Monthly Archives: July 2018

Small victories and minor defeats…

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I was supposed to go to a meeting today. For the most part that’s the kind of activity that makes up the day, or at least is a common enough occurrence that it isn’t worth specifically mentioning. The only positive bit about the meetings I’m usually required to sit through is that 95% of them are held somewhere in the same building I find myself inhabiting four days a week and require minimal travel. Today’s meeting, one of those that makes up the other 5%, was being hosted elsewhere.

This meeting in particular was being held far enough elsewhere that attending in person would mean losing my parking spot in the middle of the day, finding a spot on the other side of our lovely cantonment, and then fighting for spot back at “home station” later in the day when the meeting ended. Mercifully they decided to provide a dial in number so skittering hither and yon wasn’t necessary.

Today’s meeting is what I’ve taken to calling a small victory. Victory, in this case, was tempered by the fact that the room in which the meeting was physically held has one speaker phone and possibly the worst acoustics of any individual room on the planet. The net result of this was only being able to hear approximately four words out of every seven. In fairness, though, that still doesn’t make it anything close to the worst meeting I’ve ever endured… so maybe it’s still a victory or possibly a minor defeat. It’s increasingly hard to tell the difference

Monsoon season…

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As it turns out it’s monsoon season here in the mid-Atlantic. Something something climate change, something something global warming, something something fake news. I’m sure there are a wide ranging set of reasons this summer as gone directly from cold and rainy to oven baked, and is now shifting gears back to torrential downpours. I find none of those reasons particularly interesting. Mostly because none of them lead to a long stretch of days that we could reasonably describe as “temperate.” I think at this point I may even be willing to settle for “seasonal.”

We’re two months through “summer,” and I’ve only had the top off a handful of times – worse yet, the doors have been firmly installed since I put them back on last September. That’s no kind of life for a Jeep. I mean if you’re not going to drive it up to the fender wells in mud, the very least you can do is strip it down to the bare essentials and enjoy the open air. Except, sadly, you need the air to also cooperate with this plan.

We’ll see what August brings, but given recent history I’m not overly optimistic. I have a terrible feeling that the last, best hope for good Jeep weather this year will be in finding a long Indian summer and trying to hold on to it a little too long. This late in topless driving / monsoon season I suppose I’ll have to take what I can get.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Login.gov. The main platform for applying for work with the federal government, USAjobs.com, has introduced 2-factor authentication. In order to log into you account you now have to enter you user name and password and a six digit number provided to you via phone. That’s fine, except that in order to set up this new fancy ID with the 3rd party service, login.gov, you need the original phone number you used to set up your USAjobs account – which is a desk number I had more than 10 years ago. Without that one little bit of information you find you can’t log in to your old account, you can’t set up you new account, and there’s no way to fix A without fixing B witch requires you to fix A. It’s one of the most magnificent do loops I’ve seen the government foist on us in recent years. In discussion with the “help” desk it turns out I can’t even delete my old account and try again unless I can somehow transport back in time and answer a phone at a desk I haven’t sat at in over ten years.

2. Lawn Sprinklers. I have no philosophical issue with anyone piping water to their yard when weeks without rain threaten to bake it into oblivion. Sure, we’re all on wells and probably drawing from the same aquifer, but after three years of reliable water, I’ve got at least a small degree of comfort that we’re not going to run the damn thing dry. My problem comes when, after almost a week of nearly unremitting rain, when rainfall records are dropping like flies across the region, these same lawn sprinklers are running full tilt in the middle of a torrential downpour. I know it’s a relatively minor thing, but in my mind that also makes it one of those that’s easy to correct. I’m tickled pink to come from the land of plenty. I’m thrilled that the rain has turned my own lawn from wilting embarrassment to lush green carpet again. Although it’s completely outside the scope of what I usually care about, I’d really appreciate it if the house down the street could just stop making it rain for these few days while nature is providing the service gratis. I’m sure there will be plenty of days in August when they can show off their new toy to the neighborhood.

3. HVAC. Heating and cooling systems can be complex even at the residential level. Scale that into a multi-floor office building with a warren of offices, conference rooms, and open space, and I don’t even want to speculate on what mathematics may be involved in trying to make the place comfortable. First, I don’t want to speculate on that because I hate doing the maths. Second, I won’t speculate because I honestly don’t care. I just want the system to work. I want it to spit out cold air in the summer and warm air in the winter. Beyond that it can do whatever it wants. All I know is that somehow we’ve managed to make the lobby with 40 foot ceilings nicely chilled even in the heat of the day, but haven’t found a way to get any of that cool refreshing air down the hall to the back of the building. The first safety officer who comes down here bitching about too many fans plugged in is going to get kicked in the junk.

Zero point zero…

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Let me be among the very first to say I can admit bad decisions when I make them. My idea to kick off an August AMA was met with a resounding silence zero point zero.jpgfollowed by the distant womp womp of a sad trombone. Level of interest: Zero point zero. That’s ok. The sheer volumes of topics around here that never get past the idea stage is staggering so it’s just one more aborted notion on the pile.

Of course if there’s no one out there feeding me ideas, that means I’m back to relying on my own devices. After compiling a couple of thousand posts, I guess you can say that I’m ok with that. It’s not exactly a new thing. I’m just going to proceed from the assumption in this case that silence implies consent and that I should continue doing what I’m doing.

So, you may be asking, what does that mean? Well, it means you’ll be sure to see more stupid things that happened at the office, a bit of commentary about the news of the day, and whatever else happens to catch my interest in the moment. After so many posts I’m finding it’s nearly impossible not to tread some of the same ground, but I’m finding it entertaining to look at how my thinking has evolved over time. All things considered it’s not a bad way to run a joint.

What’s on your mind?

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About once a year, but on no actual specific schedule I like to throw open the doors here at jeffreytharp.com and let you tell me what’s on your mind. No, I’m not asking you to click, or share, or forward to 10 friends to prevent the ghost in the machine from deleting all your porn links, but I am offering up the chance for each and every one of you to set the agenda for a little while. I usually do this kind of thing when it feels like my own topics are getting a little stale and it’s safe to say looking back over the last few months’ worth of posts, I get the distinct impression that the day job is getting way too much time inside my head. Thanks to the power of social media and the vast reach of this blog (you know, 20-60 people per day), I’ve got a chance to set out of my head for a little while and stretch my legs – or more aptly, my fingers.

So, you may be asking yourself, what are the ground rules? There really aren’t any. Want to know my thoughts on a topic I haven’t talked about? Ask. Want a deeper dive on something I’ve only tangentially touched upon? Let me know. Want to hear more about dogs and less about work? Tell me. Have an unanswered question about that one time I did “this” when I clearly should have done “that?” It’s your chance to get the straight dope from the horse’s mouth… or horse’s ass, I suppose, depending on your particular point of view.

Now for the fine print: While I will provide an answer to every question asked, I do reserve the right to “vague up” some details that could be incriminating for me or embarrassing for others. I will, however, provide the straight dope answer directly to the questioner in these cases. All questions will be answered in the order in which they were received, or the order in which I feel like answering them. Scheduling really depends on the day. I will lead off each AMA response by crediting the asker, by name, link to their blog, twitter, etc as appropriate unless they have requested to ask anonymously.

So now, it’s all up to you. What’s on your mind?

Two out of three…

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I have a standing order with Amazon to deliver dog food, cat food, and litter on a monthly basis. It hasn’t been an altogether satisfying relationship thus far. Two out of the last three orders have been what I’ll just call “defective.” Today’s order included a bag of cat food in fine shape, a box of cat litter in fine condition, and a bag of dog food with a blown out corner that emptied half the bag’s contents out into the shipping box.

Look, the dogs loved the fact that I schlepped this 50 pound box through the middle of the house trailing kibble behind me, but it wasn’t the kind of experience I’d have paid for if given the opportunity. I’m a simple guy who just wants things to arrive undamaged. I don’t feel like that’s really an unreasonable position on my part as the consumer.

I dutifully fired up Amazon’s customer service chat and to their credit they immediately offered to ship out another bag of food or give me a refund. The Amazon business model is a real wonder of the modern – as it seems it’s cheaper for them to replace every fourth or fifth thing I buy than it is to spend a few extra cents on proper packaging for their products.

Amazon isn’t the only game in town, but they are generally the most convenient for setting up recurring orders so I’ll keep using them. They’ll keep sending out items in piss poor packaging. I’ll keep sending for replacements. And the whole machine will keep on working. Somehow, though, it feels like there could be a better way.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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​1. The “to read” pile. I’ll be the first to admit I’ve always had a problem with acquiring books. For most of my adult life it’s been manageable largely because I moved every couple of years and shipping large boxes of books gets expensive. I had an incentive to purge the shelves from time to time. After settling in at Fortress Jeff, though, moving every three years didn’t become much of a threat. What we have now is a collection of books that I want to read, but just haven’t gotten around to yet. The shelf I bought to store this unread library is already filled to capacity and spilling out across the floor. It’s a hot mess. I read an article recently that argued your “to read” pile should always be larger than the collection you’ve already read because it reflects your goals as well as you’ve accomplished… but I’m fairly sure they were thinking about books that teach you things and not a shelf filled with detective novels you’re going to get to at some point. If I were slightly less compulsive about displaying books-as-conquests I could probably have convinced myself to get a library card or fully embrace e-books. Now with no physical check on how many is too many, I fully expect the pile to get worse long before it gets better. I need to either make more time or learn to read faster.

2. Geography. I got a notice that something I ordered online has shipped and was expected on time for delivery. I was apoplectic to see that it was scheduled for delivery “tomorrow” but was sitting quietly in New Jersey. It turns out that even after being here for more than seven years it’s hard to remember that this part of Maryland is about 25 feet from New Jersey and items might not take a week to get here from there.

3. Facial recognition. Monday afternoon I was having trouble getting my phone to unlock with facial recognition. Having to manually enter a six digit password is so 2000-and-something. It was annoying. In displaying my annoyance to the phone, I inevitable scowled at it… at which point the fucking thing immediately opened. Apparently that really is “just how I look.” Frankly, though, I’m a little surprised the infernal contraption didn’t also require me to roll my eyes.

Jeff and the case of the $100 toothbrush…

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My dental hygienist has been hectoring me for years to buy an electro-mechanical toothbrush. She promised better dental health overall and fewer sessions with the drill. Still, I resisted the honey being poured into my ears. Mostly I resisted what I considered an extravagant expense in replacing a simple $2 toothbrush (that the dentist use to give me for free every six months), with a several hundred dollar battery powered model that also required regular brush head replacement. Frankly, I assumed the mechanical toothbrush would last about as long in my household as the electric razor I tried and promptly threw away twenty years ago.

After not a little bit of consideration I bit the bullet and ordered up one of these sonic cleaning marvels that was on offer as part of Amazon’s big site-wide yard sale. I’m trying to be open minded, though the fact that I just spent $100 on a toothbrush still feels like something of a patently ridiculous expense.

I’m going to do my best to give this thing the benefit of the doubt. It’s got until the first scheduled brush replacement to show me its worth. If it proves to be a case of a fool and his money, I’ll be perfectly happy to go back to ordering 10 packs of old school toothbrushes from Amazon for $5. Or maybe I’ll just knock out all of these awful teeth with a ball-peen hammer and get titanium chompers. At this point I’m starting to think that’s also a perfectly reasonable long-term solution.

Almost, but not quite halfway…

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My “official” calendar in Outlook is often what could generously be called a hot mess. ​It’s filled with blocks of times for actual meetings I expect to attend, meetings that I just need to know are happening, generic reminders of when certain things are due, the full range of vacation days and doctor appointments, and often as much other information as I can cram on to them to make the days at least look productive.

As I was projecting out the schedule on some longer range projects that had known timelines stretching through next spring, when I ran across a chit I had put down long enough ago that I don’t remember doing it. Sitting there on the calendar not too deeply into 2019 was a simple block that read “Career Halfway Point” marking the temporal spot mid-way between January 13, 2003 and May 31, 2035.

I’m honestly not sure if finding this particular Easter egg has left me feeling better or worse. Better that the halfway point is a relatively close-in target now, yes. Worse, because It means there’s still slightly more asshattery ahead than there is behind.

I won’t say that time precisely flies, but it does seem to move with haste. At least that’s how it feels when considering time in long stretches – some of the individual days and weeks can feel like they’re dragging on for years all on their own. There’s a big part of me that feels unqualified glee at the idea of being over the hump. My inner pessimist in me, of course, also can’t help but note that the closer to the end we are the closer to The End we are. It’s not quite a Pyrrhic victory, but it shares a zip code.

In recognition of Big Pharma…

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I’m not going to lie here, I was a bit skeptical when I was given a link that promised a “significant rebate” on one of the more expensive meds that are currently keeping me alive. Sure it was all nice and official and came to me by way of bitching at my doctor about the ridiculous cost of this new pill, but the claims of being rebated almost 95% of my out of pocket expenses seemed outlandish and unrealistic.

After getting my second check back from the nice folks at Merck, though, I had to admit to being pleasantly surprised. Sure, they make they process convoluted and require a fair deal of bureaucracy, but in the end what would otherwise be an obnoxious monthly expense ends up costing a total of $5.00 out of pocket. I’m just going to ignore for the time being the small fortune I’m sure to be costing Blue Cross for all this, of course. I just think of myself as an insurance industry loss leader. They an feel free to use me as an example of someone who’s wildly pleased with their products and services.

As much as I like to bitch and complain, I think it’s worth doling out credit where and when it’s due. From my perch, kudos to Big Pharma for the solid work at delivering new and effective medication and for having a means and method to help offset costs for he end user. Well done.