Let's see, do we have everything? Toucans, two cans, directions to Cannes...

It becomes more an effort to go to work each week. I'm tired of the routine, I'm tired of training person after person and having them seem to be unable to grasp what it is that they're supposed to do (walk everywhere, check all doors), I'm tired of fighting my own company when they should be less combative when I ask for something, such as more report sheets.

And there's the undeniable fact that we're out of there soon. Despite all of the above, it's a mixed blessing at best.

A little over a year ago my site (indeed, all of the company's sites) got bought out by another company, and the parent company has been bringing the various locations into line with its own procedures.

And now... it's finally time to do my site.

It'll get a bit smaller, meaning they're going to get rid of one of the floors. They're going to gut the cafeteria and get rid of the company that administers it (bye bye, Cafeteria Lady!). It'll be a smaller affair, one with lower operating costs and probably less of a money sink.

Rooms will be demolished. Others will be build. Cubicle styles will change. There'll be new carpets in the company colours.

And security will be ditched.

Mine is the only site of all of them that actually has its own security. The rest rely on the security provided by the landlord. Of course in this case that would be Evil Property Manager's highly elite bike patrol guys, who have featured such elite members as DiceGimp, Buffalo Kisser, the Romanian, Polish Guy, Indian Guy, Old Hippie, Wet Shirt French Guy, I Know We're From Different Companies Rimmy, But Just Give Me My Orders Man, Door Pounder, Captain Complainer, and other guest stars too brief or too sad to mention now.

Note that in Vancouver, we're all about property crime. If you don't nail it down, it'll be swiped. If you do nail it down, the nails will be taken for scrap, and it'll still be swiped.

Of course, the landlord will tell you that they have excellent security, and that during the night they have two guards - one dedicated to roaming around the exteriors, and the other doing both exteriors and interiors.

That's got to sound good, right?

I know the cafeteria will be gone in September. When we go, I'm sure Cookie Monster (who's chafed ever since the client told him to ditch Barney and replace him with yours truly if he wants to keep the contract) has something special in mind for me. The Molten-Sulphur-and-Hot-Gravel-Mines, perhaps?

I ate a fortune cookie the other week (remembering only slightly afterward to cough out the slip of paper inside) that told me I'd be coming into money and traveling. Could it be that I win the lottery and roam the world? Or is it more likely that I get an unexpected stipend from the company I work for in compensation for not giving me a full retroactive pay raise, and I cave in to the repeated pleas from my friends to move to Calgary?

Even the fortune tasted good.

Several months back, I mentioned that the couple that cleans the second floor at work were getting excited that their daughter would be moving to Canada from the Philippines soon. I eventually realized that they (the father in particular) had been feeling me out to see if I'd be interested in her.

Now, I'm used to being disliked by the parents of whichever femme I'm with. This is the natural order of things, as far as I'm concerned. So it's a little off-putting that her parents seem to like me and that they're pimping the merits of their daughter.

But she arrived on Tuesday, and they brought her by on Thursday. And Friday. And will in perpetuity, I suspect.

She's cute, I'll give her that. And interesting to talk to. But I'm far too creeped out at the apparently approval of her parents to go anywhere with it. Assuming that she'd even want to, of course.

Only slightly related, her dad told me that the only time a Filipino is honest is at the cock fight - because if he's not, they won't let him back in!

He kills me, he does.

I'm going to get something to eat.