Past News Archive: May 2007

May 30, 2007

The last week of May & it's still a busy one for me.  Got a bit sick & work is becoming too much for me to handle alone.

Not too long ago, I went back into playing Ragnarok Online on the same private server before.  I'm not really into it again in terms of addiction or something along those lines.  I did it to cheese people off really.  I've been lurking around that place, especially in the forums for a long time & have been successful in hiding my identity from people.  I managed to tick off some of my old guild members there when I said that the guild is dead & should be dead.  I either role play pretty well where no one can recognize me or people have totally forgotten about me (not too likely from that looks of it).  I gave in using hidden messages.  It looks like they aren't too mad at me about it.  Oh well.

Again more crap from my job.  I'm starting to become more negative on what's going inside my company.  It seems my GM is plotting something.  Recently, our breakfast attendant couldn't do her job properly because of an injury she got.  I learned when I came back to start a new week of work that she was involved in an accident.  She got hit by a car when she was riding her bike.  She spent five hours in the hospital.  Initially, she didn't have much pain.  But it got worse of course.  Her right side is bruised & in pain.  Plus, she suffering from whiplash in her neck now.  What surprised me is how she went to work in that condition when the GM knew about the accident.  I heard when she tried to get some time off, the GM told her that if she did, she'll lose her job.  Personally, I found that unbelievable on what his response was.  I can understand that you need to find a replacement for her since we would be short a person, but saying that is too harsh.  The breakfast attendant couldn't stand it anymore & ask me to give her at least a day off.  I agreed & tried to convince the GM.  He accepted.  Now, I don't know what he's going to do next because of this.  For me, I want our injured breakfast attendant to get her job back.

In another case, I heard that one of the breakfast attendant/housekeeper is being abused by our GM.  There are some things I agree on the GM's view & some that I don't agree on.  Things that I agree on were how she was eating with the guests when she was suppose to be serving food to the guest during breakfast hours.  Also, when she was lectured, she slam a bottle on the floor & walked out of the room.  What I didn't accept was how he told her that her housekeeping cart was overloaded that made it look like a homeless person's cart.  I seen the cart before & I agree that it's a bit too much.  But saying it's like a homeless person to her isn't smart.  Also, there was a time where he made her cry & felt abused by him.  Now, this person is a old lady.  I don't know her age, but I'm assuming she's around or close to 60 as she has gray hair.  Plus, she has a teenage grandson.  Overall,  I want to see what his actions are before I do some harsh.  I do have a feeling that the union will stay based on the reactions & things I'm seeing at work.

Enough of this.  What has been updated?  For downloads, nothing major or exciting as I'm running out from the "vault".  Plus, my Yahoo! briefcase is running very low in space.  May need to find some space somewhere else.  Got Unendliche Melodie Special Disc up & it's just one character voice pack.  For reviews, got a complete anime review of Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto & a brief review of Seto no Hanayome.  Not much since I'm very beat.

Next month, probably more ranting than updates.

May 23, 2007

Last week, I got my income tax refund in the mail.  I thought it was processed a bit quick since I think my dad submitted to our accountant (a friend of my dad) very close to the submission deadline which was the end of April.  Seeing the refund, I was shocked to see how much I got back.  It was over $2,000!  I was expecting to pay for taxes or maybe get some small amount back.  But that amount was a shocker & didn't think it was possible to get.  Kudos to my accountant to manage to calculate that huge tax refund!

There's never enough stories about my workplace.  Not only do I hate working hotels bit by bit, but the most interesting stuff happens here.  One, one of the front desk agents that had been hired about a month & a half ago needs to go back to her homeland due to family emergencies.  Because of government issues here since she's only been to Canada for over half a year, the visa paperwork would take around 6 months to complete.  However, she thinks that she can shorten it to a month if things go smoothly.  Either way, she's out for the time being & overtime hell seems to be possible.  Personally, I want her back, but my GM may say something differently depending how long she will be gone for.  The front desk agent really wants to stay with us.

Another hell from work is a letter from the union.  The representative from the union sent a fax to our GM about some things that he hasn't done.  Basically not following some of the union rules, procedures, & requirements.  My GM may be furious when he comes back & start that petition to get the union out.  It's going to cause more weight on my position some more.  I'm really hating my job.

In anime news, there was quite a large number of licenses during Anime Central 2007 which occurred these past two weekends.  ADV Films picked up Magikano, Pumpkin Scissors, Welcome to the N.H.K., & Red Garden.  Excellent selection there.  For Media Blasters, they got Simoun.  For FUNimation, they got Black Blood Brothers.  I updated some of my reviews to reflect these license status changes.  This past weekend, ADV Films licensed another anime series which is called The Wallflower (aka Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge).

More updates this week.  Download released for this week is mystereet Fandisk.  Small stuff there.  For anime reviews, got Ah! My Goddess: Sorezore no Tsubasa TV specials & Nagasarete Airantou up.  Other than those, nothing else for this week.  Too tired & just finished a week of overtime.  Didn't managed to get all my work done too since I needed to cover some other people's work as well.

May 15, 2007

Work hell again!  One of our front desk agent at the hotel has left due to an emergency on her mother's side of the family.  Because of this, we are short on one person at the worse time.  She also told me that she plans to quit the job since she'll be out of the country.  She had this in mind already.  If she quits, I'll be working more overtime again like last year.  Deja vu!  I really hate my job.  But my general manager doesn't plan to get her back since her schedule requests isn't going to work.  Plus, she tends to swap shifts with others way too often.

Speaking about my job, may as well write about this.  At times, I get some people coming in or emailing resumes for a job.  Nothing unusual here.  When I ask them what position they are looking for, they tell me that they want something high up like supervisor or a manager position.  In other words, my position as assistant manager.  Kind of funny when they say that to me.  It's like telling me "I want your job" in a rude way directly.  Although they want these high jobs, I assume they don't know what those positions do & probably think about high pay or easy work.  That's the impression I get when I glance at their resumes.  What's worse is their writing presentation.  I had one with grammatical & spelling errors.  It was a nightmare.  With today's computers, word processors come with spell checkers now.  There's no excuse for having spelling errors all over with spell checkers.  I'm a lousy speller & it doesn't hurt to use that feature before submitting a cover letter or resume.  Grammatical errors can be forgiven, but large numbers of spelling mistakes aren't.

Another one is the resume itself.  Usually you want to make it easy to read.  A lot of resumes are done in point form.  The resume I got was a bedtime story.  When I got the resume from the person, all I saw was paragraphs.  It was more of a report than a resume.  Glancing at it, I don't think anyone would take the time to read it.  Usually in the objective area, you would write a sentence or two.  This guy wrote a freaking paragraph.  It had like seven or eight lines in it.  The job experience part was worse.  What looks like one job history entry was written in one large paragraph.  It was almost half a page!  Those two will definitively can't get a high job position with that kind of presentation.  The moral of the story: don't aim for something so high when you can't even write a proper basic resume or cover letter.  Also, don't go applying for those high positions when it's not even available.  You may end up telling someone that you want his/her job right in front of their faces!

As for my job, my general manager plans to run another evolution on me next week when he comes back from his out of town meeting.  He tells me that he wants to give me a raise.  Plus, I'll have more responsibilities in my position like taking care of the front.  Another one of them is removing the union.  He wants me to make a petition & have the staff to sign up to have the union leave.  I know there are some staff members that don't like the union because of the union fees we have to play twice a month & it having not much benefits.  Now, the union was brought it from an unknown staff member before I came to the hotel.  Nobody knows who did it.  Also, the union came in because of majority votes.  This is before people had some problems with them.  Now, I don't know if this petition will be a good move on my part since a lot of the staff like me & were very happy when I was promoted to assistant manager.  With me saying that I go against the union & if some of them still like it, I could be disliked.  Plus, if the union leaves & the general manager is able to do things that worsens us, I could make a bad move on my part.  I need to be careful even though I could decide to quit my job.

Updates?  Let's see.  I got a complete anime review of Kanon & Toragura! up.  Brief review of Kaibutsu Oujo (Monster Princess) & Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori as well.  I updated the Toys Planning 1/8 AIR Misuzu Kamio PVC Figurine review in the AIR section since I sold it away recently.  As for Downloads, put up the Chobits Accessories.  Minor stuff really.

Until then, hopefully some more stuff here next week.

May 8, 2007

Last week, I got my anime DVDs & J-pop CDs from the mail.  I also got my DJ Max Portable 2 poster which was packaged in a box with some Styrofoam peanuts for some strange reason.  It's small too.  Thought it was going to be bigger.  Plus, I got my Good Smile Company Death Note Kira & L's Handcuff Charm as well.  Going to wear that instead of the L's chair one now since it's more of a display item in my view.  That should be it for anime stuff for the time being.  The next ones are coming around next month & they should be coming in a bunch since most of them are pre-orders or waiting items to be in stock.

As of late, I'm still in the process of cleaning my closet once again.  It's such a long & slow process.  It's the boxes from my PVC figures that are taking the most space.  Also, I got a closet organizer in there that's eating the space.  Originally, my closet had just a wooden bar to hang my clothes & a wooden board on top.  The organizer made it worse in there now & I had it for many years.  When it was first installed, it was bad already.  May think about going back to the original format.  Never going to happen though.  Too much modification was done on the organizer since my closet is a bit smaller than average.

In anime news, Geneon has licensed The Story of Saiunkoku (aka Saiunkoku Monogatari).  First volume out on July, 24 on DVD.

This month, I plan to get some updates here once a week.  Cleaning out which ones haven't been put up yet & deciding which reviews to do that haven't been done yet.  In the Collectables section, got Kotobukiya 1/12 Multi-Material Mahoro-San & Sportsbike Statue in the Mahoromatic Maid section, ATELIER-SAI Neverland Heroines Collection Set in the Neverland section, & Kotobukiya Pia Carrot!! G.O. 1/8 PVC Figurine Ayano Kunugi in the Welcome to Pia Carrot!! G.O. section.  For anime reviews, I got Baldr Force EXE Resolution completed, Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion, & Love Get Chu.  Next week, probably some more stuff again; more or less from this week's.

May 1, 2007

New month & another archive to do.  Moved all the April 2007 news stuff into the Past News Archive section.

Something interesting when I got back to work for the start of the week.  The first front desk trainee that I was training got fired.  Apparently, I learned that she lost $200 from our cash drawer.  The information I heard was that there was a chance that she didn't post the charges correctly in our system or dropped it on her shift by accident.  This is what I learned from the night auditor first.  Then when I started checking people out, I see on one registration card about asking a guest if they gave us $200 or not.  So I asked the guest how much he paid us & he said $200 & some more due to him extending his stay.  Of course, I have to take his word since the "customer is always right".  I figured that I should do some investigating on my own as well in terms of looking at paperwork & physically hunting for the money.  Turns out that I didn't need to when my general manger came & told me what happened.

Basically, my manager came to the conclusion that the trainee stole the $200.  After looking at the paperwork, no mistakes were made.  Looking at the security camera videos, it gave a fairly valid conclusion.  The trainee's story was a couple who checked in gave her $200.  One of the couple was the man that I checked out & asked him about.  The trainee would later say that the couple reached over the counter & grabbed the money back.  Viewing the camera recording, there was no evidence about the grabbing.  Later on, a man would check in & pay $200 cash as well for his stay.  Before this time, the camera in the back office shows the trainee was in the process of counting the cash drawer & it's fully exposed.  After getting the $200, the trainee would later on put something in her bag without going to the cash drawer to drop the $200 there.  Because of the angle & video quality, it's hard to make out what she was putting in her bag.  However, the video would show nothing about putting $200 in the drawer in her reminder of the shift.  Although it's not hard evidence, it's close enough to show that she stole the money & tried to get away with it by talking to the night auditor & trying to adjust the books from this.  When my manager phoned her & tell her not to come in, she made a lot of claims about how the books were balance, all the training she took, etc.  He didn't tell her that she stole the money since the evidence isn't clear.  He only told her that the missing $200 was an issue & he'll forgive the fact that she's slow in terms of learning & working.  A couple of days later, the manager tells me to call her to pick up her cheque.  When I call her, she still goes about the missing $200.

Another problem with the trainee was the fact that she stole food.  In the past, the breakfast attendant told me about 4 mini cereal boxes go missing each day.  One time, the shuttle driver actually saw the trainee put 4 boxes into her bag without her knowing that he was watching.  I didn't have see this, but it did raise some suspicions on her.  I went as far as having the breakfast attendant checking after finishing breakfast & before she leaves work.  I even had to lock the room where the food is stored & me carrying the master key around.  I knew about this situation before the manager.  When the manager learned about this, he decided to overlook it since it wasn't too big of a deal.  Either way, the trainee got fired & the manager is deciding to look for another front desk agent.  The original part timer is now going to be full time & the "so-to-be-hired" front desk agent will be part time.  That is if the manager is going to look for one.  Personally, he should as I'm able to lose my marbles soon.

Other than the work part, not much to say these days since everything is mostly work or finding time to relax.  I'm actually still thinking how to clean out my room.  I've been saying that for so long, but end up doing it again & again.  Personally, I'm losing some interest in collecting anime figures due to space & the lack of them interesting me.  Plus, I've been trying to save up money for other stuff & for rainy emergency days.

In anime news, ADV Films shocked me by licensing AIR this past weekend.  They got both the TV & movie.  I assume they got the summer specials too.  The TV comes first with Vol.1 in August 2007 & the movie late 2007.  Personally, I would have like another company to get AIR instead since I hear a lot of bad things about ADV.  It will be the first series I would be getting from them.  I updated those anime reviews to reflect the licensing info.  Disney licensed Digimon Savers (will be called Digimon: Data Squad) & will be shown on Toon Disney in Fall 2007.

Looking at what I've stored away, I decided to put some updates from the Collectables section.  I didn't know that I haven't put these up yet.  Plus, I don't remember having some of those items.  Putted up a review of Good Smile Company Death Note L's Chair Charm in the newly opened Death Note section & EPOCH C-Works SkyLuv Project Love Hina #3 Shinobu Maehara in the Love Hina section.  I'll save the others for later.

I'll stop here for now.  Until then, I'll be looking to see what I haven't put up on this site yet.