Last weekend I took another trip to the Safeway in Aldergrave. I have been known to have “interesting” things happen when at these sorts of places, and this was no exception. In fact, it was probably more frustrating than usual.
So I walk in the door. I look for one of those basket thingys (technical terminology is dizzying I realize). I have never gotten one of those carts, perhaps owing to a traumatic experience about 15 years ago, I cannot be sure. At any rate, I only needed to get a few items, and I was not interesting in juggling them all the time, so I needed a basket. There weren’t any.
I asked an employee who was standing next to the front door where I might find one. He looked around, said that they must all be with customers at the moment. Right, whatever. I decided that I could track one down on my own. I did – there was a stack of them next to one of the checkouts. However, when I tried to retrieve one, this lady started badgering me about budging in line. She said all kinds of things. Then she accused me of this while addressing the cashier – who told me I needed to go to the back of the line. Strangely enough this cashier was someone I went to high school with. Very difficult person to deal with at the best of times. A mood with more swings than a playground. IN a shallow attempt to make myself feel better I noted that she at least was fat and acne’d now. I tried to explain that I wasn’t jumping the line but I eventually decided that going to another line would be quite simply less frustrating as the crazy-line-lady was getting more belligerent. Someone needs to go back onto their medication!
So at the other lineup I found the baskets. The only problem was that this lady was letting her two demon spawn play in them at the moment. I asked if I could get in there to get a basket. She said : “but my kids are playing in it”!!! Apparently this meant that I could not utilize it for it INTENDED PURPOSE! Silently, and in my mind I was screaming and muttering…. This wasn’t exactly a textbook basket retrieval. Since there are now alternatives to Safeway in Aldergrave, I just decided to go and get as many items as I could comfortably carry and flee to another store for the rest. Thankfully, I didn’t even attempt to pay with my debit card, or I am sure that there would be a whole story there too!
Another thing of note at the Safeway was the someone had mutilated all the pizza shells. Strangely, this was the case at the other store as well. Aldergrave is not the best place to live, even though I have limited knowledge of this since I only lived there for 3 months over three years ago. A lot of whackos there, especially late at night.
I recently took great satisfaction in completing a survey that allowed me to completely vent as to what I thought about SFU. Perhaps this was magnified by the fact that I had just gone through he ordeal of an advisory appointment with the Biology department, and things did not start off well. First, I go into the office in the morning and ask who I might talk to in order to determine if I have all my courses:
“Well”, she said, “Mr. Medford (the advisor) won’t be back until the 15th of December”.
Me: Is there anyone else who can do it?
Advisory secretary: No.
Me: You see, I really need to know now because I want to know if I need another semester or not.
Advisory secretary: How many credits do you have?
Me: Don’t know exactly – around 140
Advisory secretary: Oh, you should be fine! (as if credit hour totals were all that mattered!!!! @*&!% !!!).
Then she turns away as if the conversation is over.
Me: “I really need to know about individual courses. Are you sure there isn’t anybody who is here that I could talk to before December”?
Advisory secretary: Well, I could give you an appointment with Mr. Medford this afternoon. Would that be all right?
I felt like yelling things but I didn’t.
This is a typical conversation with an SFU bureaucrat. This particular person has screwed me over before – because of her incompetence I have spent weeks trying to undo what I did in the wake of her advice. It is also a reason that I get a little bitter from time to time. Its very common up there. The actual appointment went quite well, and I got all the information I wanted despite their attempts to keep it from me.
So when I got hold of this survey I ran amok in the “do you have any further comments” section. I basically told them that academically this is a fine school. The problems I had were that students are frequently presented grossly inaccurate advice by those who are in charge of this information. These mistakes have cost me, by my estimation, thousands of dollars as well as a large amount of wasted time. My personal favorite was :” No, we don’t offer bursaries this semester” (a lie). Apparently though, this is ANY university, so I guess I can’t complain too loudly.
I cannot remember if I have pointed it out here before, but I am starting to hate the media even more than I used to. There are many reasons for this. One is the fact that they tend to report scientific discoveries in a sensationalistic and frequently misleading way. Someday I am going to publish a finding that the only way to cure cancer is to eat lawn clippings and wet newspapers. This will be reported as an exciting new “fact” in the media. Crap. The interesting thing here is that I have access to the very studies that they frequently talk about. What is reported in the media as : “bran flakes cure everything” will be mentioned in the study as something that needs future research, but with currently inconclusive results. This angers me, perhaps simply because I need to get a life, but I think it is because I like science and know something about it (it’s probably because of the degree in biology).
Another recent incident has to do with the recent American election. First they said that Gore had Florida, then he didn’t, then it was even, then Bush had it, now…… who knows. They (CNN among others) even declared Bush president. Can’t you just all sit back and wait until they count ALL the votes? At the very least this whole fiasco might finally teach Americans that YOUR vote counts too (and I don’t pretend that Canadians don’t need this lesson as well…).