Bittersweet

Tomorrow is the last day of work for us in the Census of Agriculture call center. It feels a lot like school the week before holidays, or the last days of summer camp. On the one hand, most of us are happy to be finished the job. On the other hand, the group - co-workers and supervisors - have by and large been terrific, and we'll miss them.

Most cases are closed now, so there's less and less work that can be done, and more chatting going on in the lulls. People are exchanging e-mail addresses, and making plans to keep in touch. Most of our desks have been cleaned out, and the posters and info taken off the walls, so it looks bare. Some of the cleaners are a little enthusiastic - more than one person arrived for shift today to find they had not even pen and paper in their desks anymore! I brought my personal stuff home tonight, just in case...

And remember the last few days of school, there'd be extra recess time, and people would bring treats in for the class? We've got that too. Extra lunch time yesterday and today (and the supervisor didn't even blink when we came back a bit late because we went to the pub for supper), and got to leave early because there was nothing else to be done tonight. A lot of sweets turning up too. In the last two days I've had chocolates, a cheesecake brownie, cookies, cupcake, and a square of something termed 'sex in a pan' which appears to involve pudding and dream whip and shortbread. Usually I only get this oversugared at Christmas!

Pizza lunch tomorrow. And final cleanup, and then we'll say goodbye. And I'm sure I won't be the only one a bit misty-eyed. But underneath, the soundtrack is running, 'School's out for summer! School's out for ever!'

Random Notes From the StatsCan Basement

People will ask, 'how's the new job going?', and I'll say 'OK'. That doesn't really adequately describe it, though. In some ways, sitting and calling people all night isn't exactly the most interesting/stimulating job description. On the other hand, when you're actually talking to people and not just leaving messages on machines, it can range the gamut from tragic to comic to educational to...whatever.

There was the guy who described how his horse and his dog team up to hunt coons and rabbits, which was the best mental picture all night.

And the guy who is essentially out of business because he lost all his bees to the CCD or whatever that was going around, and can't afford to replace them.

And the people in the Prairies, who've had several years of drought and this year had all the backlog of rain, and fields so flooded that growing rice would be a better option than about anything else.

And the 90-year-old man who still works in the family greenhouse.

And the lady who has sheep and is also a spinner, who I would have loved to chat with, except I was working...

And the guy who commented that he figures about 150$ would be a good payment to him for the effort it takes to fill out the form. (Note it usually takes well under an hour to do the form on the phone, based on what I've been seeing. That means his hourly wage would be 10X mine.)

And the guy who manages his mother's farm, while living and working halfway across the country from her.

And the ones who refuse to participate, but who can be gotten around by calling back another time and speaking to their spouse.

It's a jungle out there. But the work is getting done. And I, for one, am looking forward to the weekend.