Author Archives: jdtharp

The abyss…

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With 24 days left for POTUS and the collective membership United States Congress to start acting like statesmen instead of maladjusted teenagers, it seems like as good a time as any to ponder what falling off the edge of the fiscal cliff might actually look like. Spending would continue to increase more or less unchecked. Taxes would increase across the board. The national credit rating would plummet. The defense budget would get gutted right along with a host of domestic programs that up until now were considered too important to do without. Those are some of the big ticket, first order effects. I’m not sure I even want to speculate about what the 3rd and 4th order effects would entail. I’m not confident that any economist in the country legitimately knows what the end result of fiscal cliff diving would be. Most seem to agree, though, that it would result in a situation that is less than good.

Thoughtful people can honestly disagree about good policy and the right course of action, but intuitively I can’t believe that higher taxes are the solution. Because I’m OCD about certain things, I have a spreadsheet that keeps track of my income, taxes, and other deductions going back a decade. Without getting into detail, trust me when I tell you that Caesar is getting his fair share from me. The Imperial Governor of Maryland is getting his pound of flesh too, even though he insists that I’m rich and should be happy to pay even more. St. Mary’s County, the City of Memphis, and Shelby County are all still getting a nice healthy check every year. Every time I turn around, it seems some taxing authority is digging their hand just a little deeper into my pocket… and if I don’t smile and thank them for it, I’m labeled a racist, a bad citizen, greedy, or heartless. Occasionally, I’ve been called all of them at once.

Like it or not, believe it or not, it’s going to be people like me (and most of you reading this), who end up paying the bill because our elected leaders want to play chicken with a trillion dollar economy. No matter what they tell you now, it’s our taxes – local, state, and federal –are going to go up. We’re the ones who are going to lose our jobs, some for the second and third time in a decade. We’re the ones who should be most outraged by the personal damage being inflicted on us and the inestimable damage being inflicted on the country… but hey, it’s Christmas time, and we wouldn’t want to let a calamity of historic proportions get in the way of our national shopping spree.

If we get to the 1st of the year and don’t see fewer dollars in our paychecks, if we don’t see massive cuts to important programs, if we don’t see an economy tipped back into the abyss, I’ll happily apologize and publicly eat my words right here in my own house. I’m just a guy sitting here paying attention and I hope beyond hope that I’m reading the tealeaves wrong… but I don’t think I am. And I think the worst is yet to come.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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It’s been a slow week for petty annoyances… and while that’s technically a good thing because it tends to mean my blood pressure isn’t all over the map, it also doesn’t make for a great weekly spot. Despite being a pretty good week overall, there are a few things that I can’t let pass without mentioning.

1. Support services. Theoretically, office trash is supposed to be picked up three times a week. That happens probably 50% of the time. 40% of the time, someone shows up for it twice a week. Last week was one of those 10% moments when no one came by at all. I tote and haul my own trash at home, so I don’t have any philosophical issues with carrying it to the dumpster here at the office – it’s more so a function of a) not knowing where the trash actually goes once it leaves my cubicle, b) not having any of the baby-sized trash bags to replace the one I need to throw out, and c) we’re paying someone good money on a contract that calls for them to, you know, take the bloody trash out three times a week. It’s a small thing, I know, but I have a creeping suspicion that it’s just the surface-level indication that government writ large doesn’t have a clue what kind of quality service it’s getting for our money.

2. Favors. As a rule I try not to ask for favors. That’s mostly because I don’t want to end up then owing someone a favor down the line. If someone asks, though, and it’s not too off-putting, I’m generally open to helping them out. All I really ask is that you be clear about your request. For instance, if you say something like “Hey, can you pick me up a Coke when you go get your lunch” don’t act surprised when what I bring back is a Coke. You see, the thing is, I can’t read your mind. I have no earthly way of knowing that by “Coke” you mean Diet Coke. Honestly, I just don’t pay that kind of attention to people’s daily beverage choices, so I make the blithe assumption that you’re asking for what you actually want. If I asked someone to pick me up a cup of coffee, I’m not sure I’d be offended if they brought back a cup of regular black coffee instead of a vinti-vanilla-latte-extra-hot-with-a-shot. I would have failed to specify what I really wanted… and I damned sure wouldn’t have stood there expecting the person doing me the favor to cover the cost of what I asked them to bring me because they weren’t able to read my bloody effing mind and know what I asked for wasn’t what I wanted. I would have just said “thanks” and gone on about my day. From here on out, the answer is always “no.” Thanks for playing.

As a side note, this is the 53rd regular installment of What Annoys Jeff this Week. Hard as it is to believe, you’ve been listening to my weekly list of grips for a year now. I won’t say it’s actually been cathartic, but it sure is fun to take a little time once a week to call out stupid for what it is.

A look behind the curtain…

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As a fresh college graduate back in about 2001, I remember having a series of conversations with a few other newly minted professionals wondering why nothing we learned in college actually prepared us for working in a “real world” professional environment. As I recall, the group consensus was that some kind of handbook for new graduates would have been incredibly helpful in making from the transition from full time student to productive member of society. None of us took up the banner at the time. I think we lumped it into same category of conversations that ended up with us wanting to open a brew pub, build a working trebuchet, and buy a rental cottage on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Of our brilliant ideas, the only one that ever came close to seeing the light of day was building the treb – even though we never did manage to figure out how to attach the sling mechanism to the throwing arm, we managed to put together a respectable first effort at medieval siege weaponry.

Those first random conversations about the idea of a snarky little field guide for new grads has kept popping back into my head from time to time. After going to work for Uncle, there seemed to be a limitless supply of cautionary tales I wish someone would have told me before I showed up for my first day. I don’t know that it’s anything that would have changed my career trajectory, but it’s a stack of information that would have fit well into that “nice to know” category before needing to learn some of those life lessons the hard way. I have a few insights that might be useful for those coming up behind me and I like to think I give it enough misanthropic twist to keep the narrative interesting even if you’re not well on your way to a career as a office drone.

For the last few months, one of the projects I’ve been working on behind the curtain has been a first draft of what I suspect is becoming the handbook we first talked about more than a decade ago. I’ve said it here before, but it’s worth saying again: Serious writing is damned hard work, but it’s some of the most personally rewarding work I’ve ever done. That’s probably because it’s one of the few things I’ve ever written purely for my own purposes. Hard as it is to believe, spitting out well-crafted information papers and memos just doesn’t leave me with the same warm glow of self-satisfaction.

If I had to give it a SWAG, I’d say that at 13,000 words I’m probably halfway to having a very rough first draft. I’m shooting for a 25,000 word first draft with the vague hope of polishing that up to about 30,000 words in its final version. Maybe it’ll be ready by summer, maybe it won’t, but Summer 2013 is where I’m really hoping to land this thing as a well dressed ebook on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I’m feeling pretty good about hitting my “half draft” mark yesterday, so if there’s any interest, maybe I’ll post up a sample chapter so you can see how I’ve been misspending a big chunk of my evenings and weekends.

Exile to Scum Village…

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Setting aside the profound constitutional trouble we’d get into for depriving fellow citizens of several rights without some kind of due process, I think out friends in Holland are on to something. With a few tweaks around the margins I could get on board with Amsterdam’s proposal to round up “nuisance neighbours” and exile them into one location where they wouldn’t trouble neighbors who actually give a damn and where they could be constantly monitored by the police and social services. Admit it, you know you’ve secretly dreamed about having their neighbors hauled off for generally being bad at life as an adult.

Sure, there’s a bit of a problematic history of rounding up undesirables and throwing them in camps far away from polite society, but with a few checks and balances, I’m confident we can figure out a way to keep the system from being too abusive. Add a few claymores, a little concertina wire, and I think we can make folks very comfortable in their new shipping container homes… and if they’re not comfortable, well, at least they’ll be out of earshot so we won’t have to listen to them complaining about it.

Deadbeat…

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Sometimes the best thing about being a blogger is that at those moments you have no idea what you’re going to write about, the universe drops a plum in your lap. I was just sitting down to dinner when one of my neighbors – the one who is more OCD about his lawn than I am and who I actually get along with – knocked on my back door. It seems our mutual neighbor has gotten himself into a bit of a scrape with the fine people of Douglas County, Kansas. And by “scrape,” I mean he got his ass locked up for allegedly robbing a couple of convenience stores… while allegedly using his finger as an imaginary gun. With many, many wonderful pictures of him in the stores, somehow I’m having a hard time imagining a Kansas judge or jury looking kindly on an out-of-towner allegedly doing anything other than just passing through.

The whole story is out there in the local media, but I’m not going to link to it as a modest nod towards neighborhood peace and tranquility. With that said, I hope they’re planning on giving him a nice long stay at one of the fine Kansas State correctional facilities. With those boyish good looks, I’m sure he’ll make an excellent wife for one one their lifers who’s looking for a fresh start with a new special someone.

A year of Sundays…

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If it’s Sunday, you’re obviously stopping by to read whatever goodness popped up from the archive this week. As usual, there are a couple of gems and a couple of throw aways. Sorry about that. No one brings their A-game every time. Still, I think the stories from mid-October 2006 are worth checking out.

Looking at posts I imported from MySpace before imploding that old account, it looks like the rest of the posts cover the period from October 2006 – October 2008. If my memory is to be trusted, I recall that being a pretty interesting couple fo years. I haven’t counted, but assuming 2-3 posts a week for most of that time, I’m guessing there are another 200 or 250 old posts just waiting to get drug kicking and screaming into the new decade… which means I’ve got about a year of Sunday posts covered without putting too much thought into it. Trust me, when you try jotting down something witty five or six times a week, you learn to appreciate one day a week when you can set it on autopilot. I, for one, am very glad to have 87 single spaced pages and 51,000 words just sitting on the shelf waiting for me to do the old copy-and-paste. Sunday is supposed to be a relative day of rest, right?

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Comcast. Making the list for the third or fourth time this year is the cable company that everyone loves to hate. Ever since I downgraded my service a two months ago, my bills have been arriving with what I’ll generously call wild inaccuracies. I spent 30 minutes yesterday on the phone with a very nice CSR who thought she was going to be able to make this month’s round of corrections. Except, of course, she couldn’t because the amount of the correction was in excess of $25… which triggered the need to execute what I believe she called an “elevation form for tier two service.” Instead of being transferred to this group of genies, I’d have to “stand by for them to contact me sometime within the next five business days.” I don’t know why I ever hold out hope that anything can either A) just work the way it’s supposed to work or B) Be corrected with a single phone call. Clearly my expectations are misaligned with reality.

2. The five day work week. I’m out of practice with being at my desk for a full five days in a row. I know this because it’s Thursday and the only ambition I have left is to muddle through tomorrow and get to the weekend. It’s not that the week has been particularly busy, problematic, or strange… but the trek from Monday to Friday has just seemed to go on forever. Now if I can just gin up enough oomph to drag myself through three more long weeks, I’ll be all set for the 11-day Christmas weekend.

3. Lunch. When I worked in DC, it was two blocks to Chinatown, one metro stop from Union Station and the Hill, or a 10 minute walk in almost any other direction to find a diverse and tasty array of lunch options. Here in Aberdeen, there’s a Subway, a Burger King, and a few other lunch places that more or less serve the same thing. While I don’t miss the daily 90 minute commute, I desperately miss having some variety in my lunch options. I miss General Tso’s from Tony Chang’s, burgers at the District Chophouse, and deep dish from Armand’s. At this point, God help me, I even have fond memories of the build your own salad bar next door to the office and the hot dog cart set up on the curb. I’m not expecting an urban food environment here in the wilds of north eastern Maryland, but if I don’t find something other than sandwiches soon I may have to resort to bringing my own food… and that’s just not an option I want to entertain.

10 week update…

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I realized this afternoon that it’s been a while since my last Winston update and figured with this being a slow news day it’s as good a time to correct that as I’m likely to find. For those of you playing along at home, tomorrow will be 10 weeks since his surgery. You’ll remember the first two weeks were close confinement with walking kept to an absolute minimum. The last six weeks have seen slightly less confinement, but still have kept activity rather limited. In two weeks when we go back to the surgeon for his alleged last post-operative check up, I desperately hope that she will give the all clear for him to resume as much of a normal life as possible.

I really don’t know which of us will be more excited to finally see the plastic pen disappear from the middle of the living room. That the current Rental Casa de Jeff is a tri-level split gives me a moment of pause, though. I think it’s safe to say that my boy has climbed his last set of stairs, which means that he’s more or less limited to the kitchen and living room for the foreseeable future. That’s a lot more space than he’s had in the last two months, but still feels pretty confining. The pitch of the steps and their location make any kind of indoor ramping prohibitive, but I’m still casting around for a better idea than throwing up baby gates and calling it a done deal.

One thing I do have to say is that he’s getting around far better than I would have expected given how much work they did to his leg. I suppose in the wild a dog either plays hurt or lays down and dies, so there’s probably more than a little evolution at play. Still, even with high quality medication I’m not sure two days after having my knee rebuilt I’d have much interest in getting up and looking around.

Winston has been a real trooper through the whole experience and it seems like the hard part for him is wrapping up. Now if I can get past the notion that 50% of dogs that blow out one knee also blow out the other, everything will be just fine. Until then, I’m going to spaz out a little inside every time the poor dog takes a step.

Research, Test, and Evaluation…

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Almost a decade ago a colleague who will remain unnamed started conducting a groundbreaking, though slightly less than scientific study into how large a ball of paper he could make using only class handouts. As this research effort got underway at a time before cell phone cameras, I don’t have any physical documentation, but as I recall it ended up being slightly smaller than a basketball and packed enough weight to be deadly when flung in the direction of your head. Trust me, in the far back rows of a dark, musty auditorium this is what passed for in class entertainment.

In the spirit of the upcoming anniversary of this Big Ball of Paper Test, I seem to have unwittingly begun my own research project into how many (mostly) empty plastic water bottles I can stow in the various compartments of my cubicle before remembering to take them down the hall to the recycling bin. As you can see from the photographic evidence, apparently that number is at least four, which given my usual level of OCD about random crap just sitting around is actually more impressive than you’re thinking it is right now.

And that’s where the test begins… to see how many (mostly) empty water bottles I can fit into my cubicle without freaking out and going on a mad cleaning spree or before one of my coworkers notices and asks WTF I’m doing with a metric crapload of plastic bottles sitting around… and yes, before someone asks, that’s what passed for entertainment this afternoon.

In retrospect, maybe I should have gone ahead and bought the desktop pingpong ball trebuchet when it was on sale yesterday. Now that would have been a productive use of time.

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Sucking chest wound…

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Getting back to the weekly grind is tough after a regular, uneventful weekend. Going back after a four-day weekend is a little more like trying to recover from massive ballistic trauma – without the blood and swelling, of course. Sitting at the computer, staring at Outlook, and making an effort at being productive was just downright painful… and I think just reinforces why I need to win Wednesday’s PowerBall drawing.

I envy that select group of people who jump out of bed in the morning, fully energized and looking forward to the day. Generally the best I can hope to achieve is fully caffeinated and looking forward to going home at the end of the day. That last bit shouldn’t be taken as a slam against my job. As far as work goes, it’s really not a bad one; with a little attention to detail and a willingness to not let common sense get in the way, there’s really not that much to complain about.

Still, a job is a job and like 99.9% of the other working slobs in this country, there are of 687 bazillion other things I’d rather be doing on any average day. Tops on my list is not waking up at 4:50AM to three screaming alarm clocks. It may seem like a small thing, but I think it would go a long way towards reducing my regular feeling of post-weekend trauma. Since my experience has been that one job is more or less like the next, it seems to be that the only real alternatives at this point are to start robbing banks, come up with a Wall Street ponzi scheme, or win the PowerBall jackpot.

With only one of those three not leading more or less directly to prison, I’d say that the only acceptable plan is to win the lottery. Well, either that or somehow learn not to think of Monday as the sucking chest wound on the torso of life. Wish me luck.