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Richelieu
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Gatineau
Dec 2001
time: 00:30
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I had just started to learn C programming.
I still have nightmares about pointers.
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Zkribbler
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Los Angeles, CA, USA
Feb 1999
time: 21:30
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5 years ago, I was going through the want-ads looking for work. I'd been with the court for ten years as a "temporary employee," with lousy pay and lousy benefits. 
Then I said, #@&!*<@! it. If I just walk out of here, things will never get any better. Let's see if I can't get us unionized. What's the worst that they can do to me? Fire me?? Either way, I'm out of work.
I contacted a couple of unions and found one that was interested in having us join. Some other people joined in the organizing...which wasn't easy. People from my unit are scattered all over the county and no one knew each other. It took us about a year to get enough union cards to call for a vote. Then believe it or not, another six months for the negotiating committee to draw up a proposed contract (two Republicans, two Libertarians and a Democrat), a year to negotiate the actual contract (which didn't look anything like our proposal).
We just had our second year anniversary last month.
We managed to get the biggest raise in the history of the court given to non-managerial employees (although we're still the lowest paid in Southern California). Last fall I went on my first vacation is about 15 years.  This spring, we stopped the Court from closing for eight days and not paying us.
In March, I became President. Within two hours we got a call from one of our members who'd just found out the court had instituted a new cost-cutting policy of terminating people on their second-year anniversary and replacing them with new hires.  Of the seven people who've since come up on their 2-year anniversary, three quit for better paying jobs, and we've wangled promotions for the other four. 
We've gone through the grievance procedure on the court's policy, with the court ignoring all our arguments as to why this policy is a violation of our contract. So now we're going to arbitration. The court is really dragging its feet in choosing an arbitrator.
Yesterday, I picked up a retainer agreement from the best labor lawyer I know--who's agreed to represent us.  Let the games begin. 
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Inverse Icarus
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flying too low to the ground
May 2001
time: 00:30
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quote:
Originally posted by MrFun
Are there not any other Apolytoners who remember where they were five years ago in life? |
five years ago, i was 14, in 8th grade. this was when major life choices were made, when some of my friends started to do drugs and start down the path of failure. i essentially dropped the group of friends i hung out with and focused on newer friends.
i was in the advanced classes, before the advaced class group had finally clicked into acknowledgement of their gifts, ie, when geeks were geeks, and advanced kids were geeks nonetheless.
my father hit me back then, mostly for messing up on tests occasionally, but sometimes just because he was mad at his job, at my mom, and as he so eloquetly put it, "shit flows downhill."
this was the time in my life that i reached out to god, if you happened to read my self reflective essay thread a short while ago, and it took more than a year and a half before it ended. this was a major turning point in my life. i finally hit back when i was about 16. but i digress.
anyway, my father was alive then. i don't know which i would have preferred then... never mind, i do.
i ended up making friends with 3 kids in my neighborhood, and one a little distance away. when you are 14, across a major road is far away, even if it's only 3 blocks. most of the large scale hanging out (ie, all the kids in the neighbord playing manhunt) began to fade away. people were growing up, and forming cliques. suddenly the kid that rocked at kickball was too cool to play with us, suddenly the kid who loved to climb trees was sneaking booze from his parent's fridge, suddenly all my friends were something else.
i mowed lawns for 3 families on the block, and my own, to make a little money, which i saved because there's nothing to do in this goddamned town, especially when you have no car. the only things i remember actively spending money on were hotdogs from the hotdog stand, lunches at the local deli, and various games, such as Magic: The Gathering, etc.
I was playing civ, even then. i only had one friend who was into it, and another who could "bear" it. i believe i had a "gateway 2000" (seems dated, no?) @ 90 mhz, and i had an old IBM PS/2. the commodore was in the attic (still is).
back to the friends issue, one really sticks out in my memory: anthony (tony). i don't know why he sticks out, but he does. in the beginning, me and my new friends were just "using him" for his pool, hanging out with him just to guarantee a cool place on warm days. eventually we stopped being a55holes and began to like him.
i think this was actually 4 years ago, but my memory is hazy so i'll just say it was 5, i saw my first pair of boobs (she was 16) and kissed my first girl. this kiss was an act of truth or dare (you saw that comming, yes?) and the boobs were a strategy masterminded by yours truly. actually, i was just being an a55hole to this girl that hung out with us, calling her flat at every oppurtunity. you know, standard boy crushing behavior for the younger ones. anyway, one day she just got tired of yelling at me and whipped them out, right in front of me and tony. from that day forth i kept mocking her, saying she didn't have pubes.
the strategy only works once, i suppose.
overall: five years ago was a lump of dog shit, with some diamonds in there.
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Mercator
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Sorekara no Nanimo
Jan 1970
time: 06:30
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5 years ago I had just finished highschool and was about to start university.
Since then the few RL friends I had have disappeared, my parents have divorced, I now live with my mum and my younger sister, and for the past 1 to 2 years I've been struggling (well, not really, "running away from" is more like it) with my graduation thesis. I'm still shy, lazy and insecure, and I still don't have a job nor any money.
On the positive side, I'm more confident, I've gone to see a load of movies in the theatre (most on my own), I went to summer music festivals last two years (alone, again), and I'll probably go again this year.
My older sister settled in Sweden, got married last May, and is pregnant with her first kid (I just heard this monday, due next April).
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Alex
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Brasil
Mar 1999
time: 02:30
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quote:
Originally posted by FrustratedPoet
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Alex
now I'm on the verge of a divorce (but my wife doesn't know about that yet).
I was happier back then. |
Holy ****, dude. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope happier times are ahead for you. |
Yep. The funniest thing (or the saddest one, depending on your point of view) is that our marriage was doomed to fail since the very beginning. I got involved with another woman before we married, and my wife found out about it, and I came to the city where I'm living now but she didn't want to come here.
Then I begged (yep...) her to come and join me and said that we could make our relationship work out well, because we still loved each other. Guess what? I was wrong.
But happier times are ahead for me, definitely. I think that when I finally get divorced I will be happier, I won't have to carry on the load of a failed relationship with me. And she will be happier too, she'll be able to find someone who is more akin to her than I was, someone who will truly care for her, the way she deserves to be cared for.
I'll be fine. 
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13-08-2003 22:54
quite a shame. hope things will get better for you.
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