I subscribe to a couple of job notification thingies, which send me daily emails letting me know about job openings in Ottawa. Every day for the past couple of weeks, this job has appeared in that email:
Witer/Administor/Communications
I don’t qualify, since I’m not fluently bilingual, but I’m tempted to contact them and offer my services as a proofreader.
What else is new? Well. I’ve been trying hard to find someone to patch my cement steps. It’s the weirdest thing. I’ve contacted about ten contractors, and only one of them has submitted an estimate. Two have not inspired any confidence, and the others have either not returned my calls, or they’ve said they’re too busy to do it, or they only want to tear it down and replace it (which would be a reasonable thing if my neighbour, with whom I share the porch, were willing and able to share the costs at this time, which he is not).
The one contractor who did submit an estimate wants $966 (plus 13% HST) to do it.
I’ve pretty much decided to do it myself, which apparently will cost about $50. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to last forever, it just has to pass the City’s inspection. The City’s interest is safety – the Inspector told me they don’t want anybody to catch a heel in the cracks and break her leg. (I pointed out that nobody ever visits me in high heels, but he seemed unmoved by that argument.)
Anyway. I’ll be willing to consider more elegant and permanent solutions when my neighbour is ready to act…which should be soon, since he’s going to be facing a court order from the City any day now.
The only other thing I’ve been thinking about, besides birds, finding work, and fixing my steps, is that weird Justin Bieber kid. What’s so special about him? Why do all the girls like him so much?
Go to Home Depot and get a 2, 3 or 4 step riser ($13, $17 or $20 respectively) and a few 2x4s to attach to them and you have a simple front step. I can see why contractors don’t want to be bothered with a little job like this. Maybe some guy renting himself out as a handyman would do it?? http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?D=971840&Ntt=971840&catalogId=10051&langId=-15&storeId=10051&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntx=mode+matchall&N=0&Ntk=P_PartNumber
Thanks XUP, but it’s not that simple. There’s a concrete stoop and steps there already, and I share it with my neighbour. I can’t remove my half until he’s ready to remove his half too. (I believe it’ll cost a fair amount of money just to remove it, because they’ll need to break it up with jackhammers or something first and cart it all away. When my other neighbours got there’s done last year, it took a full day to get rid of the old one.)
Justin Beiber is completely inoffensive and nonthreatening, so preteens love him.
Anyone older I have to wonder.
Nature Girl doesn’t have a clue who he is.
I can see the mistakes also, but not the same ones.
Witer, could mean “whiter” as in someone who sells skin whitening products to people living India and Africa.
Witer/Administrator/Communications could actually be corrected as “wifer/administrator/communications.”
A wifer is someone who is stuck being a wife for life.
An administrator is someone who is stuck with that wifer.
Communications means some hapless friend or in-law who is stuck trying to keep the wifer and administrator together.
Mudmama, I can see that, I guess. But why him? Why not some other completely inoffensive, non-threatening kid? Do girls like him just because other girls like him?
Skinny Dipper, I don’t know if you noticed, but it wasn’t exactly an administrator they were seeking, but an Administor. Wanna take another stab at it now?
I don’t have the answer to the Justin Bieber question, but have you heard the version of one of his songs slowed down 800%?
http://soundcloud.com/shamantis/j-biebz-u-smile-800-slower
Have you tried something like Handyman Connection? Their business is basically small jobs.
A big part of my decision when hiring a company for something is whether they return calls / follow up when they say they will. If they don’t do that before I pay them, why would I believe they’d return calls if something goes wrong and they have already been paid.
Definitely do the steps on the budget plan if your overall plan is to replace them once the neighbour is ready.
As for Justin Bieber. He’s got a better voice than I have, but he’s a rip-off/copy-cat artist. Just playing other people’s stuff, using their techno-bop sounds, etc. Nothing all that unique about his music. Now as for kids and music, that 10 year old opera singer on America’s Got Talent was phenomenal. I’m also impressed with the kid that Ellen recently signed (Grayson Chance) as her first artist. He’s in grade 6 and besides doing a very neat rendition of the Lady Gaga song Paparazzi, he’s also written two songs of his own. Kid even has a tribute band covering his music.
I’m glad I’m not the only one wondering what’s up with Justin Beiber. Personally, he kind of creeps me out – I think it’s his hair – – it’s not natural.
Nancy, that was kind of cool. But it went on forever (I guess about 800% longer than the original song) and finally I had to shut it off before it drove me insane!
Colette, I tried a similar company. They’re the ones that gave me the $966 estimate. They were attentive and polite and so on, but way more expensive than I wanted. (I agree with you – I don’t like dealing with companies that have poor customer service even BEFORE the sale.)
Techwood, Ellen’s signing kids? For what? Has she got a new show or something?
Valerie, yeah, the hair for SURE. Now all the boys are going to want that creepy style so all the girls will worship them.
You must tell me your secret. The job sites I haunt on a regular basis have very little posted recently. It may or may not have to do with my field of choice, but I’d still be curious to know what job site(s) you make a habbit of stalking.
Hi James, sorry about the delay. My main resource for scouring job ads is Peter’s New Jobs. It scours them for me, and emails me all the brand-new listings in Ottawa every day. It’s got them subdivided into three categories – Government, Agencies/Recruiters, and Everything Else. It costs $40 a year to receive the daily emails, but I think you can subscribe for just 3 months if you want. And you can start with a 2-week free trial.