A little glitch

Well, I shoulda known better. I've known since the beginning of November that I would be moving to Halifax. I decided not to give my notice to vacate my apartment back then because I didn't want people traipsing through my apartment all that time, and I thought, since I'm on a month-to-month lease now, that they would accept one month's notice.

Nope.

The boxes I ordered arrived this morning. A few minutes after the guy left, I went downstairs to give notice of my intention to vacate. When I said I was leaving at the end of December, the apartment manager said I needed to give two months notice, and that if I didn't, they'd keep my first month's rent deposit. I politely argued with her about it for a few minutes, but she was adamant, and said that I could speak with the property manager, who was coming by in the afternoon.

After leaving the manager's office, I came back upstairs and stewed for a while. I couldn't abide the idea of losing almost $900, nor did I want to ask my company to pay the rent for my apartment to sit empty for a month. I fretted and paced and twitched for an hour and then decided to take my problem to the top.

I called my project manager in Newfoundland and asked him if he thought it would be a problem for me to stay in Ottawa till the end of January. I had realized after coming up with the idea, that it would really be the best thing all around, even if I WAS able to leave at the end of December. January is going to be a hell month in my department. There's going to be so much going on and I was really worried about just leaving my staff behind to deal with it on their own. (I needn't have been). They've been through so much lately, it just wouldn't be fair to them. It would also give me more time to train my replacement, just by being there while she gets her feet wet as a manager. And besides...I can work on my project from Ottawa for the first month. Most of what I'll be doing the first month will probably be research and things I can do just as easily in Ottawa as I can in Halifax.

My project manager (for want of a better title) said he saw no problem with that. Whew. So a few hours later, I went down to talk to the property manager, and she was even less sympathetic than the building manager. So...I came back up and wrote to my VP, and basically told him "I need you to give me permission to stay in Ottawa another month." I didn't ask. I didn't give the option to say no. I just told him, diplomatically, that he needs to let me do it.

LOL...so now I'm waiting for him to reply. I think I left my email on at work over the weekend, as I checked via the web interface twice today and got no mails at all...usually I'd have gotten quite a few over the course of a day. So I guess I'll have to wait till tomorrow to find out the verdict. I doubt the VP will have any issues with this. He did after all give me the option to work full time on this project from Ottawa. I know I won't be able to get a lot done on the project while I'm in Ottawa, but I'll do as much as I can and then pedal as fast as I can to catch up in Halifax in February.

Whew. I actually feel a little relieved. December 28 was coming on WAY too fast!