My colleague needs a lot of help

Earlier this year, I trained a woman who was supposed to replace a writer. It turned out that this woman was equally as bad. Our manager decided to terminate the first writer's contract.

This second woman's birthday is three days after mine. Yet, we are so different on so many levels. I call her the fake Cancerian, as she does not express a whole lot of empathy towards anyone and doesn't exhibit any traditional Cancerian traits. Everything is also centred around here, which is not Cancerian in nature, either.

I noticed during training that she was not good with details. She followed steps 1 through 4 in a procedure, skip a few, then do steps 7, 9, and 12. I found her lack of following sequential steps to be odd.

My manager recently gave her a task to create a document from scratch. I would be supervising. 

She isn't the best communicator. When we had our first demo session on the application, I asked questions. She didn't.

When I looked at her first draft, it was incomplete. She was given a playground to create and delete items -- literally play around with the application in a safe environment. She never did that. She simply used the data that others had provided. 

I noted a typo in a screenshot and asked her to replace it. She couldn't create a new item to fix the typo. It was almost as if she was intimidated to explore.

She called a meeting with the software developer who provided the demo. He called a few other folks. She didn't ask any questions. It's her downfall.

I have provided constructive feedback on her first draft. I have yet to see her incorporate my changes. I don't get her. I don't know why she is reluctant to make the changes.

She just sent her second draft out. She claimed that she included all topics. I didn't see that. Neither did the developer.

Our manager revealed to team leads yesterday that there will be a staff reduction. She is the one who will be let go. It's mainly because she does a mediocre job with tasks and she has poor communication skills. She is also under contract.

I don't know when he will break the news to her that she will be out of a job. Perhaps she knows that her time with our department is coming to an end. She applied for a job with the company in Ottawa.

I know the hiring person. I hope that she seeks an account about this candidate from me or my manager. She will face the same issues with this writer as we are.

It's interesting that this post was not the one that I had intended to post. It is nice that I have this outlet to share some weirdness going on. It also motivates me to write here more frequently.

Wardrobe donations

On Sunday, I spent a bit of time looking at my wardrobe and picking out clothing that I want to donate. It was good. I have two bags of clothing and a couple of pairs of flip flops that I have never worn that will be donated.

I decided to get rid of a blue and white stripped shirt that the ex bought me years ago. I only wore it once. I don't know why I held onto it. I'm glad that I am getting rid of it and hope that someone will love it.

He also bought me a striped cardigan that same day. I still wear it to this day. I like it.

Even though I don't want anything to do with him, there are some gifts from him that I still have and use. They are practical and I like them.

I am continuing the wardrobe purge. The first step yesterday was good.

Good weekend and making friends in the dating scene

This weekend flew by. I had a great time catching up with a couple of friends who are here on vacation. I feel well-rested.

The Labour Day long weekend is coming up. I am spending most of it in my ex-guy's hometown. I was there a few weekends ago and I felt good.

Although I still have moments of sadness when I think of him and our relationship being over, I am good. I decided to put out an ad on Plenty of Fish. I have responses. I simply need to sit down and sift through them. So far, folks are nice, wanting to have coffee and chat. I'm good with that.

Baby steps into building a friendship and seeing where it'll take me. It feels like a major step, but it's a positive one for me.

Job interviews

A few weeks back, I decided to apply for a managerial job. Normally, I don't expect a response. I got one last week from a talent acquisition person.

I spoke to her on Monday. Everything seemed to check out fine. It was a good thirty-minute conversation.

Several hours later, she scheduled a second interview. I had that one on Thursday. 

Unfortunately, this person used Skype to talk to me. I could barely hear him. The connection was also bad, so I heard every other word.

Despite these technological challenges, I felt good about how I did. I was asked to submit writing samples. It's interesting trying to select samples from my past. It's nice that I have a decent portfolio after all these years. I have two from my past. Tomorrow, I will need to find something at work that I can submit.

This job is a step up for me. Considering that I have been leading a number of writers for a while and have been doing some of my manager's tasks these days, this job seemed like a good fit.

My commute time would be reduced a bit. I would be commuting to the west side of Toronto should I get this position.

I'm optimistic. I also don't mind if I don't get the position. It's nice to do interviews and get some practice.

New smartwatch with new syncing challenges

I recently went back into the world of smartwatches.

For over a year, I had a Pebble Time Round watch. It's a smartwatch that looks like a regular watch. I loved that it would keep track of my steps.

Sadly, Pebble went away. Fitbit bought the company. The app that used to count my steps died. So, I had to go back and use my Fitbit.

Don't get me wrong. I love my Fitbit Alta. However, I hate tapping the screen to figure out what time it is or how many steps I have taken. It's not the most sensitive screen. I would sooner have a button to cycle through the data.

It was one of those fluky moments. I was in my guy's neck of the woods. I decided to visit Fossil at one of the local malls. I have wallets, jewellery, and cell phone cases from that store. I never really looked at watches.

The young saleswoman showed me the hybrid smartwatches. They look like regular, classy watches, but they are indeed smartwatches that sync to your phone through an app. Instead of charging the watch, it runs on a battery. She gave me a thorough demo of both the watch on her wrist and the app that she had on her phone.

I loved the watch that the woman had on. I loved the concept. I even had one that I had in mind to purchase, but had to think about it.

I am such a geek. I sat in the mall and researched this watch. Was there a way to sync the steps over to my corporate health app? I need to have this feature, as you earn cash incentives for exercising with my company.

Sure enough, I figured out that I could get it to work. So, a couple of weeks ago, I bought my hybrid smartwatch in rose gold. It's nice. I love it. My guy smiled at me when I first told him about it. He loves when I get excited over technology.

The trick is that the Fossil Q app needs to sync with the Up by Jawbone app first. My company uses the Virgin Pulse app for our health program, which Up links to.

I couldn't get any of my steps to sync properly from Q to Up. I contacted Fossil support. It is slow, but they are friendly.

I am a decent troubleshooter. I decided to unlink and link Up from my Q app first. I then went into the Up app and removed the link to Virgin Pulse. Finally, I went into my Virgin Pulse app, disconnected and reconnected the link to my Up account.

The last step was verifying that my Up app had the Virgin Pulse app links again. It was.

Guess what? All of these actions got my steps to sync properly. Go, me! I still have yet to hear from the support guy.

The best part of this exercise is that I do not have to wear my watch and my Fitbit Alta on each wrist.

Switching fitness trackers and enticing my guy to exercise for money

A few weeks ago, I noticed that my Pebble watch was not recording my steps correctly. The app that helped track my steps was not working properly.

Fitbit bought Pebble. All support for Pebble pretty much disappeared.

I love my Pebble watch, but I needed to track my steps. I went back to my Fitbit One. The downside was that the band that I had purchased to wear it around my wrist wasn't comfortable. The Fitbit One is normally worn clip-style. However, I broke several of them, which prompted me to try wearing it as a wrist bracelet.

The One is accurate and reliable. I determined that I wanted the best of both worlds -- a fitness tracker that provides some alerts that I love, such as phone calls and text messages, and accurately track my steps.

I settled for the Fitbit Alta. It is stylish and comfortable. You can actually change the bands. Mine is purple, which is my favourite colour.

The Fitbit Alta is equally as accurate as my One. The difference is that the Alta has to be charged after nearly a week. My One can last for two weeks before I need to charge it. The Alta is still better that charging my Pebble Time Round watch every night.

I do love my Alta. It buzzes when I have an incoming call and when I receive text messages. I don't have to deal with the various notifications that I can customize on my Pebble.

At work, we got fitness trackers. I didn't like it because you have to physically get a battery once it dies. My guy put it away after trying it out for a month. He told me that I am polite for not calling him lazy. I simply said that he got bored with it.

Well, I told him about our health program at work. You exercise in three months periods. Depending on how many points you accumulate, you earn money towards getting a prepaid credit card.

I told my sweet guy, whose nickname is Cheap Bastard, that we get money to spend on whatever we'd like when we reach certain fitness goals. He perked up. 

He's sweet. He is my Cheap Bastard.

Watch-syncing issues with steps and my trusty Fitbit One

I bought a Pebble Time Round watch last year in May. I love the watch. It's functional and pretty.

Unfortunately, the app that I use to sync my steps from this watch is flaky. I suspect that the app isn't supported anymore because Fitbit bought Pebble.

It's funny that I had to go back to my trusty Fitbit One device to be able to track my steps accurately. I'm glad that I can.

Of course, many phones track your steps. The problem is that I do not carry my phone wherever I go, so it is of little use to me.

I love my watch, though. I now have both my Fitbit One and my Pebble Time Round on the same wrist. I don't like the clip that comes with the Fitbit One. I have broken quite a number of them that I prefer having a bracelet band instead.

Ah, the joys of technology both failing and being sturdy.

Technology baffles me, but at least my photo-syncing issues are fixed!

I have always been a troubleshooter. My latest issue with upgrading my Mac mini to the Sierra OS and then attempting to sync my photos to my phone has been fixed. I simply don't know which change that I performed actually fixed everything.

Technology is odd. I am immersed in it at work. It's an interest of mine, too. It's such a love-dislike relationship.

Anyway, I have done a few things to fix this issue:

1. Changed the properties of my Photos library so that read and write access is granted to all programs accessing it.
2. Powered off and on my external hard drive, which houses my iTunes library.
3. Tried to rebuild my library by pressing the Option + Command (Ctrl + Alt) keys. I didn't get the repair option, so I loaded my photos library as normal.
4. Started iTunes. I tried syncing both my iPod classic (yes, I still own one, as it fits my entire music collection, which is large) and iPhone. Both actions prompted an error message indicating that my photos library was unavailable.
5. Closed my Photos program.
6. Tried syncing my iPhone again. My photos synced!
7. Synced my iPod again. It synced successfully, too!

Again, I did a bizarre set of steps. It will be a miracle if all this syncing works tomorrow. I can then get on with writing about my last spanking.

There are days where I want to book some time away from technology, fly to some tropical location, lounge around, and write in a ruled notebook with a fountain pen. It sounds perfect right about now.

D is for dialogue, distance, and dares

My guy and I had a nice chat over Skype this afternoon. We talked about our day. I had to let out some steam about some annoying work issues. My guy is always supportive. I always appreciate that he's there to listen to me.

He talked about how he went to a local Chinese restaurant for dinner the other evening and how much he appreciates the quality of the food at the restaurants that we go to near our workplace.

"So, the food wasn't great at the restaurant you went to?" I asked him.
"It was okay, but it was more expensive than it should have been," he replied.
"Ah, it's Cheap Bastard complaining about how overpriced the food was and wanting to save an extra two bucks," I teased him.
"No, the quantity and quality weren't there," he insisted.
"Cheap Bastard is cheap," I teased him. "Did you whine?"

He laughed. He knows that I like teasing him. It is usually my way of setting up a future spanking. It's even more daring when I tease him while I am over his knee, with my bottom bared. It makes him spank me harder, which is the entire point.

My guy let me know that he got a new iron. He loves to iron. This one is rather fancy. You can actually set the iron down on the board and it won't burn the board's surface. I must check it out one of these days. After all, I am a girl who likes geeky products.

He also told me that he downloaded an app on his phone that counts the number of steps that he takes each day. He advises that the count is pretty accurate. He was more impressed when I had walked over 16,000 steps while we were both in Istanbul one day. I have a Fitbit One tracker, which has been working well for me for over a year now. He told me that he isn't even close to that count when he travels. He's sweet that way.

My guy doesn't come back to the office for a while. However, he may have to attend some course in a couple of weeks.

I asked him whether we could do lunch when he is in the office. Since his depression, he hasn't been inclined to go out for lunch as often as we used to. He knows that I am not at my cheeriness these days, so he didn't hesitate to say yes. In fact, I could tell that he wanted to apologize, but he did it his own way, saying that he wasn't abandoning me.

Things are looking up. I can't complain.

Taking my guy's birthday spanking

I have been thinking about birthday spankings often as of late. I have always enjoyed the ritual of either spanking the special guest of honour on his birthday, or being spanked on my birthday.

My guy doesn't think that he'd like to be spanked. I give him harmless pats and lovetaps now and again. He doesn't object, but it doesn't turn him on the way that spanking turns me on. However, he loves spanking me hard.

His birthday is next month. I am proposing that I get his birthday spanking. It seems fair in that he gets to spank me hard and I get a pink bottom.

I came across this guide on how to give a birthday spanking. In another post, I will customize the steps and tips to suit his birthday spanking that I will receive from him.

Ah, the excitement of planning a birthday spanking for me when it's not even my birthday! No complaints here.