Emotional Roller-coasters and Thankful-ness

So the past couple of days have been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. A couple of weeks ago I got a call from my temp agency asking if I wanted to work the Jazz festival doing a job that a monkey could do. Those are my words not theirs. Since work has been spotty and I enjoy having the ability to buy I food I jumped at the chance.

Fast forward to Saturday, I am outfitted in the TD logo (I think I was donning 6 different logos...) and I was instructed to walk with my partner (Jordan) and hand out the free sunscreen/hand sanitizer that filled my backpack. TD had made it very clear that we were representing them and we were to look professional at all times, thus leave our personal belongings in the volunteer tent.

19,000 steps later my feet hurt and I had a burnt nose. I came home and put my feet up kicking myself for taking this placement, $14.00/hr was not enough for that work. The next day we went back to the meeting place, suited up and headed out. 23,000 steps later my feet were sore and I had a blister. Since I had 1.5 hours to go yet I wanted a decent band-aid (the ones from the first-aid tent SUCKED). So I went to grab my wallet to buy band-aids and... POOF my wallet and Ipod were both missing from my bag.

After a little of investigative work the team realized that more then my things were missing. The supposedly "secure" volunteer tent was not so secure and some weirdo had made off with our things. Needless to say, I was pissed. I felt violated and a shift that was making me less then $100.00 was going to cost me over $500.00 in replacement costs.

I immediately got on the phone with Visa and the Police and Equifax (fun fact - if your wallet is stolen/lost call Equifax because they can put a fraud alert on your account to avoid identity theft) and got the ball rolling on protecting myself.

I got home and made a list of everything that went missing and what it was going to cost to replace it because I was not paying to replace my things. Someone else needed to pay, I was simply doing what I was told.

That night feeling really low I watched "endless" hours of wedding SOS and Rich Bride Poor Bride, two of my new favourite shows. While watching these I became very thankful not only for my own fantastic family but the wonderful family I'm marrying into. The most offensive thing I saw was a Mother-in-law-to-be tried on a brides wedding dress. Are you KIDDING ME?!?! Can I just say, "THANK YOU" to the Paterson clan for being so supportive and welcoming and... normal!!!

So today, I was at work (a placement with BC Ambulance Services) and feeling kind of low, I had no identity (ie, no ID) and it felt very strange. At lunch I ran around getting my bank account back and phoning people to get replacement cards. And after lunch as I was learning a new task I hear my phone buzzing. I thought it was a text so I ignored it at first but after it buzzed one to many times to be a text I went to answer it. I missed the call but was very pleased to hear a message from a Victoria Police Officer that told me the arrested a man with a wallet that had my name in it. I am still missing my Ipod but I have my wallet back which is SUCH a huge relief. Not only was the wallet still in-tact, most of the contents were still in it including my drivers license and the $50.00 worth of gift cards to The Bay.

So I learned my lesson, NEVER trust anybody with your personal belongings and I consider myself lucky that I got to learn the lesson with very few repercussions.