Monthly Archives: July 2016

Know your acronyms…

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One of the most important skills you’ll develop as a staff action officer, aside from the obvious requirement for extreme proficiency in PowerPoint, is the ability to name projects, programs, and groups in such a way as to make their acronym memorable. In a giant bureaucracy there are few things more important than making sure the leaders high on Mount Olympus being able to remember what your little part of the machine does for them. Giving it a good name is where that starts.

To that end, members of the staff since time immemorial have struggled with just the right naming convention for the efforts. The US government is replete with agencies – NSA, CIA, FBI – that need no further introduction. A few, those gifted with true overachievers, have striven to match their make with a pronounceable acronym. The White House Military Office (WHMO) is pronounced “Whamo!” for instance. Whoever came up with that one deserves some kind of damned medal.

On the other end of the spectrum are the ones who tried and failed. That’s when you end up in a meeting talking about the ASTWG and ASTAG. For some inexplicable reason the Army Science and Technology Working Group decided their name should be pronounced “Asswig” while the Army Science and Technology Advisory Group settled on “Asstag.” I have no idea why anyone thought either of these was a good idea… but expecting anyone to sit through a meeting to discuss the important workings of the Asswig and the Asstag and somehow manage to keep a straight face is just entirely unreasonable.

On a swivel…

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Back on the 4th I asked someone, if they were intent on spending the holiday among the throng, to do me a personal favor and keep their head on a swivel. They seemed surprised at the request and asked if there was a particular reason they should. As the assassination of five police officers in Dallas has shown, I hope none of my friends are any longer in doubt of why I ask them to be aware of their surroundings as they walk into a crowded environment – like a protest or fireworks display or shopping mall.

Our police officers are incredibly dedicated. They’re over worked, under paid, and utterly under respected by their elected leadership and so often by the very citizens they serve. If they can be drawn into an ambush like this you’d damned well better believe the average civilian can too. So yeah, if you ever wonder why I do my level best to avoid large groups of people and why I encourage those I love to do the same, sadly now you know. None of us can have perfect situational awareness, but we owe it to ourselves when we’re part of the crowd to be as aware as possible – of entrances, exits, avenues of advance and retreat, locations for cover or concealment, and of what’s occupying the high ground. Your life – and the life of those to your left and right – could very well depend on it.

Terrorism doesn’t come in just Muslim or Christian flavors. It also comes in the form of political extremists who blow up federal buildings with truck bombs or who shoot up peaceful protests with rifles. Terrorism has been with us far longer than most want to believe – ask an Englishman about “the troubles” or do a little research into the events that triggered the First World War. We can’t eradicate the impulse in some sick bastards to inflict grave harm on society, but we should damned well prepare ourselves to take action when those inevitable bad days come.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. The confidence of youth. I’m not saying that I don’t still have a ragingly high level of confidence in my own abilities, but that confidence has been tempered with the experience of so many things that should be simple to do becoming a giant triple-stacked shit sandwich right in my hands. Occasionally it’s because of something I either did or failed to do, but more often it’s because of outside influences over which I have little or no control. Occasionally now I see a young project leader, eyes bright with possibilities, charge through a meeting as if nothing could possibly go wrong. I chuckle to myself, but I also feel a little bit sorry for him because I already know what the next act looks like. Experience is a harsh teacher and while those occasional flops have made me better over time, every now and then I miss the swaggering confidence of youth and a time when I was slightly less cynical about everything.

2. Things beyond my control. Believe it or not, I don’t think of myself as being much of a control freak. Most of life is pure reaction to those things we don’t foresee or exert any control over. While willing to accept that I can’t possibly control for and plan against every conceivable circumstance, I do like to imagine that I can bring some semblance of order to my little section of a chaotic world. I’m also enough of a realist to know that order begins to break down just as soon as it’s established and keeping a veneer of control in life takes all manner of effort on a pretty consistent basis. Knowing that there are a multitude of things beyond my control and being willing to accept those things just now is feeling like more of a tall order than usual. Maybe I need to sign up for some kind of master class in Zen and the fine art of acceptance.

3. Not being surprised. I’m a bit befuddled that anyone is somehow surprised that there’s a set of rules for the wealthy and powerful and another for the rest of us. It hardly seems like news that a long time politician “somehow” managed to get away with actions that would cause the average employee to lose their job, be barred from future employment, and possibly go to prison. While I’m certainly as outraged as anyone at the lies, deceit, and in my opinion outright criminal behavior foisted upon the public by a high profile politician, I can’t for a moment say that I’m surprised that the official consequence of those behaviors is absolutely nothing. If this is the kind of thing that surprises you, there’s a fair chance you’re just not paying close enough attention to the world.

Break…

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It’s recently come to my full and complete attention that I have a problem. As usual, it’s one of my own making and I take complete responsibility for it. Increasingly I’ve found myself pulled further and further into the rabbit hole that is Facebook. Between that and dwelling far too much inside the echo chamber between my own ears, it’s not the best of times.

I feel less able to focus and driven largely to distraction – or perhaps it’s just allowed me to better focus on the wrong things. The Facebook experience has reached a point where it seems to be pulling me further afield from how I really want to spend my time, namely real reading and real writing. The shouting match of Facebook has left me with the distinct impression that it’s currently taking more from me than I’m getting in return. Under the circumstances it seems that the most reasonable thing to do might be to take a few steps back, reinforce the center, and then evaluate where things go from there.

None of this should imply I’m not curious about the day to day comings and goings of the 500 or so people I’m connected with, but I just don’t know that I’m currently curious enough to keep grinding myself down to slake that curiosity. Increasingly what I’m finding delivered into my feed are items I’d be better off, or at least happier, for not knowing. As it turns out, sometimes ignorance really is bliss. Who knew, right?

I never thought I’d find myself pondering the virtue of seeking at least partial refugee status from the social media age, but there it is. Will I do it? Can I? I have no idea. Should I do it? Yeah, that answer is resoundingly clear. What that could mean given the interconnected, but somehow less intrusive feeling platforms like Twitter and Instagram remains to be seen.

The only certainty at the moment is that nothing I do will in any way negatively impact my ongoing commitment to writing here as often as possible. Since the beginning, and even more so now, it serves as my primary check valve to vent off anger and frustration before it becomes something less manageable. You’ll never know how fortunate I count myself that I learned early on the importance of “using your words.” In a world ruled by 140 character limits, hanging on to the ability to communicate in prose feels all the more important.

Beyond all of that, I won’t even speculate about what taking a Facebook break may look like – or even if I’ll end up doing it at all. At the moment, though, it’s sounding like one of the best ideas I’ve had in years.

Physician, heal thyself…

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I can almost always point to the cause-in-fact or at least the proximate cause of whatever jackassery is happening on any given day. Usually the cause is fairly basic such as “You went to the office” or “You left the house.” I take full and complete responsibility for those, although the imperative to earn a living and find food are largely unavoidable contributing factors to those causes.

Drill down a little deeper, though, and I can trace most issues back to an even more troubling root. Most days at least once I mutter to someone that the fault lies no so much with the stupid thing that happened, but in the expectation that something stupid wouldn’t happen. You had expectations. There’s your problem.

There’s quite a bit written about the dangers of low expectations, but it’s been my experience that the real danger lies in having expectations. Period. Full stop. It’s in those inexplicable moments when I momentarily ignore my own advice that I tend to get myself into the most trouble. I’d be far better served all the way around to remember that the moment you start having expectations of anyone other than yourself, well, you’ve practically set the stage for failure or at least for disappointment – usually both.

I’d do well to take my own medicine more often.