CAMERA WOES, ROAD RAGE, AND PARTAY TIME

I dropped my camera the other day. I have dropped it before but this time it seems to have knocked the lens off of it's track because, when I turn it on, I can feel the gears grinding but nothing happens. Then I get a message on the screen; 'lens error'. Not good. I decide to take it down to London Drugs, where I bought it, right after work to see what it will cost to repair. Two to three hundred dollars. This camera cost me almost five hundred, but I can buy a pretty good one for what it will cost to fix this one so I leave without leaving it with them. Maybe I will open it up myself and see if I can get it back on track. Meanwhile, Ashleigh has given me an older Nikon I gave her a few years ago. She has a new camera and so never uses it. It takes great photos, it's just that the screen is the size of a large postage stamp. I will miss my newer Nikon with it's big screen and 10x optical zoom.

I climb into my van and decide to call Ashleigh to see if she and Rob want to come for dinner. As I am chatting with her, I put the car in reverse and check all around to see if anyone else is backing up. I see reverse lights in the car parked directly behind me and wait for him to back up. After several seconds of waiting, he doesn't move so I start to back up. I get 3/4 of the way out of my spot when he starts backing up. I toot the horn in warning but he keeps coming. So I lean on the horn to no avail; he still backs up. My daughter hears the horn and asks what's going on and I tell her. Somehow he manages to squeeze behind me and get out of the space and then pulls forward down the aisle. I resume backing out and follow him. Suddenly he brakes, gets out of his car, and walks back to me. "Hang on," I say to my daughter, "This guy is out of his car and walking to me." and drop the phone into my lap. I roll down my window. He pushes his face through the window and right up to mine. Barely controlled rage contorts his face and stains it a deep red. "You were jabbering on your cell phone, weren't you?" He barks at me. "Woah. You need to settle down a bit." I say. "You were jabbering on your cell phone, weren't you?" He repeats in exactly the same way as the first time. "That has nothing to do with it." I say, "I was three quarters of the way out of my spot before you started moving." "You were jabbering on that cell phone," he says, yet again, "you need to get your sh*t together lady." And with that he stalks off. I am not done with him. I lean out of my window and yell after him, "YOU backed up into ME." A burly, long haired fellow has turned from his car that he was about to get into, just across from me. He marches up to the angry man and pokes his finger at him. "SHE was out of that spot before you started to move," he shouts, "so don't you go yelling at her." I can see he is pitched to fight this guy if he has to, but the angry man just gets in his car without looking left or right, and drives away. I look over at my hero in shock and he looks back at me. "Thank YOU." I say to him. "No problem." he replies with a smile as he walks back to his car. A woman pushing a shopping cart, who has stopped in her tracks to witness all of this, gives me two thumbs up and a big grin. I smile back at her and then drive away.

I am still behind the guy when we get to a light and he goes to turn left and I go straight through. I am pissed off at him so lean on the horn as I drive by. As I continue along, I am annoyed with myself for not giving him a piece of my mind for being such a jerk. I should have asked him if it makes him feel like a big tough guy to come after women like that. I would have loved to poke the hornets nest just a little. I am wishing I would run into him again when, about ten minutes later, I turn onto the street that leads down to Fort Langley and I realize he is in front of me. I decide to follow him to see where he goes. We pass my turn-off but he turns at the next street. As I follow him he must see me in his rear view mirror because he suddenly floors it. Well I can do that too, and do. We come to a stop sign and he turns right. I turn right, after stopping, and to my surprise he's nowhere in sight. It's like he just vanished. I know that can't be the case, so slow down and check the first driveway on my right and there he is, pulling into his carport. HA! So now I know where you live. I just have to decide what I will do with that information. Nothing probably. But it gives me some satisfaction imagining a couple of options.

Last day at work today, Sunday, and all we have is workforce buses as there are no more sliding events. There's four of us scheduled. I guess that's in case we get some WOP buses but we end up getting none of those either. So I send two crew home and Dan and I take care of the rest. Dan goes home at 9 and I stay till 11 when Jessica offers to do the last bus so I can go home as well. The Impark crew have started to pack up the trailer and it's really starting to sink in that we are done.

When I get home I call my friend, Fran, to see if I can go to her place to watch the hockey game and the closing ceremonies on my nice big flat-screen TV that I loaned her for the games, as there's no cable at my house. I get her voicemail so leave a message. She doesn't call me back and I end up watching it at home alone, streamed on the computer. I thought about going to the local bar to watch it there, but I don't really want to do that alone.

I am excited when Canada wins the gold. What a game!! I even shed a few tears of joy, and I don't even like hockey. But this gold means so much more than just one game; it breaks a record for the most gold medals won by any country ever in the Winter Games. And, because the winner of the games is determined by gold medal count only, that means we won the entire games. Wow!! What an accomplishment! And with or without that win, I honestly feel like these were the best Winter Games ever. I am so proud to be a Canadian.

Monday night we have a 'wrap' party planned at the casino near where we worked. I pick Olga up and when we arrive, hardly anyone is there. Richard, the big boss, is there and it's nice that he made the effort to come. But soon he leaves and says he will be back. I assume he is going to gamble for a bit, but it turns out he has gone to Earls Restaurant nearby because so many of the kids who worked at WOP are underage and can't get into the casino. The idea for the party was mine; early on I suggested we do like after we are done shooting a movie and have a bit of a 'wrap' party. It's not put on by Game Day; we are all paying for our own food and drinks. I don't know who's idea it was for the casino as the venue but it never occurred to me, nor anyone else I guess, that there would be a problem with age. I wish the kids had spoken up so we could have changed it to all meeting at Earls instead.

Only one bus driver shows up for the party. There were supposed to be three or four. He leaves pretty early as he has a run tomorrow. By eight, another bunch have left. I am surprised at people leaving so early. But those of us that stay end up having a pretty good time, and more come and go throughout the evening. Shawn has brought his lovely Asian wife. She is like a tiny China doll. She is six months pregnant with their first child and Shawn keeps putting his hand lovingly on her belly. It's so sweet to see.

Doug, our other boss, shows up after he had been at Earls with the kids for most of their time there. We are just on our way out when we see him at the bar with a big group we didn't realize had come. We were in a room in the back. All in all, it was a nice night and I am glad I went. I give Doug my card so he can visit my website and see what I do in my normal job. He also wants this blog site so he can read about my Olympic experience while he works at his new post in Squamish for the Paralympics. Apparently he has the night shift so will be bored. I am sure he won't be too terribly surprised at my take on working at the WSC transport hub. Now that we're done, everyone seems free to express what barely controlled chaos the entire busing situation was. And, apparently, we had the best-run location with the fewest issues. Boggles the mind.












Jessica, Doug, and me.

LAST DAYS

I'm downtown early so go back to Live City to see Christopher. As I line up, I see that there's a couple of Mounties on horses and snap a picture. Don't get to see that too often around here.

It's a big hassle to get through the security yet again. The metal zipper heads on my jacket seem to completely confound them.

On the ride in on SkyTrain, there were some people taking an impromptu trip up from Washington State. Overhearing their conversation, they had decided that it would be a regret they would have if they didn't take the time to visit Vancouver during the games. They have picked a gorgeous day to come. It's clear and sunny out and they exclaim about the scenery over and over. When we come to False Creek, they have their backs to the Athletes Village so I speak up and point it out to them. They quickly turn around and take photos, exclaiming how great it is. Then they thank me profusely for speaking up.


I am hungry so I give Christopher $10 so he can buy me a small tray of poutine and a bottle of Coke. He gets a discount because he works there. There's no change. Whoah Nellie.

We chat mostly about how this job has opened a lot of doors for him and that he now knows about five times as many people in the sound business than he did three weeks ago. I am excited for him. He is so talented with sound - most all the performers he works with are very impressed and some now use him exclusively when they have a gig. But they are just small players and it would be great if he could work for some bigger acts. I am sure it will happen.

We have spent so much time talking, I really have to hustle my butt to get to the salon on time. I needn't have hurried as it takes about twenty minutes for Izzy to help a lady find a jacket to buy in the racks of down coats they have brought in to sell for the games. I love one of the jackets; it has rhinestones dotted along the cuffs and down the front. That would be fun to wear on set instead of my huge, black, sleeping bag (as Kim Miles calls it) of a coat that I usually wear on a cold day.

Soon I am walking out of the salon with hair a bit darker in shade, and some bouncy curls. I make a quick call to Lec, a friend from jPod - a camera assistant. We have made arrangements to meet for a drink somewhere and now I just need to know where. I would like to eat where Izzy recommended, right next door to the salon. It has great satay, she says, and it's very reasonably priced. But Lec wants to meet at a Japanese place a few blocks away so I walk up there and wait for her to arrive.

We catch up over a beer for her, a martini for me, and some sushi. She's such a fun person and I love her take on life. So it's a pleasant couple of hours spent laughing and yakking. All too soon we have to take our leave; we were told we could have the table only until 6:30. Not sure who they are expecting to flood the place in a couple of minutes but there's no sight of them yet. But it's okay because I have to be at work tomorrow so should be in bed right about now. We hug and go in different directions. I head down to the SkyTrain but I can't remember where the station is that I arrived on. I took the King George Line from Surrey to the Waterfront, and then the Canada Line to The Roundhouse, Yaletown. But I can't for the life of me remember where that came out. I decide to go by the salon and see if Izzy is still there. Not only is she there, she is outside, dressed in one of the down jackets in the midst of fake snow drifting down, selling Vankerchiefs (that's Izzy on the right) to passers by. I ask her where the station is and she points down the street. It's just a block away on this very road. Why couldn't I remember that? I scare myself sometimes.

Today at work, I am not the supervisor. I am in on an extra day to help out with the problem of short staff. So I get the easy job of taking a clipboard and getting driver information and passenger numbers for workforce. It's freezing cold out and raining so the chance to sit on each bus as it arrives until it's time to depart is much appreciated. Once the last bus departs at noon, we get to go home early. That also is much appreciated.

At one point in the day, I make a trip along the parked spectator buses and pause to chat with one or two of my favourite drivers. One of them, another French-Canadian named Guy, has been flirting outrageously with me. Today he tells me that he might not see me tomorrow, the last day we will have spectators, and so wants me to come on board and give him something to remember me by. I look puzzled. So he enlightens me by saying he wants a hug and a kiss. "I tink about you all da time." he says, "I have tought about you all dese days you haven't been here." "So then," I say, "you shouldn't have any trouble remembering me without the kiss." He laughs. "Ahh, but I want to kiss dose lovely lips." he says. "Well, seeing how you have a girlfriend, that's not going to happen." I say with a grin. "And I am sure you will be back tomorrow." He acts all sad and I move along the line. I don't see him again because he won't return tomorrow; he will be pushed to a late run back from Whistler. When I realize that I am sad. But I won't find out until tomorrow when it's too late. I would like to have given him a hug good-bye.

On our last day with spectators, I am back in charge but Shawn does such a great job of organizing everything up top, I let him take over and I keep the job with the clip board. There have been a couple of guys in particular that have been nothing short of stellar workers and I plan to pass their names along to Assistant Location Managers who need hard working and intelligent PA's. Shawn is one. Dan is the other. Outstanding workers both, and each with a great sense of humour. They'd be an asset to any film crew.

We take a few photos. One with another favourite bus driver, Ed from Vernon. One with Mamud, a doctor from Nigeria, and one of the lovely lady (who's name I can't recall) who was in charge of taking bus tickets from spectators. For almost everyone, today is their last day. Tomorrow there will just be a skeleton crew on to take care of the workforce buses.

The WOP hub has planned a BBQ for all of us so we head over there after the last bus has left and partake of some delicious hamburgers, veggie burgers, and bags of chips. It's a fun way to wind up the last full day of work. On Monday our hub has planned a 'wrap party' at the local casino. Hopefully most of us will be able to attend that. It will be nice to see everyone in clothes other than their 'blueberry' jackets. That is what we have been calling workforce for the past three weeks. Right before a bus is to leave, one of us gets on the radio and asks, "Any blueberries in sight?" I've heard that elsewhere, we are called 'Smurfs'. I prefer blueberries.

I COULD KICK MYSELF

As I am finishing up my veggie burger at WOP, their farewell BBQ for all of us, I get a call from Shawn who is back at WSC taking passenger info for the last workforce bus driven by Patrick. My radio crackles to life with Shawn's voice. "Sandra?" "Go for Sandra." I reply. "Patrick has just gotten directions to pick up Elvis Stojko at Whistler on his way back. For real." "WHAT?!" I radio back. "NO WAY!" "Yes!" Shawn replies, "And Patrick wants to know if you want to ride along." "YES!!!!" I can barely contain my excitement. "Well get over here right away. He has to go." "Tell him to wait for me." I yell.

Olga looks at me. "What is this?" she asks. I pull her and Dan to one side. I don't want everyone hearing this. "Patrick is bringing Elvis Stojko back from Whistler and asked if I want to go. Do you guys want to come?" Dan says no. Olga looks at me, completely puzzled. "Who is this person?" she asks. I am incredulous. "ELVIS STOJKO. The famous Olympic skater?" No recognition. "You know... Elvis?" "No. I think I don't know this person." "I have to get over there right away. Do you want to come too?" "There's no point. I have no knowledge of this person. It's okay." Alright then. I dash to my car and drive over to WSC as fast as I can. On the way I remember I have a doctors appointment at 1:00. Oh NO!! I have waited a week for this appointment and I need to go today as it's the end of the month and I only have today to get a prescription filled and paid for by PharmaCare. After today, I won't be covered. What to do? WHAT to do? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I won't ever get a chance like this again. I remember how I took my girls to see Elvis skate along with Isobel Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler back when we lived in Seattle. We were the only Canadians there, I am sure of it. And when we went nuts over them, cheering and whistling, we got a lot of dirty looks but didn't care. We even took flowers and balloons for the three of them and then later, waiting out back, saw them walk to their tour bus holding our gifts. That was a thrill for the girls. Me too, if I am totally honest.

Anyway, now I have a very difficult decision to make. As I park the car and dash over to the bus, I can't decide what to do. I look up at Patrick, sitting in the drivers seat - bus running, as I agonize. I really need this prescription and it won't be cheap. It's a new pill that combines an anti-inflammatory with a stomach protector - as suggested my Mamud the other day. I am despairing of what to do. But I finally let the pragmatic side of me take over and tell Patrick I can't go. I have a doctors appointment I must keep. Shawn tells me to call and cancel it, but I shake my head no as the bus door closes and Patrick drives away.

No sooner has the bus turned out of the lot onto the street than I totally regret my decision. WHAT was I thinking?! I should have gone. I so should have gone.

Later when I go to get my prescription filled, PharmaCare only pays for 1/3 of it anyway. They don't cover the stomach protection portion. I so should have gone.

QUEBEC MEN ARE GREAT

When I get up for work I feel woozy. I just feel so off. My stomach has been hurting again. Every time I eat something it seems to hit my stomach like a lead ball so I haven't been eating much the past couple of days. I won't be eating any more of the sandwiches they have for us at work. When I use the flat iron on my hair to straighten out the kinks that somehow show up in the night, I drop it and go to catch it and as I feel the heat on my hand I let go and it hits the floor. That's never happened to me before. My equilibrium is definitely off.

When I get to work, I discover that I have no energy at all. Everything I do takes extra concentration and effort. By the end of the shift, I am completely wiped out and I find it hard to stay awake on the drive home. I recall feeling this way only a couple of times in my life; where I am so exhausted I feel like I will completely break down and lose it if I can't get into bed right away. I pray that Denise's dad isn't at the house doing repairs so that I can sleep. As I pull up to the house, I see his car in the drive. I go in and tell him I am exhausted and will be going to bed. I peel off my work clothes and get into my pajamas and literally fall into bed. Denise's dad is working at the other end of the house and I don't hear a thing as I immediately fall to sleep. I wake four hours later to an empty house and darkness outside. I make myself a bowl of soup and as soon as I eat it I go back to bed and sleep right through to the alarm at 2:30 a.m.

When the alarm goes off, I don't want to get up at all. It's freezing out, I know, due to the clear weather we're having right now. I nearly froze yesterday and I don't want to feel like that again today. But I force myself up and, although I still feel off, I dress for work and push myself out the door by 3:15.

One of the guys at work is a doctor from Nigeria and he asks me how I am doing. He basically gives me an hours free consult about not only my food poisoning but also the arthritis in my spine and how my doctor should be doing a follow up x-ray to the one done a couple of years ago to see if it's progressed. I will be making an appointment.

Honestly, if I want to be married again, I need to move to Quebec. The bus drivers we have from there are so into me. I can't get over it. I never, and I mean NEVER, get this sort of attention from any men around here. But the French! Ooo-la-la! They are so complimentary; they tell me I am beautiful; they can't believe I haven't been snatched up; and more than a few of them want to snatch me up. Too bad that a couple of those few are married or have girlfriends, or are way too old or too short for me. And too bad George Cloony's twin isn't one of the ones showing an interest!! (One of the guys told me he's married, so it's just as well.) But I seriously think that if I moved to Quebec, I could be married in a year. Something to think about.

I find that, tomorrow, we have an overlap with WOP and so will have their buses and ours coming into our lot at the same time. Oh joy. Not. AND, I only have two crew scheduled to work with me instead of five, and it may as well be one for all the use one of them is. He doesn't understand anything I say and so never follows through with a direction. When dealing with moving buses and trying to place them, that's not a good thing. I am not happy at all that more help has not been found for tomorrow. The loading people have nine scheduled, so I work it out with Olga to take two or three of her people for my crew. I sit down and figure out what positions everyone is the most capable of filling so that I can just give them their posts tomorrow when they arrive. I also work out everyone's break times and how they will be replaced while gone. I then figure out how we will place the buses so that we don't run into the issues we've had on other days when both centers schedules have overlapped. I am feeling like I have a handle on it all. Let's hope that bears out tomorrow.

I am so glad it's only 6 more days of work. If this was my new career I'd have to kill myself.

JUST SAY NO TO MICROMANAGEMENT

When I get home, I am so stiff from standing on concrete all day and now sitting in my car for an hour, that I can barely walk up the path to the house. My back is hurting and so is my right knee and hip. Even my ankle on the right keeps getting a stabbing pang. I might look only 43, as Guy claims, but I feel about 73 at the moment. Getting old sucks.

When I get inside, there are three women and Denise sitting at the table, scrapbooking. They ask about my day and I tell them about the George Clooney look-alike. They want to see the photo so I get my camera and show them. Their jaws drop. "George Clooney with a French accent," one sighs, "it doesn't get any better than that." I have to agree.

After a hot shower and a meal, I am exhausted so turn in by 7. I wake through the night a couple of times with a bad stomach ache and think to myself that it feels like flu and I might have to call in sick. But each time, I get up to use the bathroom and as soon as I am vertical, the pain is gone. Did I just dream it? One of the times I go back to sleep I do dream that I faint at work from the pain. When the alarm goes off, I roll over and turn it off and feel the pain again and I feel dreadful. But when I get up, I feel not so bad. I have no idea what's going on.

On my way into work I think about all of the changes in instructions I am getting all of the time. Yesterday, we had three WOP buses that were to be diverted to another location. When they pulled out, Jessica went into panic about something and needed to call one of the drivers. She asked me for his phone number. I told her that I don't have it. Her eyes widen and she yells, "Why not?!" "Because you told us just to get the bus number." "Oh no! You shouldn't listen to me." she says, realizing what she is saying so her voice trails off at the end. As I think about this and other scenarios that have taken place, I decide it's time to go into movie set mode. I am done with going along with whatever changes come down, seemingly on a whim. I am done with dithering about. I am done with feeling like I am making mistakes constantly. I am going to start to assert myself and call someone out when told conflicting things.

It's pissing rain again, really coming down hard. So I put a cheap plastic poncho over my reflective vest and other gear. It doesn't breathe so right away I start to heat up. I want to get outside but Jessica says we need to have a meeting before we go. I tell her I need to get outside and place some cones I requested from parking yesterday to mark a path for the buses to follow up at the top of the road into the loading bays because I don't have the crew to place someone there today. "Fine, take your crew and go do that and then get back here right away." I do and within fifteen minutes we are back in the office. She isn't there. I try to radio her but am told she has gone to WOP and isn't wearing a radio yet. Fabulous. So we go back outside and get ready for the first workforce bus to pull in. But before I do, I spy a pair of those reflective gloves. They have the 2010 logo on them. They're so nice. I pick them up and say, "We were supposed to get some of these." A parking guy tells me that there's boxes of them in the office. We're not supposed to go in there but I am done with the nonsense, as I said, so I knock on the door and when there's no reply I walk in and find the boxes. They are all marked XL. I grab three pair out of the top box and hand one pair to each of my crew and put the other pair on my hands. Done.

No sooner does Guy arrive with our 4:50 departure bus than we start getting waves of WOP buses again. I am down at the bottom of the road directing them all. At some point Jessica radios me for something. I respond and then say, "...and I came back in to have that meeting but you weren't there." "I know I wasn't there," she says with sarcasm, "I had to go to WOP about blah blah blah..." she goes on and on and I wait for her to finish. "I know you know you weren't there," I respond finally, "I just wanted you to know that I didn't forget, and that I came back for the meeting." She doesn't respond.

Later, during a lull with our workforce buses, Jessica calls us all back in for that meeting. When we get there, someone closes the door behind us. I go and open it and say "Let's leave this open during the meeting, shall we? We're all dressed for the cold and we will quickly overheat in here." Jessica shoots me a dirty look and I just hold the look with a blank gaze. Shall we continue? She starts by telling us how she was sent twenty workers yesterday afternoon from another agency and she was supposed to train them and had no idea what they were doing there so she sent them home. I don't know why we need this information but I am about to respond 'Really? When we are short staffed and I am trying to work with just two crew today - you actually sent people home without scheduling them in?' but right then a bus arrives. Jessica sees it. "OH SH**, a bus!" she cries, and then jumps up and runs outside. So we all stand inside and wait, fully geared up for the elements, as she runs out alone and dressed in just a tee-shirt and polar fleece vest to do our job. I look at Olga and we shake our heads. This is starting to border on the insane. After what feels like ten minutes but is probably just five, I tell everyone to go outside and lets do our jobs. We're all too hot to be waiting indoors any more.

I am kept hopping all day at the bottom of the road, directing buses and keeping in touch with my guy up top. Olga came in on her day off to help me or I'd just have one crew today. I give her the clipboard and get her to take all the driver information and the WOP bus numbers. Once the spectators start to arrive, Jessica puts her back in charge of supervising the loading crew as the woman who was supposed to show up for that today didn't arrive. Olga puts one of her crew on to taking driver info but no one tells me the switch has taken place. Jessica tries calling Olga's alternate but there's no answer at 5 a.m., predictably. She gets hold of her later in the day and asks why she didn't show up. I hear her say, "But you had your four days off. You are four on and four off. You were supposed to be here today." Later I realize that Olga and I started out with the same schedule. Four on four off, so we were always working together. But today she was supposed to be off on the new schedule. She booked in for an extra day of work because we needed more workers. How is it that she was off today? Turns out when Jessica made up the new schedule, she screwed up and gave Olga only three days this shift. So that woman was right in not coming in today as she had only had three days off, not four. She originally wasn't scheduled to come in - Olga was. When I try to explain this to Jessica, it takes me several attempts to get her to understand. When she finally gets it, she admits she made a major mistake. Olga and I want to work together. We work well as a team. So Jessica says she will fix the schedule to put us on the same four days again. This is a typical example of what goes on in every area every single day. Jessica always blames the higher ups for changing things but I have my doubts. She seems to make a lot of it up on the fly. You know, she seems like a really nice person and in other circumstances I am sure I'd like her, but she is just not up to the task of manager. In fact, I hear later that she was lamenting to someone that she has never managed anything in her life before. What... WHAT exactly was the criteria for people getting the jobs they got around here? Because I am seeing nothing but people doing nothing they are qualified to do every time I turn around.

Take another incident today, for example. Our last bus to Whistler Sliding Center has departed over an hour ago and we have six Americans show up with tickets to the luge today but no bus tickets. When we were in training (and I use that term loosely) for our roles here, we were told in no uncertain terms that if spectators showed up too late for the bus, it was too bad. There was nothing we could do to help them. Even if we put them on a workforce bus, which we were NEVER to do, they wouldn't make it in time for the event anyway, by the time they drove up, went through the security line up, and then walked the 20 minutes from there to the venue. These guys protest vehemently that there was no information when they purchased their tickets online that they needed to buy a bus ticket. I have no idea how almost one thousand five hundred other people managed to figure it out then. Granted, we have about 20 per event that have to go to the ticket kiosk down at the trailer and buy their bus tickets because they also failed to read that a ticket was required so didn't purchase it ahead of time on line. But the vast majority manage to see that just fine. Jessica is called outside to give them the bad news. But instead, she tells them she will see what she can do. She goes back inside to get an information booklet that each ticket buyer gets. These guys say they never got one. Meanwhile, two other Chinese guys join the group. Turns out not only do they not have a bus ticket, they don't even have an event ticket and they want to hop one of our buses to Whistler. This is a definite breach of security and in no way is allowed. But as Jessica comes out and decides to let the Americans ride up with work crew, and without buying a ticket, she also decides she has to let the other two guys ride up as well as they heard her allow the Americans. Today after work, we do have a meeting to work out any wrinkles and this issue comes up. I say that none of those people should have been allowed on the bus, if we were to go by our training. And they should have had to buy tickets to get on the workforce bus because that is not fair to all those who had to pay $50 a head to ride up. I say, "What if they tell their friends, just show up late and you can catch a ride with the worker bus and you won't have to pay?" She shrugs that off as something that will never happen. I tell her that I can see letting the Americans go up with workforce, but they should have paid and there is no way the Chinese guys should have been allowed on the bus as they can't get into the luge. She says there is a place in Whistler where tickets can be purchased. I tell her that can't be the case as all tickets were sold months ago and the only way to get any now is on the fan-to-fan website. She disagrees with me. I am appalled at her lack of knowledge and her flaunting of rules that are in place for security. If Richard found out about this, I think she would be fired on the spot. He fired the head of parking yesterday just for not being strict enough with his crew. He'd blow his stack over this.

At some point in the day, Jessica starts to rag on me about some information I didn't get that I should have gotten. (I can't recall what.) This is news to me. She does it in front of three bus drivers so I pull her to one side. "I am not stupid." I start. "I know you're not." she interrupts. "I am not stupid." I say again, "If you want something, ask for it and I will do it. If you don't ask, do not come at me because I don't have it." I am angry and she knows it. "I was not coming at you." she says. "I am sick of things changing from moment to moment and having no consistency in what is required. When you decide what it is you want, you let me know, and I will do it. Alright?" She starts yammering on about how everything is changing for her as well and she can't do anything about it. "Well until whoever decides how it's going to go, I will keep on doing what I am doing and you can let me know." I say and then walk away.

And speaking of changes and of Richard; at one point I am part way up the road, signaling to a bus just arriving to come up and park. But he continues to drive straight ahead instead of coming towards me. Then I see someone kick cones out of his way so he can drive into the gravel lot. What the.....?? I run down the road and see Richard waving the bus into the lot. Once the bus, and the five behind him, are parked in the lot, I ask what's going on. Because now I have two of my buses trapped behind WOP buses. I am less than thrilled, to put it mildly. But this is the big kahuna so I have to be diplomatic. He says that there's no point in clogging up the road with all of the drivers, it's almost full. And they can't be circling around the block. Really? I had just sent four of them to circle. I ask why, then, were we told that they could and would, when we were in training. He says it's changed and they won't be circling. Man. I am so sick of the constant changes. He goes on about how he once, back in the States, had 20 buses lined up like this and how he just pointed and gestured when they needed to move and it was fine. Huh? What has that to do with this situation? I am done to the death with being micro managed. If you want to do my job, have at it and I will go sit in the trailer out of the rain where it's warm and I can give my back and legs a break. But if I am supposed to be doing this, then let me do it. And if you wanted things to work your way, then where the H, E, double hockey sticks were you on my first day here to train me properly instead of my being handed a clipboard and radio and told to get out there and do it? I have spent hours both on and off the job trying to figure out how to make this all work. I finally have a system that seems to be doing alright and then it gets kicked aside. Just like that. I am so done.

I never get to speak to a bus driver all day, other than Guy in the morning when I give him my phone number and days off so I can play tour guide for him AND the other bus driver who showed up right after him. Safety in numbers. Then he won't get the idea that I am caving on my 'no married men' rule. Oh, I did manage to talk to 'George Clooney' as he was parked in the lower line-up. I told him that I showed his photo to my friends and all of their jaws dropped. He laughed. I told him about the comment - George Clooney with an accent and he throws his head back and laughs... he loves it.

I only manage to grab one 15 minute break all day. By the time the last bus leaves, I am in agony. My back is killing me, and not in the usual place. It's right across my upper back and extends into my rib cage. This is a pain I only get when hunched over my binder all day at work (in film), thus I now use a music stand to hold it higher. When I head inside to take off my gear, I get the overwhelming urge to vomit. I run around to the back of the trailer to do it away from where anyone walks, and then fight it back. I will do anything not to vomit and I manage to fight back the bile and not throw up.

When I get home, I try to eat a little dinner but feel nauseated again and can't eat. I call Shawn to fill him in on some changes we have made to how we stage the buses to avoid the shmoz we had yesterday. From now on WOP buses go to the left only, and we will park them in two rows at the top. Our buses, to WSC, will go to the right and into the bays, snaking down the right side of the road. The workforce buses will go straight into the gravel parking lot. He says I sound tired. I tell him I think I am coming down with the flu. He gives me the recipe for a concoction he learned about while teaching in China. You take a can of coke, and bring it to the boil on the stove with a golf ball sized piece of ginger finely ground into it. Then you pour it into a mug and add the juice of a lemon and a tablespoon of honey. Drink it down half an hour before going to bed.

I find all of the ingredients in the house and cook it up. At first it doesn't taste too bad, it just has a bit of a bite. But as I get farther and farther down the mug, it starts to taste awful. I guess the ginger is getting stronger. I am worried I will just bring it all back up, and I almost do but fight it down. I fall into bed, completely exhausted and feeling like I've been hit by a bus; no pun intended. I sleep like a log and wake up feeling much better. I think it must have been food poisoning from the horrible half of an egg sandwich I ate at work yesterday. We are provided with a sandwich a day made by the same caterers that make food for Air Canada. It is the most dreadful food I have ever had and have stopped eating it. Except for yesterday. I was so hungry and the egg salad didn't look so bad, even though there was no butter - as usual - on the bread and no mayo. It was a bit dry, and when I kept coming across chewy bits the consistency of cooked chicken breast, I threw out what was left. I should never have touched it.

(I found the picture of the tee-shirt after I came up with the title of this post and was searching the internet for a photo to use as I had no time to take pictures today!)

WHAT A DAY!!!!

I got four hours sleep last night. And we have our first group of spectators to load today, meaning 40 buses more than usual. Not a good combo, I am thinking.

My van gives me a lot of trouble on the drive in today and I ponder how the resulting rise in my pulse, and blood pressure - I am sure, and the tightening in my chest along with the current of stress I feel run through my body can't be good for me. Usually if I feel all of that together once a month, that's a lot. Now I am feeling it almost daily. If this van dies on me on the freeway at 3:30 a.m. I will be beside myself. I do have BCAA now, so that is some comfort. But to be late for work is a dreadful thought. To be without a car means I will probably have to quit as there is no public transportation at this hour.

I make it there and get suited up in the usual reflective vest. I grab two flashlight wands along with my clipboard and walkie. Jessica suggests I take two walkies so I can monitor what is going on over at WOP and hear when they are sending us their overflow buses. I hope I can keep the two straight and not talk on their frequency when meaning to talk to my crew. I find out that they have two events they are loading for today and so will have over 70 buses go through. It doesn't occur to me at that moment that, again, I have been given misinformation. I will find out in a few hours that their buses will not be long gone by the time ours arrive, and the result will be a massive cluster. Blissfully unaware of this fact, I head out to greet our first bus driver.

It's Guy. The French Canadian one who is sweet on me. He tries to kiss me on the lips instead of the cheeks this morning and so I pull away and tell him no. He tries to grab me back into a hug and says he will just kiss my cheeks but I tell him "Too bad. You blew it." He pouts.

All too soon, the droves of buses from WOP start to pull into our lot and I get busy getting them parked up in the top lot and down the roadway to the right, to leave the left side for our workforce buses. I am supposed to start having five crew as of today. I have three. And only one, Shawn, is a self-starter. Soon I won't even have him as he is going to be the alternate supervisor so will work on my days off (the one Angus One hired barely speaks English and didn't show up for her first day of work. Awesome job A-One. Yet again). That's good and bad. Good because we have worked out a system together and now he will be able to maintain that on my days off so that the bus drivers and workforce will have some continuity and won't get confused. Or at least that's how it is supposed to work out, but with changes and misinformation happening constantly it is difficult to ensure any sort of consistency. Bad because I have no idea who I will put in his position. He is down on the roadway determining whether the bus coming at him next is our workforce bus, WOP overflow bus, or our spectator bus and then place it in the correct lane. It's dark out. It's raining hard. When the bus turns in, it's lights blind you so you can't read the small sign in the window - when they have a sign. They ran out down at the ever incompetent depot, so not all have them. It's a difficult job but he handles it without a hitch and so I can focus my attention elsewhere. I put one guy at the entrance to direct buses up the road, and the other at the top parking lot to park them. I have the driver log clipboard and gather information from each of our bus drivers. I don't have to bother getting info from WOP's and that's a good thing. Until I get a radio call from Jessica telling me I need to get it. I radio back and ask why I need to do that, it's WOP's job. She changes her mind and tells me just to get the bus number. It's one more thing to add to my list but at least it's just the number I need.

It's raining hard and my paper is disintegrating, despite the plastic sheet over it, and it's difficult to write. My jacket is proving not to be waterproof as I am starting to feel damp on my arms. My polar fleece gloves are soaked through. I spied some pretty skookum gloves on Doug, Richard (the big boss from Florida), and a few others the other day. They are black and bright orange with reflective strips on the backs. Why are people who are indoors at a desk job wearing those gloves while those of us outside, in the dark, directing traffic haven't been given them? Next time I see Doug, I ask him just that. He seems embarrassed a bit and says he has more in his office and will see that we get a pair each. As it should be. So far I haven't seen any come our way.

Buses for workforce have a set schedule that won't change for the entire time we are here. They arrive, or should, at half past the hour but they often arrive way too early and sometimes three hours worth at once. This is a dispatch issue. We have one that departs at 4:50, four at 5:50 (but we only ever send one to Whistler and the other three go back to the depot as we don't have that many passengers), one at 6:50, 8:50, 10:50 and 11:50. On the schedule it shows that we should be moving anywhere from 150 to 450 workforce daily. I think the most we have moved in a day is 50. We have sent buses up with one person aboard. And these Olympics are supposed to be green. Right.

I send Shawn on his break. With a Oh Henry Easter egg. I bought one for each of my team for doing such a great job yesterday.

The spectators who like to be super early have started to arrive and are waiting up top. I am still parking WOP overflow buses when our buses for the spectators start to arrive. I pull them over into the gravel parking lot as they are an hour early and the lanes up to the loading zone is blocked with WOP buses. I radio Jessica and tell her that we are starting to get WSC buses and so need to stop taking WOP's. She radios back that we have to take them. I ask her what happened to the 'circle them around the block' plan if we don't have room. She tells me that we need to bring them in and park them. They are coming in by the droves. I now have them in both lanes going up to the top, meaning that if I can't clear them before my next workforce bus arrives, I have nowhere to put him. I am super frustrated. This was not supposed to happen. I radio over to WOP and tell them I have no more room for their buses. We have over 30 of them parked here. It's a nightmare that was never. supposed. to. happen.

I am working on getting the right hand lane cleared so that I can bring up our buses when I hear a bus start up behind me. I turn around and it's one of our spectator coaches and he's starting to pull forward. I stop him and walk over to his window to ask what he's doing. He ignores me. I knock on the window and motion for him to roll it down. He does. "It's time for me to go load." he says. "I don't have the way clear for you yet. I need you to wait here." He rolls up his window and pulls out. I am pissed. I radio Jessica, who is up top with the loading crew, getting prepared. "I have a sliding center bus who is getting in the line. I tried to hold him back but he thinks he knows best." I say. As I watch him go up the road to get stuck behind WOP buses I hear more buses start up. The other sliding center drivers try to follow him but I stop them and put cones down in their path. That should hold them until I figure out what to do next. After a few moments of deep pondering, I decide to let them go and get my guy to clear the WOP buses to the right up top first. That way we can start to get our buses into position for spectators.

I then radio my guy at the entrance and tell him to direct any WOP buses to the left and ours right from now on. He radios back that he 'copies' and then lets the very next bus, which is WSC, into the left lane. God help me. He's a doctor from Nigeria, here three months. Very smart - can't comprehend English so well. I get the bus backed up and moved to the right lane and then realize that, yes it's our bus but it's an accessible bus (can take wheelchairs) and it needs to go up on the left and park off to the side up top for when we need it. Mamud was right after all. So I get the driver to back up again and put him in the WOP line up. Once he's stopped, I go up to him and apologize profusely and beg his understanding that it's our first day with all of these buses. He is really nice and is very understanding.

Eventually I get the right lane cleared so that my buses can get through. We pull our workforce buses into the gravel parking lot until I can get the left lane clear for them. It's semi-organized mayhem for the next few hours until we finally stop getting WOP buses. Then all goes like clockwork. I hate, hate, HATE that we have to take their overflow. They should have to deal with it themselves as it screws us up something terrible. And so much for our schedule never overlapping with theirs. I have to work out a solution to this before it happens again.

Shawn comes back from break and I go up top to start taking information from the spectator drivers. Buses are parked and the drivers are out, socializing. It makes it murder to get all of their information as I have to locate each driver in the order in which they are lined up. They are each on a 15 minute schedule of four buses at a time. I am supposed to make sure they are parked in the order they are scheduled but that is about the last thing I care about at the moment. They show up when they show up. If they can't keep to their schedule and show up at the right time, that's not my problem - I figure. And with only three crew instead of five, I think we are doing a pretty damn good job of this.

Most of these drivers are French Canadian. A few are from Alberta and others from various parts of the states. It's amazing to observe how the drivers in each group have similar traits and the differences between the groups. The guys from Alberta are very cordial and polite. The guys from the states are loud, brash, and either very cranky or very funny. The French Canadians are flirty and very happy. I am having such fun with them all. And I make it my mission to get a smile out of the cranky Yanks whenever I can and most of the time I succeed. I walk up to one bus and the driver opens the door. I am shocked when I see his face. He is the image of George Clooney, or what George will look like in about 15 years. I start my spiel and can't help myself. "Bonjour! Ca va?" He replies, "Bonjour! Ca va bein!" "I just need to take some information from you. I will need to get it every day and I hope you won't mind having to repeat it all of the time as I won't be able to remember everyone's info. And do you know you look just like George Clooney? Do you mind if I take a look at your accreditation tag?" He looks confused. "George Clooney" I say slowly, "you look just like him. Don't you get told that all of the time?" His face lights up. "Ahhhh. Oui. George Clooney. Yes, yes. All of the time." "I thought so." I say and then proceed to get all the info I need.

Later, when I have a bit of a breather, I see him with some other drivers jabbering away in rapid-fire French and having a laugh. I walk up to them and ask him if I can take his photo. The other drivers want to know why I want only his photo. "Because he looks like George Clooney and my friends won't believe me unless I have this picture." I say. So he poses as the other guys rib him and I get a great shot. I thank him and he smiles. He has his hands in his pockets and I reach out and take his left one out and point to his empty ring finger. "Ahhhh!" I say, "No ring. So you are a free man?" He laughs and grabs my gloved hand and feels for a ring on my wedding finger. "Ah! No ring!" he says. "Nope." I reply and walk away as they all laugh.

The rest of the day goes well and we manage to get one thousand five hundred spectators loaded and on their way to watch the luge. We still have a couple of workforce buses to load. One is in position and Patrick, the driver I went to Whistler with, comes over and asks me to speak to a passenger. Apparently she is very upset and he wants me to hear her complaint and try to calm her down. I head over with him and we board the bus. There's about 15 people on board and they all look at me. No one says anything so I say "I hear someone's not happy. Who is that?" A blond woman, about 48, to my left pipes up. "That would be me." She explains that she was turned away from the usual gate she enters in and was sent way down to the other end of the campus. When she tried to park in the workforce parking lot, the attendant wouldn't let her down the road to it and was very rude to her. She ended up parking far away and now is concerned about having to walk all that way back in the dark when she returns tonight. Another woman pipes up and says that her husband dropped her off but that he wasn't allowed into the workforce parking area either and now he has no idea where he is to pick her up tonight. Another woman says pretty much the same thing and a guy in the back is ready to quit over having to park so far away that he had to run to make the bus. The first woman wants to know why the bus at night drops them off all the way up in the top lot anyway, when all of their cars are in the gravel lot at the bottom and the bus drives right past it and then they have to walk down in the dark. I tell them that I will do everything I can to resolve this issue. That I will try to make sure that from now on they get dropped off in the workforce lot, that they can park there tomorrow, and that the rude Impark attendant is reprimanded. I sympathize with them and say that there has been so much confusion and trial and error, but that everyone is doing their best to get it worked out to everyone's satisfaction. This seems to mollify them all and they thank me.

When that bus departs, I walk down to the trailer to speak with Maq, the head of the Impark crew. It's a totally different department and company running it than ours. Jessica intercepts me on the way and asks me why I need to talk to Maq. I tell her and she says to leave it to her to deal with. I reluctantly do so, not knowing if she will remember or if the information will get passed along accurately. I guess I will have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

Once all of our buses depart, including the workforce buses, I would love to have a meeting to talk about how the day went and issues we had and come up with some resolutions but that doesn't happen. Jessica does inform me that WOP was sending us all of their buses instead of using the space they have to stage them (they can load five and hold ten) because they were just too lazy to bring them in to hold them. I am ticked of to hear this and tell her that it is totally unacceptable and that it can't happen anymore. She assures me that she will talk to Doug about it and that it will be dealt with. I hope so because I don't know if I can deal with a day like today over and over again. I am not getting paid enough for that level of stress.

I go to sign out and return all of my equipment, and I check tomorrows schedule. I have two people scheduled to come in and one of them isn't Shawn. I have no idea how I am supposed to manage all those buses with just two crew. I feel like quitting.

FIELD TRIP

I got up at 3 a.m. to drive into work. It's my day off.

So why would I do that? Because the driver of the first bus that leaves in the morning offered me a trip up to Whistler. I haven't been up there for about 7 years, and so haven't seen the new highway. I also want to see what changes have been made for the Olympics. I want to drive the route up there to see the drop-off points for the workforce crew, the order they are in, how far apart they are, and other details so that I can be better informed when I am asked questions by the workforce because, so far, I have been able to answer hardly any.

My car gives me a lot of trouble on the way in. Ever since I had the new alternator installed, as soon as it warms up it starts to feel like it will stall, even when on the highway going 100km per hour. It usually only lasts five minutes or so then all is fine for the rest of the trip. This time it starts almost straight away and doesn't stop for most of the drive in. It's stressing me out hugely as I just can't afford to get it fixed and I don't want to miss any work.

I get there alright and the bus is pulling up to it's spot as I get out of my van. We leave about ten minutes later with only one other passenger, a woman in her late 50's - I would guess - who is a RN and applied to volunteer with the medical department but is working in print media. Go figure.

It's dark the whole drive up, but the driver - Patrick - gives a running commentary on the points of interest along the way. I listen attentively and it's a good thing because later I will need to remember what he's saying but I don't know that right now.

It's about a two hour trip and it's still dark when we arrive. Patric takes our passenger to the last stop. As we turn into the road that runs along the back of the new part of Whistler village, the trees lining the road are completely lit up with tiny blue LED lights and it looks like a fairy land. I try to take a photo but it doesn't turn out. I need to be on a tripod or at least leaning the camera against a solid object that isn't moving.

Once we drop off our passenger at the Whistler Village stop, we head back where we came from but this time Patrick turns into the other three stops; the media center, Whistler Creekside, and the last one, the Athlete's Village. Only we can't see the village because it's behind a bank of trees but there's a huge tent set up behind a security checkpoint. The buses for the athletes must drive into the tent and stop where bomb sniffing dogs and their handlers will go over each vehicle with a fine tooth comb. Once cleared, then they can continue on to pick up the athletes and transport them to their venue.

On the way back down the highway the sun is rising and the Tantalus Mountain Range is lit up pink. Patrick pulls over to a lookout point so I can get out and take some pictures. While we are there, an RCMP SUV pulls up to check on us. Apparently, any bus or vehicle that stops they come over to check out now that all security is beefed up for the games. There are RCMP all over the place. Even one on every street corner.








When we stop later for a doughnut and hot chocolate at Tim Horton's, there are at least 20 RCMP in there and I joke with them about the stereotype of cops and doughnut shops is true. We ask where they are from. Some are from Langley, some are from Ontario, and others from Alberta.

Patrick told us on the way up that there is a pod of whales in Howe Sound at the moment so now I am on the lookout for them. I spot something in the water far below and watch it for a bit but it doesn't move so I assume it's a log. I mention it to Patrick and he looks over and says that it is a whale. What I thought was a branch is it's fin. I am squinting at it, trying to make it out when suddenly it disappears under the water. Yep. A whale. We also see a few bald eagles in the trees at the side of the road near a small river. Apparently there have been a few black bears on the sandbar just up a short way from the bridge we drive over but there aren't any around today.

I ask Patrick about the trouble I am having with my car and he thinks it might be something as simple as low transmission fluid. I tell him I just had the oil changed and asked them to check all of the fluid levels and specifically that one and they said it was fine. But he tells me that unless they checked while the vehicle was running and in drive, you can't tell if it's low. Well I know they didn't do that as I was sitting in the car the whole time. So I need to do that as soon as I can.

When we get back to BCIT, Olga joins us and we turn around to make the trip back up to Whistler with a new group - three women and one young man. This time we are going to Whistler Olympic Park which is on the south side about thirteen miles from Whistler Village. It is full daylight now as it is 10 a.m. and the sky is blue with a few clouds. As we drive along, Patrick tells me that I will now give the guided tour that he gave me earlier. So I try to recall everything he said and remember most of it as we pass the mine at Britannia Beach, which used to be the largest copper mine in the British Commonwealth, and as well mined some gold, and is now a museum; Shannon Falls, the second highest waterfall in North America (or so Patrick said but when I check later at home, it's the third highest falls in B.C.); and The Stawamus Chief, the second largest rock and the largest granite rock-face in North America (or so said my ex).

It's a beautiful drive up in the daylight but so painfully free of any snow, at all, anywhere but on the highest peaks. Usually at this time of year, the snow is piled ten feet high at the side of the road where the plows have cleared it off. I know it's nothing we can do anything about, but it's kind of embarrassing. The whole world will be watching and there's no snow. In fact, I heard on the news yesterday that it's the warmest January on record since they started keeping records. There isn't any snow at the side of the road until we get to Whistler proper and then it's not anywhere close to what is normal.

We turn off at the road to WOP, the acronym we use all the time at BCIT, and before too long we pull into the large parking lot. There's another issue with the warm weather. A few of the huge areas they cleared for parking is so soft and wet, the buses get stuck. This is because they fully expected the ground to be frozen, as it should be in January. So now they are frantically trucking in gravel to fill and firm the soil in the last few days before the games start. So between trucking in gravel, and trucking in snow from Manning Park (a five hour trip, one way) to Cypress and then heli-lifting it to the runs, we must be going seriously over budget even more than anticipated. It's not cheap to rent those massive helicopters day in and day out. It's a nightmare, really. There's no other word for it.

There's a group of bus drivers just arrived on two buses along with the big boss from our post down at BCIT. He's brought a bunch of out-of-town divers up to learn the route and how the drop off and pick up will work in this huge lot. He is surprised to see me step off the bus and seems impressed that I would take a day off to come up here and learn the route.



When we head back I get a good look at the Peak to Peak Gondola that connects Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. It's really, really high up. My daughter rode it with her husband a few weeks ago and she said that when she looked down, she was terrified as they were hundreds of feet in the air. It looks terrifying from way down here. But I'd like to come back and ride it some day.

ON THE BUSES

In bed by 6 p.m. with the alarm set for 2:30 a.m.  I have a hard time falling off to sleep but finally manage it with the aid of a humidifier and my Ocean Wave sounds on my iPod.  I wake up every hour or two though until the alarm finally goes off.

I dress in my Olympic togs and am out the door right on time at 3:15 a.m.  There's no traffic at all on the roads and all of the lights are green for me.  I zip down the freeway and pull into the parking lot for the workers right on time at 3:45.  That gives me 15 minutes before my shift starts to find out exactly what it is I am supposed to do.  I head inside the new-looking construction trailer that will be the transportation hub for the Whistler Sliding Center (WSC) office for the next three weeks.

The girl that is my manager introduces herself as Jessica.  She seems very upbeat and jolly and I am guessing in her late 20's or very early 30's.  She tells us right away that she is from the states and that her husband travels all over the world in a rock band.  She then attempts to give us some instructions but it becomes apparent almost right away that she has no idea what she is talking about and it seems that I might know more than she does.  I can't figure out how that can be but it turns out, she just got here yesterday - from the states - and hasn't had any training.  She did, however, get an orientation bus ride yesterday.... up to Whistler!  Why she would need to go up there when she, nor any of us,  will ever have to go there for the job is beyond me.  So as she stumbles around in her thought patterns, guessing at answers to our questions and seeming to make most of it up as she goes along, I try to make sense of it.  And this will prove to be the case as the day progresses and we keep getting conflicting directions and answers.  The one thing that is clear, is that one of my team's responsibilities is to get information from each bus and driver as they arrive and line up.  Stuff like the VANOC bus number, driver name and cell phone number, time scheduled to arrive and the time it actually arrived.

The other supervisor, who I will work closely with, is Olga, a Russian woman in her early 30's who's title is 'Systems Supervisor' - meaning she is in charge of loading the buses.  She has to check that each workforce member has his or her accreditation (the giant tag around the neck) and is at the correct bus hub.  There is another hub across campus that goes to Whistler Olympic Park (WOP) and we must be sure that is not where they should be.  It ends up that we get buses that belong over there, not just people.  Everyone is a bit confused, to say the least, on this first day.  It's a good thing we are transporting workforce only for the first week and a half so that we can get used to this before we have to deal with hundreds of spectators a day on top of workforce.  

I have three crew to supervise this morning; Nicole, George and Teck.  Nicole and George are young.  George is fresh from Germany.  Teck is a bit older and is Asian.  They suit up in the traffic vests and I grab two flashlight wands for Teck and two for George.  I hand the clipboard to Nicole and we head outside into the drizzling rain.  I give the three of them a quick lesson on the way to signal with the wands and then get a chance to show them as the first bus arrives.  I wave the driver in and then to the right with the wands and send Teck running up the road to help get him parked.   I leave George at the entrance to bring in other buses scheduled to arrive soon and take Nicole up to the bus to collect the information we need.   Nicole watches as I do this first bus and then I hand off the clipboard to her to continue with the task as the other buses arrive.

There's a constant flurry of instructions coming over the radio for Olga and me from Jessica back in the trailer.  A lot of it contradicts something she has said previously and I am finding it very frustrating.  It seems that nothing has been planned out thoroughly; it's more a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of thing and a lot of it is left up to us supervisors to figure out.  And there's a lot of logistical things to figure out.  But it's fun and the bus drivers are great.  They are very flirty and I will get a proposal before the day is out.  From a seventy-one year old driver who just celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.  When I remind him that he's been married for fifty years, he laughs and tells me, in his southern drawl, that she's three thousand miles away so it's okay.  He's a hoot.

The first four or five drivers that come in are locals whose regular route is to Whistler so they are old hats and very confident of their jobs.  Unfortunately, we find out at the end of our shift that they thought they only had to go to one stop and so blew by about three others that they had workforce to let off at.  WOP only drops off at WOP.  Our hub, however, not only drops of at the Sliding Center, but at several others as well.  No one bothered to tell the drivers that.  When the passengers tried to tell them they should have stopped to let them off, they said "Oh no.  We just go to WSC." we find out the next morning from one of the workers.  We are not sure if Olivia should have told the drivers where they were dropping off but she makes a note to do that from now on.  It's that sort of thing that we are figuring out as we go along for not only today but for the next two days as well.

Dispatch has sent us all of our mornings buses by 5 a.m.  But they go out at 4:50, 5:50, 6:50, 8:50, 10:50 and 11:50.  The last two guys are not happy at all.  They have a long time to sit around and they got up at 2 a.m. to be here.  Also, they were thoroughly trained on the Lonsdale Key to Cypress Bowl run.  So they know exactly how to get from point A to point B over there.  They have NO idea how to get to Whistler from here, as they're from Altlanta.  Chalk up the first big blunder of many, in the next three days, by Dispatch.

The games purport to be green.  Our first bus (and they are all tour buses that seat 55 passengers) leaves with one passenger.  The second bus leaves with two.  The third leaves with six.  The fourth with four.  The fifth with eight.  The sixth with two.  Yep.  That's right.  In fact, the numbers on the schedule show that only a couple of buses were to leave with that few.  We actually have three buses that are scheduled to leave at 5:50 and there should be 130 passengers between them.  But for some reason we just aren't getting those numbers.  Most of these workers are volunteer.  I am wondering if, now they have their pretty uniforms, they have what they signed up for and don't plan to show up at all. 

It's really cold outside at night so we take turns going into the trailer to warm up.  But that's almost worse than just staying outside because once you get toasty warm and come back outside, it feels twice as cold.  I decide to stay outside unless I have to go in for a work related issue.

Nicole goes to use the bathroom.  One of three port-a-potties.  She comes back complaining that it's too dark in their to see where anything is.  We need lights inside or something to light it up until the sun rises.  Which it eventually does and is nice and sunny and warm as soon as it rises above the trees.

We are released at noon to go home, even though my hours are until 2 p.m. because there's just nothing to do now the last bus has left.  We still get paid for a full 10 hours so I am happy to leave if that's what they want.

On day two, it's rainig a lot in the morning but I stay pretty dry in my skookum jacket and snow pants.  Even my polar fleece gloves seem to repel the rain.  I am with one less crew member today as Teck was told not to come in as we really don't need four of us with so few buses coming in.  My big issue today is that there is BCIT traffic using the road we are staging the buses on, to get from the upper area to the lower area of the campus.  Even though I have signaled for them to slow down, they rarely do.  I go into the trailer and talk to the parking supervisor, Dave, about how we can make this road safer for my crew and the passengers and he radios his guys stationed at the top and bottom of the road to make sure to signal for the cars to slow.  It doesn't help.  When one guy speeds up after being signaled by a parking attendant, I step out and signal for him to stop.  He does for a second or two, and I signal with large gestures for him to slow.  He floors it around me and up the hill past my crew and some passengers.   I am furious.  I guess Jessica saw me because she calls me on my walkie and tells me that in no way shape or form am I to stop the cars.  I radio back and tell her I understand the rule but if I feel my crew or myself is in danger I WILL stop the cars.  She tells me I can't.  I repeat what I said.   About an hour later I am standing at the side of the road, watching for a bus to arrive.  I have my hood up because of the rain.  Suddenly there is a truck passing me from behind.  I never heard him until he was right beside me and it made me jump almost out of my skin.  Not two minutes later, one of my crew and one of Olga's is coming down the hill, hoods up, and a truck comes right up behind them and they don't hear it.  They continue to stroll down the road until I yell, "Watch your backs, a truck." and they jump off to the side.  They are both a bit rattled and tell me they never heard a thing.  That's it.  I have had enough of this and so I go into the trailer and tell Dave that we have to do something about the safety issue of this road.   He decides that, although we are not supposed to, he is going to cone off the road at the top and bottom, and his guys will turn cars back.  Once that is done, the stress goes right out of my day and I can concentrate on other issues.

The rain tapers off but there's no sunshine today as the clouds are thick overhead, so we stay cold pretty much the whole day.

We have more passengers today, but still nothing like the numbers we have on our schedule.    And I get to go home early again.  I could get used to this.

On morning three I get there at 3:45 to see two buses in the parking lot beside the trailer.  It's meant for workforce vehicles.  I go into the trailer and find out that one bus was here overnight and the driver slept in his bus.   Strange.  Olga and I are also told that the schedule has been changed.  Instead of leaving at 50 minutes past the hour, they will now leave at half-past.  So 20 minutes early.  We soon find out that it seems no one bothered to pass this information on to the workforce members and they are not arriving in time for the change so the bus leaves without them.  They are unhappy, to say the least.  This is typical of everything I have experienced so far with these games.  The left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing most of the time.

Shawn and Mamud have replaced Nicole and George today.  So I have to train them with the light wands and the radio.  They are super smart and get it right away.  Turns out Shawn is some CEO of a company and Mamud is a doctor from Nigeria.  They are here just for the experience of working at the Olympics.  It's not the first time I have felt that the people who have applied to work at these games are not being utilized to their full abilities.  Olga speaks fluent Russian, for petes sakes.  Why is she moving passengers onto buses?  Shouldn't she be the guest services for the Russian delegation, at the very least?  Or maybe translator?  I just shake my head.  I know I should be doing something more than moving buses about, that's for sure.

We have a lot more passengers today.  Still not the numbers on the schedule but a lot more than either of the days before.  It turns out that most of them showed up the other two days but had no idea where to go because there is no signage, waited around where they thought the bus would be, and then went home when it didn't show.  I don't know if there is supposed to be signs and they just haven't arrived yet.  None of the signs I know we need for the spectator boarding areas have arrived.  So maybe there's more that points the way to us for the workers that are coming as well.  I don't know.   But we have a lot of very frustrated people arriving out of breath, after having run over from some distant point, just to discover that their bus departed 20 minutes early today.  

Olivia gets the directive to keep the old scheduled time for the 10:50 and 11:50 buses.  It seems that the order to leave early was another screw up by Dispatch and should never have happened.  So all those people who left on the other buses plan to show up 20 minutes early tomorrow.  I am glad I am not working tomorrow because they are going to be furious.  I am sure of it.

I spend some time today writing out everything I have worked out for my crew.  I have numbered each position, written down a description of that position's duties, and worked out a solution to a huge problem of how to park buses that may need to get out before the others ahead of them, including an 'accessible' bus - for wheelchair bound people.   We only get a couple of those a day, once the spectators start to arrive, and so I had to come up with a way to set it aside while dealing with our other buses  AND overflow buses from WOP which are supposed to park in our area.  This has been a nightmare for me to try to figure out and today I tell Jessica that I don't believe we can accommodate them.  They will have to stick with the original plan, which was for them to circle the block until there IS room over there.  Otherwise it's a logistical nightmare.  I have no idea, when the bus pulls into the lot, whether he is ours or theirs and thus where to put him.  Once he's parked in a line, others will come up behind and then he can't be moved.  If we have two lines, one ours and one theirs,  and take up the whole narrow road, I can't get the accessible bus through.  And how do I know which line to put which bus in anyway because, as I said, I can't tell when they pull in, who's they are.  So I don't want WOP buses in our lot.  I hope she can work that out.

It was very cold this morning when I got out to my car; I had to scrape a thin layer of ice off of the windows.  It is by far the coldest morning we've had of the three.  Despite having added a turtle neck sweater to my three layers of Olympic togs, I am freezing cold.  I spend a lot more time in the trailer today.  But eventually the sun comes up and it gets nice and warm again.

Olga and I let our crew go early again but we stay behind to get into a golf cart with Jessica and tour the top lot where we will load spectators and suss out the area and potential issues.  We come up with positions for each of Olga's crew and work through a few other kinks.  We sign out at just after 2:00 p.m. and I am ready for my four days off.

As I write this blog, my phone rings.  It's Jessica.  Tomorrow's staging supervisor, who hasn't worked yet, just called to say she won't be coming in.  Can I come in?  I say yes.  So no day off for me just yet.  And tomorrow is going to be 'fun'.  The parking lot is used by a church for overflow parking and hundreds of cars will be using the road we blocked off for the past couple of days.  Oh joy!!  But the parking lot attendants will use it as practice for the flood of vehicles we expect to get once spectators arrive and I am glad for the extra hours.  It turns out that with my new schedule of four days on and four off, all but one week I will only get 30 hours.  That coupled with the pay reduction, I won't be making anywhere near what I first thought I would when I was hired by the agency back in October.

Olga With Dan, One of Her Crew

Post Script: Can I just say how much I HATE the new Blogger and how it totally screws up where I want to place the pictures? I have fiddled around with this post for over an hour to try to get them right and I can't do it. I must leave it as is as I have to get to bed for my early rise tomorrow.