Monthly Archives: June 2011

Old Yellowstain…

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Queeg.pngSomeone asked me not long ago to describe my perception of a certain former boss. The first image that came to mind was Humphrey Bogart in character as Captain Queeg – Whose behavior was at first eccentric, but ultimately proved to be tyrannical, cowardly, and incompetent (thanks for that Wikipedia). He blamed others for mistakes he made, ignored standard procedures when they ran counter to what he wanted to do, and obsessed over minor details while losing sight of the massive storm threatening to swamp his ship. Yeah. That sounds almost exactly like the this particular old boss. The only difference, really, is that in the end Bogart’s Queeg is almost a sympathetic, broken character. I don’t know anyone who would feel that kind of remorse at the undoing of our own personal Old Yellowstain.

Maybe on my way out I’ll gift wrap a pair of ball bearings and see if he gets it.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date

I brief flicker of understanding…

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I picked up the mail this afternoon and seeing a letter from Delmarva Power, opened it assuming it was a bill for having the service turned on or for a partial first month. I was, of course, wrong. It was a “final notice” to the previous tenant. A final notice in the amount of $2,141 and change. Seriously? Two questions come immediately to mind… 1) How exactly does someone rack up a $2000 electric bill and 2) Why does Delmarva Power let someone rack up a $2000 bill? At first I was angry as a customer, because this is the kind of irresponsible deadbeat that everyone who bothers to pay their bills ends up paying for in the end… because lets face it, the power company is going to get their money one way or another.

After my moment of capitalist outrage, I had a brief flicked of understanding  about why the property manager seemed to be so blasé about getting things done to the house. If they stuck the power company with that kind of bill, how much back rent did they owe? The natural expectations would be that after getting hosed the first time, the next tenant would pull the same act so deferring maintenance would almost seem natural. As a landlord, I can relate to that feeling. As a tenant, though, I know I’m going to pay my bills passing sympathy I had for the landlord and property manager evaporated quickly enough.

There’s plenty of backstory to go along with this, but for the moment, we’ll just say that the property manager is supposed to be here tomorrow to start addressing the laundry list I sent the owner yesterday. One or both of them is probably pissed off about this situation, but I doubt there in the same league of peeved that I’ve been in for the last few days. We’ll see how it goes.

 

My country…

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On the eve of Virginia’s succession, Robert E. Lee was offered command of the Union army, but declined, commenting only that he would not raise is hand against his birthplace – his country as he understood the word. I never really understood this sentiment until circumstances drew me away from my own birthplace. It was in being away that the concept of what home means crystalized for me. It was the thought of coming back that let me tolerate what had become the worst experience of my professional life. It’s the simple act of being back on home soil that’s letting me find peace of mind amidst a steep climb along the learning curve and and living situation that, at best, can currently be described as “less than ideal.” For all the pain in the ass that getting back to Maryland has caused, I’d never dream of having it any other way. Maybe it’s not true for everyone, but I’ve discovered that for me geography is important. It’s as much a part of my self identity as my fingerprint. After a long time gone, I’m here – in my county… and the rest is simply administrative minutia.

Prep time…

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We’ve been over this 20 slide PowerPoint presentation four times now. The last “dry run” – which lasted just shy of three hours – cost about $3500 when you account for the labor cost and overhead of the nine people who were stuck in the room listening to the Uberboss dither about changing “happy” to “glad” and deciding that he didn’t like sentences that he personally added to the charts three days ago. The lunatics are plainly in charge of our asylum.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Tenancy…

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The transition from homeowner to tenent hasn’t been what I would call smooth. As a homeowner, I probably established what most would consider slightly exagerated expectations for service and reliability. When things broke, they went to the top of my list of things to fix, I either went to Lowe’s for the appropriate equipment and supplies or called in the trades to get the job done. As a tenant, obviously the process is a little different. I call the property manager and leave a voicemail. I wait a day. Then I call again and follow up with an email. Then I wait a day. Then I call again and usually manage to talk to him on this third attempt where he says “oh yeah, I’m working on that. I’ll be over tomorrow.” And then we wait some more.

As it stands as of this morning, I’m waiting on six different things to happen: 1) The former tenant’s junked Ford Expedition is still sitting in the driveway. That was supposed to be moved out sometime around June 6th; 2) The 19 inch television sitting on the deck that the property manager says he wants to take to his hunting camp. It’s been rained on three times in the last two weeks. Yeah, that will probably still be sitting there a month from now; 3) The wire dog run was supposed to go at the same time he picked up the Expedition; 4) The garbage disposal went out early this week. He still hasn’t acknowledged the messages I’ve sent about that; and 5) The $100 washing machine that he said had been rebuilt will do everything a washing machine is supposed to do… except drain the water once the tub is filled. I left a voicemail about that yesterday, but when I drove by the manager’s place on my way to the laundromat yesterday afternoon his truck and boat were gone, so there’s not much chance he was paying attention to that; 6) The moldy wall has been nicely cut and hauled away – but that leaves the small matter of having a large part of the basement I can’t do anything with until, you know, it has actual walls again.

The actual owner lives in Germany now, so once I dig up his address Monday  morning I’ll get a message off to him. I’ve tried being the good neighbor, but since that doesn’t seem to get results worth a tinker’s damn, I’ll have to start being the sonofabitch neighbor who beats on the letter of the lease. This should be fun.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

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Yesterday you made a big deal about wanting someone in the room to flip your slides while you gave the new employee briefing. Today you threw that person out of the room once they got their computer set up (I won’t mention that employee then didn’t have a computer to use for, you know, work, for the next 90 minutes). Then you threw out the other “witnesses” in the room who were in a position to argue with what you were about to say to the poor unfortunate new guy.

Is it possible that you were going to weave him a web of lies and that the presence of informed people might undermine that? Are your lies so unbalanced now that you can only tell them behind closed doors? Maybe it’s that you’ve told so many that people are catching on and comparing notes now. Better not to risk having too many people in one place these days. Paranoia is a classy look.

Oh Uberboss, you may have the title, but you’ll never have what you really want. Forget about the respect of your peers. You’d be hard pressed to find someone in this building that even likes you as a human being.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Hey new guy…

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I’d like to say that the transition between career fields is more or less seamless, but I was struck today by the first inklings of the magnitude of the my current unknown unknowns… like how to print to the color printer. Yeah, I had to answer the one request the boss had of me today with “uhhhh… yeah… I don’t think I can do that… sir.” Sure, it’s not exactly a career breaking moment, but still, it was humbling enough to be brought low by office automation. And don’t get me started on the acronyms. I’m keeping a running list of the damned things to look up feverishly when I get back to my desk. It looks like I’m in flat out fake-it-till-you-make-it mode for the foreseeable future. I’ve been here before, though and vaguely remember that this part of the transition doesn’t last too long. Someday soon, I’ll even be the one spitting out unreasonably pronounced acronyms at the newcomer. Until then, it helps to be reminded that even the most humbling day here are better than being an allstar in the court of the walrus king. Such are the restorative effects of being on home soil.

A little less moldy…

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It’s a little less moldy here at Casa de Jeff tonight. The mold remediation company was here today. They appear to have done all the right things so far. The offending drywall was cut out, fungicide was sprayed, and things are airing out as we speak. A cursory (and completely uneducated) look around doesn’t appear to show any mold intrusion into the wood. This is a good thing and makes me at least a little optimistic that soon the drywall will be back up and I’ll be able to finish shoving stuff around the basement and make it into something approaching usable space… or at least let it be halfway organized storage.

With starting back to work this week, I have to confess that I haven’t made any real progress on sprucing things up here or even putting much more away. That seems like something that’s going to be reduced to a box-at-a-time pace for the foreseeable future. I’d at least like to have everything upstairs finished. The basement can be out of site and out of mind almost indefinitely, but the real living space still needs some work. I should probably knock off the blogging and get back after it.

Schedule…

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This is going to seem like a really minor detail, but for the last 7 years, my schedule as been 6:30-3:00. Start early, end early get back to the house with plenty of day left. Now we all know that I’m a creature of habit, but even I was surprised at how pushing things back just an hour would throw off my day. That’s not really a complaint per se, just an observation. Getting to the house after 5:00 is just downright strange at the moment. Once it settles in as part of the new normal, all will be well. After all, it is sort of nice not to necessarily want to go to bed at 9:00 most nights. With this new schedule, I push it back as far as 10:00 or even 10:30 if I’m feeling froggy. That’s right, we’re living on the edge here at the top of the Bay. Don’t ever let it be said that I’m not willing to broaden my horizons.

 

Things you miss when they’re not there…

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I learned two very important lessons today. The first is that I can spend eight hours at work and not have access to a computer and not feel like I’m missing all that much… Especially when the nice lady down the row prints off the important stuff and hand delivers it to me. I can’t say the same thing for working in a place that has some of the worst cell phone coverage in the industrialized world. Seriously. My phone went between one bar, searching, and no coverage randomly throughout the day. And when there was coverage, it wasn’t 3G. Yeah. That slow.

You don’t realize how much you rely on your cellie day-to-day, especially when you have a working computer to keep yourself distracted. When suddenly it’s the only commo you have and it’s not working with any reliability, you find yourself in for a long day. And no, the irony of a massive communication hub being smack dab in the middle of a dead zone isn’t lost on me in the least. That’s just Sam doing his thing.