Short Canadian seeks employment as full time Blog writer...

As of 6 pm tomorrow I'm going back out on the job hunt. It turns out my upbeat predictions about the steps being closed were a little off base. A combination of the loss of business and the fact that the railway company offered the owners a really good compensation package means that Bytes and Slices will be closing for the foreseeable future. The idea is that the whole shop will be re-located to a busy pedestrian only street near by, but it could take up to six months. Word on the street is that the staff might even get a bit of compensation. I'm not one to turn down free money, so I'm all for it. The job market is still pretty good right now, so if all things go as planed I should be able to pick up some bar work with in a week or so.

The timing is almost perfect for me too, as I am heading down to England's forgotten metropolis of Norwich for my Cousin's stag/hen party. This was all booked holidays wise, but now that I'm "pro-actively un-employed", I was able to take advantage of cheaper flights.

Another un-expected benefit has been to win a small comedy war that had been brewing between myself and the new girl at work. Sarah, as she is known, thought the funniest thing on the planet was to tell me "Your fired!" at inappropriate moments during the day. I found out about work shutting down on a day she was not working. I think you can see where this is going :) As soon as she showed up for her shift I told her that she was fired with the real closing date of the store as her final shift. She was did not believe me of course, until that is, Benoit came over and started to explain that the store was closing soon, and that her position really would be non-existent. The look on her face once she figured out what was really going on was worth at least three weeks job hunting in my book :)

Anyway, I'm about to go drown my sorrows by heading out to see X-Men 3 with Team Canada.

Hunting the Jet Lagged

It's Monday, and the highlight of my work day has to be the point when a small child projectile vomited just inside the front door. Lucky for me I'm handy with a mop, and in less then a minute the toxic spill was removed from site, much to everyone's relief. There is a strange twist to this tale however, as the mother of the child in question is a regular customer who suffered an epileptic fit our bathroom the first time she visited. Apparently anytime her, or a member of her family comes in to use the internet "something" occurs.

It's been a strange week of work really. Just after I finished yesterday's post, our 'net connection went offline. An internet cafe with out internet is a little pathetic. Trying to explain to customers that we don't actually have the internet available is almost fun, the expressions on people's faces are priceless.

At the start of the week, Waverly Steps was finally blocked off on the train station side, forcing everyone through the mall instead. We are located exactly half way down the steps in question, with Princess Street (Edinburghs main road) at the top and Waverly Train Station at the bottom. We get no end of enjoyment watching people get half way down before they notice the MASSIVE blue plywood barriers across the entrance to the train station. To even get this far, one has to have ignored two giant signs telling people to go through the mall, and two railway employees that stand there all day telling people where to go. Lucky for us, the alternate entrance to the station, i.e. the mall doors, is exactly opposite Bytes and Slices. Thus any business we would have lost due to the steps being half closed, is off-set by fifty percent of the remaining traffic being routed directly at our cafe, instead of past it. In fact some people end up inside our cafe wearing expressions that indicate they have no idea how they left the mall and ended up inside some 'net cafe. Easy prey :)

Bits and Bytes

I'm sneaking this post in while I'm at work again.

I don't have time to write about all the crazy goings on as it were, but a short summary is as follows: We have been hanging out with a core group of Long-Stay residents that is made up from a majority of Canadians, with some Australians and a grab bag of Europeans. Some one started referring to us all as Team-Canada and the name has stuck. T-Shirts are being made.

As Team Canada, we have been researching various pubs and clubs in the Cowgate Area. Last week the weather was quite nice for a few days, so we all spent as much time as possible in the Meadows that are only five minutes walk from the Hostel.

What else have I missed, ah yes, The Beltane Festival. Fire and Nakedness, always a good combination in my opinion. I'll try to put some photos up with some descriptions when I get time.

On Wednesday Mitch (Aus) and I went to see a Scottish Bluegrass band play at a near by Jazz club. Now that I write it, it sounds a little strange, but the band was very good. So good in fact that with only a few pints of cider between us, Mitch and I ended up offering to do a website for them.