Rant of the Day

I listed a bunch of stuff on Freecycle. Living in a condo, I can't really leave things out for people because: 1) the complex office doesn't even take packages for residents never mind non-residents, 2) the buildings are locked so it's not like somebody could get in to get something from my doorstep, 3) there isn't anywhere at the entryway to my building to leave things, and 4) in my experience, only 1 out of 5 people can follow directions well enough to find my building in the first place (since the only entrance non-residents can use is not located on the street the address is on.)

So I specifically said "Please be able to pick up evening or weekends."

I have had several responses. One of whom can only pick things up between 8 and 9 a.m. on weekdays and another of whom asked if she could come by at lunchtime tomorrow.

Can't anybody bloody read any more?

(Actually, I know the answer to that, since every single day I am held up by at least 4 or 5 people trying to exit metro turnstiles which are clearly labeled "Smartrip cards only" with paper fare cards.)

I am not even going to get onto the two people who said they would come by this evening and who have not responded when I emailed them telling them to call me after 6 p.m.

Ethics Training

My company is making everybody do ethics training. They've contracted out some on-line course and I did the first part (of three, I believe) today.

What they have disappointed me so far. For example, they discuss a case where a man and a woman are working to get an overseas client. When they go to meet with the client, he insists the woman not be allowed into the meeting, because women don't do business in that country. Interesting situation - but the training course doesn't have any resolution. (It's also a pretty silly situation, since one would expect that the situation would have come up before this final "close the deal" trip.)

The ones where they did have quiz scenarios were somewhat irritating because my usual answer was "none of the above" (which was not an option). They used an example where a manager told somebody in confidence that the company may have layoffs. Another employee, who was very junior (and, thus, vulnerable to layoffs) then mentioned that she was about to make an offer on a condo and they asked what the person who had been told in confidence about possible layoffs should say. The problem is that I would have already confronted the boss about not passing along the information about impending layoffs.

They also had a quiz at the end which included a question about which of three actions was ethically questionable (with an "all of the above" option). One was going to human resources with an issue without confronting the person involved. The second involved somebody writing a family newsletter on company time. The third one had to do with a supplier buying an employee an expensive cup of coffee.

The answer they wanted was #2. But I could argue in favor or against any of these. The first is probably more a question of etiquette than ethics, but there wasn't enough information about the situation to be sure. While I can understand why they feel #2 was a problem, I don't see a real ethical issue with somebody, say, writing some newsy family e-mail thingy while sitting through a telecon. As for #3, sure it's just a cup of coffee, but that expensive coffee is probably unethical in and of itself, unless it is fair trade coffee so accepting it is tantamount to accepting the exploitation of third world farmers and encouraging cash crops over sustainable agriculture.

It would be really nice if they ever had training that was actually tailored to what we do at work.

Foreign Surprises

I finally (3 days before the deadline) got around to filing my claim for that class action lawsuit involving foreign currency transactions on credit cards. Being the sort of traveler that I am (and compulsively organized about financial record keeping, so I actually had the credit card statements to back it up), I chose the option where you itemize your foreign spending by year. A few things surprised me as I was pulling the information together.

1) Some of my foreign transactions weren't. Charges in Ecuador, for example, were in U.S. dollars, which makes sense since that is (or at least was) their currency. But some less obvious charges were made in dollars, e.g. a Welsh train ticket (but not other British train tickets).

2) I am a nicer girlfriend than I thought, since I spent more money taking Robert out to dinner in London than I remembered. I should probably not have just put that in writing since he will now make me pay for dinner when he's here in a few weeks.

3) The single foreign currency I had the highest dollar value transactions in was Canadian dollars. Yes, I have been to Canada a lot, but that's mostly because the Antarctic cruise was paid for in Canadian dollars. British pounds came second. Everyone who I asked to guess, assumed that it would be South African rand, but I guess I paid cash a lot there.

4) I had one transaction in the currency of a country I haven't actually been to. That's what happens when you use a Thai website to pay for a Japanese hotel.

The real surprise will be how much money I end up getting back.