I put my rants on one leg at a time, just like anybody else.

I have just about had it with my department.

Last month, they farted around so long with getting my new contract ready that I am currently working without a valid work permit (although the nice lady at Immigration assures me that I am not an illegal alien, as long as I sent in my renewal application before the old one expired, I have a grace period). I am also sans a valid health card because I can not renew it until I have a valid work permit in hand, so I will be getting my ass chewed out by the Ministry of Health whenever I actually go in to get a new one. Let's just hope I don't have a heart attack or break any bones until Immigration gets around to sending me my permit. Then, on payday, I was underpaid by over $800 because the woman who does the payroll ignored the new contract AND the reminder that my boss sends her every month about who is supposed to get paid what and simply paid me the amount that my boss USED to pay me when my salary was supplemented by my teaching income. When the error was brought to her attention, she requested a cheque from the university to correct the difference, and said that she would forward notification in a day or two when the cheque would be ready for me to pick up.

That was a week ago.

Yesterday, I sent her and my boss an e-mail asking what the status was, since I cannot pay my bills this month without that money, and it takes at least 10 days for me to transfer money back home in order to pay those bills, so I pretty much need to start that process right after payday and we're now a week and a half past that day. Boss is understandably concerned (he's already feeling bad enough about the salary he's paying me, even when the department ISN'T stiffing me by $800). Woman in the business office writes back this morning to say that the cheque has been ready since the 31st, and she forwarded the notification to both me and the Boss, she doesn't know what happened.

Let's see: you forwarded this to TWO people, yet NEITHER of us received it. Huh. AMAZING.

Just suck it up and admit you forgot to send it. I realize that this little glitch isn't even a blip on the radar screen amid the millions of dollars that you deal with every day, but it's a big fucking deal to someone like me.

On a related note, those of you reading this who care about me, please say a little prayer, do a ritual tribal dance, do whatever it is you do to make good things happen to people you care about. I'm waiting to hear about a fellowship that would literally double my salary. The odds are REALLY slim of my getting it (as in, 3 of them are slotted to be distributed among something like 6 of the faculties at the U of T, as if merely competing with everyone else in Arts and Sciences wasn't enough), but Boss and I are hoping that since they announced it fairly late not many people found out about it in time to apply. I'm not getting my hopes up, but it's hard not to think of all of the good changes I could make in my life if I were actually making the kind of income a postdoc is supposed to be making.