that $1000 / month is too much for a room in a bungalow, and wonder if your back will hold-up long enough to rake your way out of the consumer debt trap you volunteered for back when you were young, dumb, and full of cum. Twice divorced, your $32 / hour barely covers the alimony payments toward the seven children you never see, and whatever you don't spend on rent goes into pints of beer and casino gaming sessions?

Upon making a new acquaintance, the introductory conversation at the pub will generally unfold somewhat as follows:

Plaid Jacket

So, what do you do?

Me

You might as well ask what don't I do.

Plaid Jacket

Oh... so you're a jack of all trades then?

Me

Nope. I'm an unsolicited freelance writer with zero prospects.

Plaid Jacket

How do you live?

Me

Quite well, thanks. Yourself?

Plaid Jacket

I'm a ticketed journeyman ___________ working for _________ right now. Where do you live?

Me

Here in town.

Plaid Jacket

How much rent do you pay?

Me

I don't rent.

Plaid Jacket

Oh... you're from here then?

Is Alison Redford's blatantly opulent expenditure hiding something bigger?

The gloves are off and the pitchforks are out, but if I were a member of the official opposition in Alberta's legislature, I'd be wondering what the left hand of the PC Party is up to.

Not sure about you, esteemed reader, but I have a great deal of difficulty accepting that Alison Redford didn't fully anticipate the inevitable backlash that would be generated once her opulent travel tab was eventually scrutinized by the light of the media.

I suspect distraction politics. I hope I'm wrong, but I think Albertan's are in for a wake-up call that will make all the hubbub surrounding this $45,000 our Premier refuses to pay back diminish faster than a young and single rig worker's paycheck during his off-days in Edmonton.

Is Stephen Harper driving the middle class to ruination?

@moremoreenough I'm going to stop this back and forth if u can't use respectable applicable language, no one is going to the toilet
— Cindy3 (@Cindy3Gage) February 10, 2014

Fair enough, Cindy, but I'm going to step back and write this blog now.

I understand your frustration. I share your sense of nostalgia for a kinder era in which a man could start out in the mail room or a shop floor, and support a family of five while working his way up to a corner office to collect a six-figure salary in exchange for little more than showing-up to rubber stamp a couple of important documents and attend a couple of meetings a week. Those days are long gone in the face of global competition. Miniaturization and micro chips have revolutionized the way we catalogue information and communicate. Logistics and international trade have turned certain products - things we might have once considered to be luxuries - into easily affordable and subsequently "disposable" goods. Clever minds develop computer scripts that make entire departments obsolete. The toothpaste has been squeezing out of the tube since 1996, and yet, some people insist on blaming Stephen Harper for worldwide economic trending:

@moremoreenough @Can_ada ruining our middle class, strengthening his elitist corporate buddies, ruining our environment, outsourcing jobs
— Cindy3 (@Cindy3Gage) February 10, 2014

It's time you wiped away the cobwebs, Luddite. Would you prefer if our nation's leader were to spurn corporate interests? The information revolution is upon us, and I'm sure that driving the middle class to ruination is the furthest thing from Mr. Harper's mind. If I'm not mistaken, doesn't Stephen Harper himself comes from a somewhat middle-class background? Some people seem to think that our Prime Minister is the gatekeeper of some unseen, otherworldly void - that he can simply wave his hand and conjure money to elevate every disenfranchised victim of progress from out of their monotonous rut.

@moremoreenough @BeautifulRed7 I was thinking more of family or friends vouching for mentally ill/ homeless people who want to vote.
— Jim Watson (@CaptainSuburb) February 10, 2014

A shiny new bathroom for every transsexual, and a woman in every coal mine. A vote for every homeless, mentally unstable ex-con rapist, and anyone clad in a burka - with or without picture ID! A vote for anyone else who's contributed nothing, but has been in the country for at least five minutes leading-up to the polls! Isn't a piece of mail and a library card too much to ask for?

 These decidedly anti-Harper caterwaulers fail to realize that any economic interference can ultimately be reduced to one thing only: robbing Peter to pay Paul. They neglect to understand how imposing obstructionist regulations on business will eventually cause entrepreneurs and capital investors to question why they should bother taking on all the risk and liability in the first place - investing so much of their own time and energy just to see some union boss handing it over to the "cart-before-the-horse" party, otherwise known as the NDP.

Anyway, I awoke this morning thinking about how sometimes perennially poor, self-centered people in desperate situations will often drag one another down even further into the dregs. I came up with the following:

The last week of the month rolls around, and you've been on shaky ground with your benevolent landlady for some time now already, but she has most graciously agreed to extended a payment deadline in light of your new job. She reminds you that this shall be her last act of compassion before she has no choice but serve you with an eviction notice. 

That night, as you prepare your lunch for work the following day, before going to bed, you hear a knock at the door. It's your old drinking buddy and he's holding a suitcase. 

"Bro! So good to see you! Bad news man, my roommates kicked me out and I've got nowhere to stay tonight. Any chance I can crash here?" 

Of course, you invite him to make himself at home, and tell him to feel free to help himself to the ample leftovers in the fridge. After relating your own precarious circumstance, you then excuse yourself to get a good night's rest for your early morning shift. Not only are you on your last legs with your landlady, but your supervisor has emphatically reminded you that your skating on thin ice due to your lack of punctuality. 

The next morning you're running a bit late, but you'll easily make the cross-town bus if you hurry. Still groggy, you clumsily knock your change jar onto the floor as you attempt to fish out the last three bucks to your name for bus fare. Empty. The sound of the shattering glass as it hits the floor stirs your old pal from his slumber. It's then that you notice an empty pizza box on the floor in front of the sofa, and spy a half-eaten slice of deluxe topping thin crust sitting atop the end table - just sitting there oozing grease on the freshly wiped surface, without so much as one of the several napkins included with the order under it. It looks like those napkins were used to soak-up the cola that was very recently spilled on your only heirloom, the Afghan rug under the coffee table!

"Oh yeah... sorry Bro. I needed a tip for the pizza guy," your old pal croaks to you through lips stained with tomato sauce. 

"Hope you don't mind bro. Hey, if you let me stay another few days, I can pay you back when I get my retroactive housing subsidy payment! I'm pretty sure it'll be in this week... you know those greedy bastards at the low-income housing office really know how to make a guy sweat! You going to work or something?"

Am I well suited to a career in careerism?

If your employment history is anything like my own – a spotty, disjointed mess of inconsistency and abstractness – it’s highly unlikely you’ll find yourself in any sort of enviable position when it comes to job prospects. So what should one do?

While I’d love to serve-up a platter of novel ideas, or a comprehensive approach in point-form about how to go get ‘em, it’d be nothing more than seamless, ridiculous conjecture. Plus, I’m saving it for tomorrow’s posting. In all likelihood, if you’re over thirty, and you don’t already have some semblance of a loosely fleshed-out career plan, there’s a strong chance that you’re not particularly well suited for any sort of conventional career path in the modern business world anyway.

When I think back to my own foray into the corporate world at the tender young age of thirty-two, the first thing that comes to mind is affirmative action. Prior to working for a sizable utility provider in an administrative setting, the bulk of my employment history involved toiling away in blue-collar surroundings where the attitudes were relaxed and the humour was as dark as a fully redacted CBC invoice obtained through a freedom of information request.

The second most memorable recollection, is wondering how long I might endure an environment dominated by humourless feminists (both male and female) on high-alert for the slightest breach of political correctness. A bunch of miserable broads (and “gents”), sitting in front of computers with their ears cocked, just waiting for me to say something… anything that might even remotely remind them of some personality quirk exhibited by any one of the men (gay men) in their histories of failed relationships. I shudder just to think of the strained, sordid courtships and co-habitation period their significant others were forced to endure!

It was hardly all bad. There were potluck lunches, a nice coffee station within seven steps of my partition, and an appreciable amount of eye candy in the form of pantsuits. It paid about the same as any entry-level stock-person-type job on the market, and it paid-out weekly. If memory serves, I made around $500 / week for investigating loose-ends, finalizing accounts, and scrutinizing the complaints department. For such a paltry sum, I’d rather move data in a quiet comfortable office all day, than boxes in a dusty, dangerous, and noisy warehouse!

  

New Look

Just finished designing a new logo for this blog using Corel Draw - pretty sharp huh? I added some Platonic wisdom to the banner as inspiration for my political ambitions. It's not that I consider myself superior to the folks currently in power at any particular level of government, but that it's important to remind oneself of the perils of inattention to who's doing what. Complacency is the tyrants best friend.

I scanned in a couple of prints using the new HP Laserjet Pro 200 printer / copier, and thought I'd share them. The first one was originally shot at a venue called Broken City in Calgary using a Nikon FE on 35mm B&W film. I performed a bit of augmentation to it using Corel Photo Paint - the flaring of the trumpet's bell and the addition of colours. Both photos were scanned at a density of 600 dpi, and boy oh boy was it fast compared with other scanners I've used.

Twitter has been a riot lately. I've managed to attract a plethora of fascinating personalities, and I can think of no other venue in which one might interact instantaneously with anyone from a rocket scientist to an adult film star to a senior politician within the span of five minutes!

Anyway, I'm beat. My sleep schedule is completely out of whack so I'm going to cut this short to go and relax in front of the television and watch Parenthood on the DVR with Mom. It's funny I like the series as much as I do given I've never been a parent!

@moremoreenough  

Chronic Computer Use

Today my Mother accused me of having an addiction to the computer. That's rich coming from someone who watches an average of eleven hours of cable television a day.

What I have is not an addiction to the computer, but rather an obsession with current affairs. My time spent at the PC doesn't always involve the internet either. For example, I'm using it right now to write this piece. I also use it to create politically charged memes, produce multi-track audio recordings, and even to analyze data sets. I wouldn't consider myself a computer expert, but I do possess the skill-set to perform some intermediate level spreadsheet operations, design web pages using HTML and CSS, interpolate multimedia sources, produce videos, and set-up a LINUX server.    

How did I acquire these skills? Did I attend some night classes at a community college? On-the-job training? Reading "For Dummies" books?

While it's true that I learned a few time saving tricks and keyboard shortcuts from a job I once had that required a certain level of adeptness and a familiarity with Microsoft Excel, the bulk of my computing abilities comes from a super-secret mystical intelligence source I'll refer to as advanced literacy. This literacy, coupled with my innate ability to methodically deduce relative truths, and a knack for performing simple Boolean operations in my mind, allows me the power to rapidly achieve desired results using computer applications. My willingness to learn the rudiments of programming languages and time saving techniques elevates me to a plateau high above the average end user. When it comes to computing, I have a can-do attitude. 

It might seem as though I'm selfishly boasting about my accolades, but I'm well aware that when it comes to computing I'm merely scratching the surface. Still, for a former guitar teacher and truck driver who's had very little formal computer training, and as someone who never set-out to be a computer expert, I think I've done rather well by any measurement of computer literacy. 

Maybe Mom's right in a sense - after all, I do have a highly addictive personality. If having the wherewithal to continuously add to one's knowledge base while honing one's ability to perform tasks can be classified as an addiction, then feel free to call me a full-blown chronic. My Mother has more than earned the right to spend her days sitting back, allowing herself to be endlessly and passively entertained by whatever streams in through the satellite - and to do so while passing judgement on her son for his active engagement in online politics. 

Good for her, I suppose. And maybe I do spend more time sitting at the computer than I should, typing stuff out at 111 w.p.m. and flipping graphic images between filters like some kind of pro. Regardless, in this current age of instantaneous information, I'd much rather be a capable driving force than some passive, computer illiterate media sponge who pays good money in subscription fees to sit around absorbing the MSM trickle. The skills required to independently participate in our modern information exchange aren't developed by NOT spending time at the computer!

   

   

Grey Area - Why I Feel Good About Being Unemployed

The great thing about Justin Trudeau tampering with the Canadian Senate, that upper chamber of sober second thought, who so craftily consider all the legislative proposals that potentially impact the day-to-day affairs of all Canadians, is that the seemingly impulsive meddling neatly exposes the convoluted machinations of this bloated institution through the media fallout. I'm hardly the constitutional expert to weigh-in on such parliamentary matters, but as far as ballpark figures go, I feel confident in quickly estimating that a typical Canadian senator earns on average, somewhere around $700 / hour for the hard work they do.

If you've never played chess against anyone who knows how to play chess, you may not know that it's necessary to think several moves ahead in order to keep your opponent guessing. Sometimes unpopular and unprecedented maneuvers are made in the political arena to gain long-term leverage. A transparent politician is an oxymoron of the highest order, and a good political analyst will pay closer attention to what the stock markets are doing, rather than what our elected talking heads are feeding to the media party. Follow the money - evidently, it's why people get into politics in the first place.

I play chess on occasion, and I cut my teeth playing against artificial intelligence. A computer is incapable of negligence. To beat the machine, it takes a combination of vigilance and creativity.

As an unemployed 37 year old who lives in his Mom's basement, I'd be lying if I said that I have no regrets. I've squandered opportunity, wasted money on self-indulgent substance abuse, and generally made an ass of myself - both in public and online. All of my little gaffes though, seem to quickly pale in comparison to a justice system that serves the criminals, a welfare system that enables the lazy, and a parliamentary system motivated by gold-plated pensions. These things are all made possible by ordinary tax-paying citizens who pay no mind or get paid to keep their mouths shut. I find it all unconscionable, and have sacrificed the good life in order to free-up precious time to pay close attention to current affairs.

What I love about Canada and the Commonwealth is the freedoms it provides. With enough hard work and persistence, almost anyone can realize the white-picket dream, complete with 1.7 children, two vehicles, a three bedroom home - complete with a three-tiered tax burden that paves the way for corrupt politicians, career criminals, and lazy druggies. Any Canadian can live out their entire lives with their head in the sand - without any concern for where the world is heading, or how politicians are spending a fifth of your salary, but I've seen too many hard-working people wind-up fucked before they're sixty. I've always been hesitant to jump aboard the conveyor belt.

Me? I don't like the idea of contributing to greed and criminality. I never quite understood the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't feel like I need a car or a cellphone. I think Stephen Harper is a lesser of three evils. But until such a time that I deem our parliamentary house and state of affairs to be in some semblance of order, I'll continue my personal vigil. I won't get married, I won't buy a car, I won't pursue gainful employment... unless I absolutely have to. Why should I bust my ass for a taxable $20 / hour while some lazy retard is getting the same for doing little more than picking his/her ass all day long? Just as someone is free to happily work until the age of seventy if they want to, I'm free to not do so!