Whine 'n' Cheese

A fifty something guy caught between earning a living in the corporate world and trying to live a personal life as a latent hippie.

Name:
Location: Toronto, Canada

Fiftysome male working in the corporate world to make a living but not a life. My interests in life are diverse from enjoying the city with it's music, theatre and range of characters to enjoying being in a canoe miles from nowhere in peace and quiet. My 14 year old son is the greatest blessing in my life even though he lives with his Mom he spends weekends with me and adds colour to my life.

Sunday, December 31, 2006

Looking Forward to a Wonderful Year


Happy New Year to Everyone!

My son and I would like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year we hope you keep your resolutions and are blessed with a year of happiness and prosperity.

Personally I will be facing some new challenges but I have made up my mind that I am going to make this a great year no matter what I am faced with. I have so much to be thankful for that the few problems I face are minor in comparison. Most of all I have my son and we share good health and a positive outlook on life.

Tonight I will be toasting the new year with a half dozen friends in walking distance from my apartment. I look forward to tomorrow and the start to a new year. As my Mom used to say to me, "New Year's is a special time when you have a new opportunity to live your life however you choose ; rather like the first day of a school year with a clean notebook with no smudges it's up to you to keep it that way."

I will keep this short today but I will be back soon and more frequently.

CHEERS and all the best for 2007!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

I Am Still Alive

Sorry I haven't posted for such a long time but I have been both busy and not in a frame of mind to want to post. I'm still not in that frame of mind but I guess I need to vent.

I will make this short for now but in case anyone has wondered yes the company is sold and no I don't know whether I will still be employed. The official announcement will be made to the employees next Wednesday which I think is pretty lousy timing since most employees are not working after next week until the first of the new year. They will go home to spend the holidays full of doubts and fears.

From the bits and pieces I have been involved with so far I have to say that I am concerned to say the least. I have met with a half dozen of the senior people from the new company and most recently with a senior vice president who appears to be second in command. He spent a half hour with me asking how I was going to communicate to our employees if it was decided to discontinue their profit sharing program. That program equals between a tenth or twentieth of their annual income and these people are not paid very much to begin with. Then he went on to ask me how I would be able to reduce the workforce by about 20 employees which is approximately 1 person in 10. Then he had nerve enough to ask me if I thought that their was any possibility that the employees might consider beginning in a union. I don't know what is different south of the border but up here in Canada if you make the employees feel insecure and start to reduce their compensation and threaten their jobs they will certainly look for protection with a union. Dam fool if you ask me.

During the last week I was directed to do up severance calculations for all employees who were away from work due to illness and no work related accidents. We have about ten people in that situation and they vary from a few months of service up to 19 years of service. One lady is terminally ill with cancer and yet they intend to terminate her employment, benefits and life insurance because they can get away with it legally because this is an assess sale and not a share sale. The employees in our plants will be more than just upset when they learn of that happening.

Well on the personal side I did finally have my son with me last weekend which was the first I had seen him for almost a month. We didn't do much but we did have a good time. He will be with me from noon on Christmas Day and through Boxing Day, unfortunately I will have to be back at work on the 27th through until the 29th. On Christmas Day I will do a dinner and I may break with the turkey tradition and see if I can find a goose instead. I know they are a lot greasier and probably not all that healthy but like a larger version of a duck they have more flavour than turkey does. Anyway we will see what happens he may still end up with turkey the goose thing was just an idea.

I don't think he will be very interested in spending New Years with his old man but he will be back the next weekend. As for me if I don't have him with me I really don't know what I will do. The local pub where I go is closed on New Years Eve and I really don't want to take the chance of driving downtown. We are beyond any effective transit lines into the core from here and a taxis would be about a fifty dollar ride. In any case I'm not sure I want to just go into one of my former hangouts on the off chance that someone I know may be there. So I guess maybe I just end up at home this year.

This time of year and being alone is when I start to wonder whether or not I shouldn't make the effort again to find a partner to have someone to share these times with. Well it's a little late for me to start to think about that now.

Well I think I will sign off for now but I will return before the holiday break to wish you all the best of the season. Take care and hug someone.

Greyhippie