Rants

Where does Red Roof Inn get their business sense?

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Can someone please explain t me how this makes any sense at all?

Red Roof Inn, the company that ***claims*** they care about their employees strikes again.

So, this ***lovely*** company that keeps growing and growing, but can’t handle the call flow has one priority, making reservations! They don’t care if customers really don’t want to paypricesout of this world, they don’t seem to understand that some people are just price shopping and don’t like to be pressured. It’s all about making that reservation no matter what.

That’s including at the risk of their employees health!

You have an employee that while during a call has a severe asma attack, can’t breathe, can’t talk and forwards the call quickly over to a supervisor. Sed supervisor tells the employee, “just go in project mode and et some air, then get back on the phones.”

Um, WTF!

So, the company is then called by a concerned party…being me that is to find out if PTO, (paid time off) or VTO, (voluntary time off) is available. Here’s the ***lovely response that was given.

No, we aren’t doing PTO or VTO because we are very busy. However, if he really has too he will have to use an UA, (unexcused absence)

What kind of sense does that make? You claim you are ***so*** busy that you refuse to give PTO or VTO just for a couple of hours, but instead rather not have a person on the phones for the rest of the night with you being ***sooooo*** busy? Where did Red Roof Inn Springfield Ohio call center people learn business smarts? Who puts people like this in a role of supervisor when they make decisions that are stupid?

Lets see, employee off the phone for at least 2 hours and then back to work during the usual call busy time or make employee take the whole night off and lose a person on the phone during busy times and have to ***beg*** other people from other departments to cover more hours. I don’t know about you, but I think option 1 makes more sense, don’t you?

And for those that ask, “what about FMLA?” Hopefully I wrote those letters write. Well, see there’s this supervisor that told the employee that don’t bother since it only covers for a short period of time. If that’s the case, then how is it other employees use it at will? Maybe it’s only short for those that aren’t favorites?

Issues regarding renting from Mike Maynard and We Rent Marion

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Warning! This will be a long post regarding renting from Mike Maynard and We Rent Marion!

January 2017

At the beginning of the yearI fell in love with the description of the house we are currently in. I asked lots of sighted people to check out the pictures and make sure that visually nothing was like horribly wrong and got the go ahead to let We Rent Marion know I was interested in the property. An appointment was made to come do a walk through of the house.

While doing a walk through with individuals from We Rent Marion and a sighted person that drove me to Marion a few issues were pointed out that needed to be fixed. For example, missing doors in rooms, nails poking out the the walls, needed fresh paint, broken windows and so on. At that time I was assured that those things would be fixed.

Move in day came which was about 2 weeks later and guess what, those things were not fixed and we discovered even more issues that because it was freezing cold during the walk through they were overlooked. However, they were immediately brought to the landlords attention. For example, a heavy window that when you open it, it falls out, there are little and big holes in the floor that are not safe for not only a blind couple, but definitely not for a little baby, there are vent covers that are hanging off the wall, there’s water damage to the floor in the bathroom that’s weakening the floor, meaning when you step on it, it sinks in and electrical outlets that needed to be checked.

Now in case you are wondering how did these things get missed during the walk through it was because they didn’t have the hit on during the walk through so the house was freezing cold, some of the holes are in areas that you don’t immediately notice, but with having a child that’s crawling around and having to assure their safety, you quickly find them.

Now, at this time around Febuary 2017 they had a maintenance guy also named Mike who was suppose to look into the issues. Well, guess what? For the hole month of Febuary he ignored our calls. We knew he was still around because his children went to the same day care as our son.

March 2017

Nothing has been done about any of the things that needed to be fixed in the house yet. Continued to try and reach Mike the maintenance guy and finally learned he no longer works for We Rent Marion. How nice of them to let their tenants know, right? So, give the landlord a call and find out what’s going on and when would the issues be looked at.

Hey, guess what? That phone call was never returned. We didn’t hear anything for all of March.

April 2017

Finally, we hear from We Rent Marion and they take down the list of things that need to be fixed and claims that someone will be in touch to see what can be done.

The person named Greg does come out, but he only fixes 2 things, the carpet on the stairs and a board in the upstairs livingroom that was coming apart and making the hole in the floor bigger.

Seriously, with that hole big list they only fix 2 things!

Greg tells us that We Rent Marion should be in touch in maybe a week about the rest of the items. So we wait! And we wait! Hey, and we wait some more!

May 2017

I give We Rent Marion a call and leave yet another messages about things in the house that need to be fixed and what is going on. I of course get no answer.

June 2017

I’ve finally had enough and send an email to We Rent Marion and this time I make sure that Mike Maynard gets a copy of my complaints. I list every single thing that needs to be fixed in the house and voice our concerns about the house being nsafe for a newly starting to walk baby that could seriously get hurt. I let them know that now if we don’t hear anything and things don’t start getting fixed that we would be within our rights to find another place to live since they are not taking care of the property as they should and are suppose to. I wrote that email at the end of May and didn’t hear anything for maybe 2 weeks.

Jane, Mike’s assistant calls and says Mike wants to meet with us ASAP so we set a time. But hey, guess what? You probably guessed it, he never showed up and didn’t even bother calling.

Another week goes by and I hear from Jane at We Rent Marion again claiming that someone would be by on a Monday to look at the house. So a time is set and we reschedule our plans to mae ourselves available. But…you guessed it, they don’t show up at the appointed time. But, they do show up hours after the fact, no appology, no nothing. Just, things ran behind. Seriously!

The person that came out was Mike Maynard the actual owner of all the We Rent Marion properties. He noted every single issue that needed to e looked at on his phone and even commented that some things should have been done before the house was rented again.

Like seriously, in my opinion maybe you should check on your properties more often instead of just believing what people tell you and then ignoring when your tenant files complaints.

One of the biggest things we pointed out to Mike Maynard while he was here was that one of the electrical outlets in the kitchen blew out and wasn’t working for a week or so. He goes over to the one that wasn’t working, notices the light is green on the breaker which I assume means it’s all good, plugs in the can opener and of course it works. His comment then was, “well, it works now so all is good there” and doesn’t note that in his file of things to look at.

So the end of June maintenance people come by and we schedule them to come by on a Friday morning to get started.

Ready for the routine?

Friday which is the last Friday of the month and there’s no maintenance worker here. We again get no phone call, no nothing

July 2017

Someone else decides to step in and try and give us assistance in reaching these people and getting through to them that they need to step up and fix their property. They were told that if nothing was done then they would be reported to the health department. Surprise surprise, we get a call from the maintenance guys who claimed it was a miscomunication and that they lost our phone number.

i’m sorry, but if you couldn’t find the number, then why didn’t you call your boss and get it from them? That was a horrible excuse for not doing your job.

So, it is scheduled yet again for them to come on Monday and we change our schedule yet again to accommidate. We should not have to keep doing this!

Oh look, they actually did show up then and stayed the hole day. They did fix a few things, like the nails in the porch, finally putting the doors in 2 of the rooms, putting screens in the windows. Well, some of the windows and cleared up the vegetation that seemed to be taking over the front and back porch. When they were done at the end of the day they told us they would be back the next day, which would have been on a Tuesday, July 11th. Things were finally looking pormising!

Ugh, got our hopes up too high. It’s now Wednesday July 19th and the maintenanc people are no where in sight. We have not received any phone calls attempting to reschedule or apologize for not showing up, nothing.

Remeber that electrical outlet in the kitchen that I said Mike Maynard ignored because it started working again. Well, today is Wednesday July 19, 2017 and we just had the fire department out here because that same outlet heated up and made the prongs of the appliances too hot to touch. The outlet stayed hot for almost a hour after we unplugged everything and turned off the breaker. The fire department told us not to use that outlet again and try and get our landlord out here. Once we told them who our landlord was, their response was not very encouraging.

Hearing, “your landlord isn’t Mike Maynard, is it” is not something you really want to hear from a fire department. It does not make you feel safe about whom you’re renting from. So then we were told to get the health department involved and try and get an inspector out here to check things out.

As a blind couple with a 11 month old son we do not feel safe in this house any longer and it’s way past time to start looking for safer accommidations before something really bad happens due to We Rent Marion and Mike Maynard ignoring our concerns.

Red Roof Inn, not the job it was made out to be

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Before you read this entry I am stating now that anything wrote here is fact. Anything I state here has been recorded in one way or another and is not just said due to what happened. I normally don’t write things when angry which is why I didn’t write this on Saturday. However I’m still royally pissed off so it still may not be pretty.

I want to say now to those I did have respect for at Red Roof I’m sorry for what you’re about to read if you read this.

Are you looking for a job you can do from home? Have you maybe heard that working for Red Roof Inn could be the place for you? Well, let me tell you a few things that you don’t find out until after the gloves are off and training is over!

Most important work for them is more important than the health and well-being of their employees. I was told this quite clearly by a staff member several times in one conversation to make sure I heard it correctly. If you need to take off because you are extremely sick…forget it if there isn’t what they call *time in the bucket* either for VTO, voluntary time off or PTo, paid time off. You won’t get it. Hell or their may be time in the bucket but you can’t have it for whatever work reason they come up with. You are forced then to take a UA and that stands for an unexcused absence. 3 of those equals bye bye, you’re gone!

So, during training we were told that things are handled on a case by case basis. That’s cool, that makes sense. You could have ones take off just because they just don’t feel like working, but then, you may have ones like these.

1. an at home agent that has no heat in the middle of winter and the agent could be at risk of getting frost bite if they stay in the house. Red Roof doesn’t care they are not giving VTO for whatever work reason. You must work or take a UA.
2. An at home agent lets their supervisor know they are extremely ill and at risk of passing out and it would not be good for callers or business to work that night…..oops, sorry, you must work because Red Roof is not allowing VTO’s that night. UA again.
3. One you absolutely have no control over and once again have informed your supervisor about. The at home agent is extremely sick and the calls will definitely be crappy tonight for making reservations, but still willing to try since…yep, same song and dance! Unfortunately things get worse and the agent ends up in the hospital severely dehydrated and a fever of 101.8.Once again forced to take a UA because of work related reasons they refuse to give a VTO in this case. Sadly it’s the third!

Now, it is this third one that really gets me pissed off. Red Roof expects their agents to work knowing how sick they are while claiming they aren’t heartless. After hearing the agent is in the hospital and could have passed out and worse went into a coma or died during the shift they would have been forced to work and *no one* would have known until it was too late. Then what would have Red Roof done? Tell the family….oh I’m sorry, but calls were backed up and we couldn’t do this or that and our hands were tied?”

This company claims that can’t get enough workers, it’s hard getting overnight people to work and they are *so* backed up with calls, but instead of working with the agent they let them go. What sense does that make?

And forget about asking for them to rethink/appeal or whatever their decision. They don’t even bother answering. Just state the same thing. We were backed up and couldn’t do XYZ. You should have managed your time better to plan for illness and such. I mean, seriously, who the hell can plan for going into the emergency room due to having the bad version of the flu? Who can plan the weather and sitting in a freezing cold house with no heat. If someone can, please let me know!

Anyways, moving right along.

If you think working from home is great give this a thought as well. Unlike the agents in house you don’t have co-workers to talk to or vent at or get things off your chest without being spied on. In house, meaning at the Red Roof Inn call center they can at least see who may be coming and shut up or go talk in more unpopulated areas. They have a chance to get to know each other during their breaks if they show choose. They have food parties and on and on!

What do at home agents have? Skype and that’s only if they accidentally get to know each other and calls are super super slow.

however, there’s software on your computer that allows any Red Roof higher agent see what’s going on on your computer. They say this is only when you’re on a call, but several times this fact has been disproven. So if you decide to work for Red Roof and get to know other workers on your shift, really get to know them out of work as well and start sending text messages or talk in code. However, I’d still be very careful whom you choose to be close friends with.

One of the biggest things that made me loose respect for Red Roof is when I told something confidential to one of my higher agents and it made it’s way to others that never ever should have been given that information. They told this information to people that were the problem and lost respect points in my eyes. So when they tell you that you can tell them something and it stays…take it with a grain of salt! I had great respect and even liked the person up to that point.

Thinking of working third shift?

Now here’s a big one to consider as well. The third shift workers get the short end of the stick. Due to the mistake of some higher up that whole shift lost their VTO, no warning what so ever, just poof gone! So there could be times you’ll sit there for a long time without a call when call times are slow, like after Christmas until around March. But keep in mind, that even if it comes back there’s no certainty you can get it if they don’t want to give it out or others stole all the time.

You may be wondering why I mention VTO more than PTo. Well, simple, PTO is hard to get. First, you don’t get it until 6 months *after* you work for them and then after that you really do want to only use it when you need to. But it works the same way. If you want to use PTO and there’s no time….sorry, you’re screwed.

Love perverted callers?

Hope so because you definitely get your share of them during third shift and you’re not allowed to hang up on them. You have to waist more time getting them over to a supervisor…if they stay on the phone that long. And get this, that perverted call, just counted against your conversion score! You didn’t get that nasty pervert to make a reservation. Like I’m sorry but unless I’m working for a 900 number, the money Red Roof paid wasn’t worth putting up with calls like those.

Now lets talk about that conversion score.

You know during training and during the hiring process it was *stressed* by different people that *quality* was more important than *quanity* Yes, our job is to make reservations, but no one would *push* you to make a certain number.

aaaaaaaaaaaa! stop, hold the phone!

They do push and push hard, some more than others. Making a certain percentage is very important. Some demand you make more than the center or more than the team. If you have a percentage lower than say 20, that’s just not ok. Bad days are just not allowed depending on whom you ask!

One last thing I will say before closing this out and moving on. I just had to get this all out of my system before I could let it go completely. The ohs of writing!

Red Roof will tell you all day until they are blue in the face that they are a family and treat their employees as such, but I’m sorry even if I don’t count all I saw after training, their actions this weekend makes it a family I seriously don’t wish to be a part of after all. I was hoping they’d have a heart and work with me like they did in the beginning when I was pregnant with Jaydon, but I guess that was just a one off deal. Even though they claimed in a recording that they looked at things on a case by case basis and speak with the agent, they don’t. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Except for maybe if you’re one of their favorites and you can do no wrong in their eyes. Even dysfunctional families listen to each other and don’t always make feel like crap. i wish I could say the same for my time at Red Roof Inn or hell be one of those lucky ones that could do no wrong and the job is absolutely wonderful!.

Sorry for the long rant post. Have a good night and thanks for reading!

Baby J tries again! Lets me out, part2

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To my poor sicks mommy. Why won’t that doctor lets me out and makes you be all sick? Don’t she cares that you hurts and that I’s not comfortables in here? Just shes wait until I sees her. When she pulls me out I will spit up on hers ok? That okays mommy?

This will be a long post!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, baby J tried once more to enter the world early and this time he was not playing around like last month. Without warning contractions hit me like a huge freight train! They were so bad that I was crying and could barely walk when the ambulance showed up.

At 3:10PM eastern standard time the contractions started without warning and by 4:00PM I was on the way to the hospital. The contractions were coming in fast and furious with hardly anytime between them. Baby J was not kidding around this time. He wanted out and he wanted out right then! The poor ambulance guys didn’t know where we were going once we reach LMH, (Lima Memorial Hospital), but since we were just there on Monday plus the week before I could tell them where to go.

This time I was in room 7 with the uncomfortable bed. Man I swear that hospital needs better beds, just ow ow ow!! Anyways, one of the nurses that was there was one that just saw me on Monday and was like….weren’t you just here yesterday?

Those nurses plus the ambulance guys could definitely see i was having contractions and in some major major pain and could barely stand up. They were trying really hard to keep my spirits up and make me laugh instead of cry and I appreciate and thank them for that. I do have to say I seriously hate the machines they have to use to watch for contractions. For whatever reason with me, don’t know if this has happened to others, but the stupid things never pick up all the contractions. It baffled the nurses since they could see plus feel my stomach and tell that they were there. Damn technology!

So, they quickly get me switched into their lovely gowns, hooked to an IV for fluids, the awesome monitor to hear J and give me the first shot to try and stop the contractions. All the while baby J is like . . .

I knows likes it! Lets me out out out! *stretch stretch, kick kick, jab jab jab, push push push*

And his heartbeats sound like horses going full speed at the races! While my blood pressure was all over the place from as high as 162\116 to 124\83 and my pulse readings weren’t good either, but I don’t remember those numbers.

They discover that everything is still closed up as it should be and give me some pain med called Staydoll…sorry if that’s not spelled right. It totally kicks my ass! I get super shaky, dizzy, the world is spinning and I feel like I’m going to be sick all over the place! Definitely a medicine that my body says to *stay out!*

Here’s where things start to get really fun!

I’m feeling like total crap here and around 7:00PM eastern time they decide to bring me food and water and tell me that it’s all I get in case they decide for a c-section in the morning. Just great! Give me something after a pain med that’s kicking my ass and tell me it’s all I get, thanks! But wait, it gets better!

7:15PM eastern standard time they take away the water…oops, sorry can’t have that after all. Nothing by mouth now. Thank goodness I was able to finish the sandwich right before that and made it stay down.

Meanwhile, the first stop contractions shot isn’t working and baby J is demanding . . .

Lets me outs of here! I wants out now now now! Aren’t yous listening to mes? *push push push*

Round 2 of the stop contractions shot along with more pain meds, but a different kind now that also makes you feel sick and dizzy. Sorry if I spell it wrong as well, but it was something like Newid? I didn’t react badly to it, but it definitely didn’t make me feel great!

The contractions are still coming hard and fast while the stupid machine still isn’t picking them all up and I have this one dumb nurse named Ashley that had the nerve to say I was mistaking the contractions with the baby moving….excuse me! I’m blind, not stupid and this isn’t my first ride on this pregnant train you know!

Yeah, she was like feeling my stomach…which means she was feeling the contractions and saying it was the baby. She also told me, “I see why you like staying on your left side…because that’s where he is.” Um no, I stay on the left side because it’s actually the better side to lay on when pregnant…*duh* more oxygen to the baby and all that. Where the hell did she go to school?

We’ll skip ahead a bit here to around 8:30AM eastern standard time. I still have not had anything to drink, eat, ice chips nothing and I get yet another pain med shot because the pain is still way up there in the atmosphere! The nurses still haven’t heard yet on if they will take J out or not, so I wait wait wait and wait some more! Baby J is pissed because he hasn’t had food or anything to drink in hours and this makes things worse…for me of course! J is doing just fine according to all the monitors, except for the fact that he wants out and no one is listening yet again!

My lovely doctor shows up at 10:30AM and sees that I’m in pain, sees that I’m crying, but decides because all is well with J that she is not going to take him. Doesn’t matter how I feel that my blood pressure is still super high and that I’m stressed to no end…nope, lets hold off until the 29th and just come back if things start up again! It makes no difference that this is the second time that J has made it known that he’s done cooking and he’s ready to enter the world!

Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand her trying to hold doff until the date we picked, but if the baby is saying . . .

Lets me out out out!! Don’t you hears me?

And on the mom side of things, things aren’t looking great, don’t you think you should reconsider?

So anyways, she says no and the nurses do their damnedest to pretty much throw me out the door..where’s that cab, lets get you home now. Get out, see you! They don’t even help me get my clothes back on despite the fact I’m puking all over the place, dizzy and just yeah! Great service right! See you on Monday for your next stress test unless you have more pain and blah blah!

I get back home just in time to get sick from the car ride and wasn’t able to keep any food or drink down until around 10PM eastern last night. The medicine is still in my system, but thank god it’s not as bad now. I sound more like myself and can walk without feeling like the world is going to throw me off of it. However, I’m still in a great deal of pain, but I guess I just have to grin and bare it until my doctor takes J out.

That was our adventure, wasn’t it great? Until next time!

with friends like these

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It may come a time in your life when you don’t have close family members to count on and you may need those trusted friends to step in during a bad situation. But, what happens when those so called trusted friends ends up turning on you at the worse possible time?

A mother and father sadly had to end up in the hospital at the same time and had to quickly make arrangements for their 2 year old daughter. They asked a friend if they could please look after her and the lady friend agreed.

Now, the next day just hours before the mother has to go into surgery the lady friend calls and states that they must find other arrangements for their daughter because their husband complained about how their anniversary was ruined and the child should have gone to CPS.

What the hell? I don’t know about you, but a comment like that would have gotten my partner or spouse a slap across the face What kind of thing is that to say about a child and to friends that are going through a hard time and you are suppose to be their friend?

ok, it was your anniversary so maybe to start with you could have said no, I’m sorry we can’t due to other plans if your anniversary is that important to you over the well-being of your friends and their child. Maybe they don’t have children of their own and that time is special after all, but doing it the way it was done is just unbelievable!

Then, then, to make it worse the husband had the balls to say the child should have just gone to cps! That leads me to wonder if these people really are their friends to begin with. No, the lady friend didn’t say these things, but she didn’t knock some sense into her husband. If they don’t have kids and ever plan on having them what does this say about him as a father figure? better re-think having kids with him then. if they do have kids and for him to say something like that about another child it makes me feel sorry for them if something ever happens and God forbid he needs help.

My best to the family that is currently going through this and to those so called friends of theirs I hope you’re filled with guilt for a long time over your recent actions.

Time Warner ignores blind customers

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Here is something I feel that all blind individuals should be aware of if you are either with Time Warner Cable or thinking of switching to them.

Now TWC has an app that is pretty much accessible except for one part and that would be the guide! Since September 23, 2015 this feature has stopped working.

Now my boyfriend and I are both blind and first contacted TWC about this problem then and they said they would look into it. We even provided them with an audio file of what the issue was so they could see it.

Guess what happened?

Absolutely nothing that’s what! It’s now May 9, 2016 and we are still fighting with this same problem. Every update that TWC releases I go in and check to see if maybe they fixed the guide with no luck.

Every time this situation is brought to their attention they want to know what errors come up and what we were doing when the error occurred.

How many times must we try nd explain that it’s not an error that it is a feature that speech does not read any longer.

On a recent call from TWC we were told that their engineer of developing said that voiceover for IPhones hasn’t worked since the IOS 9.0.1 version.

Now you may think this is just an IPhone issue, but as of today since I had to switch to android for a while the TWCTV app guide portion is just like the IPhone. The guide feature does not work at all. I am still waiting to hear from TWC to see what they say about why it doesn’t work on the android, but from my experience with them regarding the IPhone things don’t look good.

Does Time Warner Cable care at all about their blind customers? There are so many of us complaining about this no longer working, but they still refuse to listen or work with blind customers to fix the problem. I could understand not being able to figure it out if the guide feature never worked and them being stumped, but TWC had it working before September 23, 2015 so why not try backtracking to see what is missing in the code or something?

Do you get a thrill from being vindictive?

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What makes people so vindictive and so willing to hurt others, especially those that have a connection with one another such as children? Do you get a thrill of knowing you know how to push just the right buttons to cause emotional pain to that person?

You have situations such as couples having a child together, all the family members and friends get along to some degree and things are going great. Then *bam* everything starts to fall apart and the couple is no longer a couple. Uh oh, what happens now?

Well, it’s definitely not the parents sit down as adults and work out how to raise their child and who does what when and how. No no, the father of the child has to bring up something that happened years ago that the mother did and clearly never forgave her for and starts to tell everyone how unfit she is to raise the child. The father then starts trying to take steps to cut the mother out of the child’s life, but also telling the mother of the child that he would do everything possible to make sure she gets to spend time with their child even though they aren’t together. Mixed signals much? Lets make matters even worse and now throw in the family members of the father of the child. Since the couple is no longer a couple then *hey* who cares about the mother of the child. You’re no longer with our son so we’ll just help try and keep our grandchild away from you.

Seriously are these people not thinking of the child? Is all that goes through their mind is how best to hurt the mother?

What about married couples that have children and things fall apart?

Sadly you get the same thing and sometimes even worse! Mothers that use their children as weapons to hurt the father by turning the child against their dad. They’ll tell them things like your dad doesn’t love us or want you and that’s why he left or you’re dad’s a bum and we don’t need him.

There’s cases where you see joint custody with the parents and the grandparents for whatever reasons, best interest of the parties involved at the time of the family dynamics falling apart that also can turn ugly. Life moves on, the parents mature and grow in their new situations and it’s time to explore outside of everyone’s comfort zone. *whoops* the grandparents don’t like this idea very much and start making up lies and twisting facts to try and prevent this from occurring.

Again I ask do the vindictive ones not stop and think of what harm they are causing? Do they really not care? Is it really all about them?

Mother nature spoils things again!

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*shakes a fist*

Darn mother nature spoiled my plans again. The perfect chance to have someone video Luna playing in the snow and guess what happens?

THERE’S, NO, MORE, SNOW!!!!! Yes, that horrible mother nature made the weather sooooooo nice that the snow turned into nice slippery ice. Ice, who the heck wants to play on ice? *groans*

Not only can’t the darn woman make up her mind if it will be hot or cold, but she clearly does not want me to have my first playtime with Luna in the snow! I’d strangle the woman if I could.

Ah well, it’s been a nice vacation minus a few hick-ups, but back home tomorrow we go, back to routine and schedules and oh yes, *packing*

Hey, anyone in or near Ottawa want to *PLEASE* come help us move?

guide dog application update time

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It’s update time once again. Sadly, it’s not jump up and down report time. I’m still in the hurry up and wait stage with a shot of pissed off thrown in.

1. Leader Dog, finished my last stage of the video so now I keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best. I hit it in time for the Tuesday admissions meeting. So maybe at the minimum i’ll know something by next week.

2. Guiding Eyes, my home visit is scheduled for August 19th. So at the most I won’t hear anything regarding them until September.

3. The Seeing Eye, I haven’t heard from them, but I know right now they are pretty busy with the conventions that are going on right now. I’m not sure what to expect in regards to this school. Only time will tell on which direction it will go.

4. Pilot, *chuckles* I haven’t a word at all so I can’t tell you where things stand. Contacting them keeps going unanswered.

Now for the school no longer in the running and the small shot of pissed offness. GDB denied my application and refused to tell me why to plead my case during the appeal process. I appealed and once again they denied it, but here’s where they pissed me off and made me see GDB as a lesser school completely.

In their letter to me they stated that there was insufficient information in my appeal to have them change their mind. Well, it’s kind of hard to plead your case when they refuse to tell you why they said no, but just appeal it and blah blah. A person can only go off information given to them. Kind of like working a guide dog. You must be clear on what you want from your dog if you want a good result, be sloppy and you get no where.

They also hoped that their feedback was helpful. Um, what “feedback?” There was no damn feedback. They outright refused to give me any information at all and claimed that it was privileged information. Now unless I’m mistaken I have ever right to know what goes on with my application, there is no “privileged” information on my own case.

Now what I don’t understand on top of why GDB refused to let me know their reasons and completely baffling me is that they are quite fine letting a client right back into their school that they know abused one of their dogs, but they refused me entry. Now, I’d be perfectly fine with them saying no if I was a shitty dog handler, had horrible mobility skills or hell they just have no dogs at the moment to match like what happened with Canadian Guide Dogs, but just stating it’s “privileged” information is wrong.

There’s another big issue I have with GDB in this whole mess, but it’s more a fight that I will hand over to another school that they purposefully made look bad. I will just say by them intentionally casting doubt on another well established school made them look less than the school they are in my eyes.

More to come when I know something. Hopefully the next one will be a cheering loudly post naming the school I will get my next best pal.

Review of my first class at Carleton University

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Well, as of Wednesday I finished my first University course at Carleton. I wrote a few times that I was looking forward to starting this course and that it looked very interesting and the instructor seemed very nice and helpful.

*whoops*

Wrong! The first week of class was the only good thing about the whole class. After that it all went down hill.

1. Before class started she seemed very helpful and willing to make sure that I had everything I needed to be successful in her class.
Well, that definitely fell flat. She didn’t honour my accommodations, for example, making sure I had the material ahead of time for class ust in case I needed the transcription department to put them in a format the worked for me. Instead she posted the slides up at the least right when she entered the class room. At the most maybe half a hour before class started.

2. She asked the class to give feed back on how class could be better and hold everyone’s attention.
Whoops, she didn’t really pay attention to those either. The class liked having a little lecture then a little group work. you know split up the 3 hour long class of just sitting there listening to her go on and on and on. Nope, instead she took out the group work and kept it straight lecture.
She was also reminded to not speak in all visual terms since she had a “blind” student at the very least in her class and pointing at things on the board saying, “you see this line here connects these two groups” is not very helpful. *sighs* in one ear and out the other. That made it very hard during one of the test where all the questions had to do with material that she only discussed visually. When it was pointed out after the exam I was ignored. Lovely for an instructor to do eh?

3. Speaking of ignoring a situation. My instructor assigned the class to listen to a podcast and answer some questions. Awesome, no big deal I thought at first. Come to find out that CBC is not as easy to manipulate when it comes to speech. There are some things that speech won’t tell you is on the screen. When I pointed out to the instructor that I was having problems with the podcast such as that I couldn’t pause, rewind or fast forward it, this was her response:

“Oh, the rest of the class didn’t have this problem. Maybe it’s cause you have to listen to it?”

Um, someone please explain to me how that statement makes sense.

*duh* of course I have to listen to it just like the rest of the class.

Great, the rest of the class didn’t say they had a problem with the podcast so just ignore what I tell you thanks a lot.

So after being ignored twice in two very important cases my confidence in this instructor and my willingness to want to go to this class seriously fell. How can you want to help a student when you ignore issues they tell you they are having just because the rest of the class didn’t tell you they had a problem? How is it helping a student by penalizing them on an exam when all the questions have to do with material that you discussed visually and then ignored when they asked to speak with you about the issue.

So, my first class, Childhood in the Global Context at Carleton didn’t go as I hoped it would. I most likely will take this class again, but maybe in the winter term. The course itself seems very interesting and I feel I could actually learn a lot from it if the instructor was willing to actually honour disability accommodations and not ignore the students. The instructor will also be different and it’s not so intense like summer classes. Not to mention this program, “Child Studies” is the program that I’ve been looking for like forever. It could finally get me going in the direction I want, working with children with disabilities.

I won’t let this colour my thoughts on my next class which starts on July 7th, but I do hope it goes much better than the one I just finished. He’s been helpful just like my last instructor and see where that got me, *sighs*