Author Archives: jdtharp

Cold (Hearted)…

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The City of Memphis and surrounding Shelby County has decided that it is too cold this week for people who have had the power turned off for non-payment… So the local governments and Memphis Light, Gas, and Water are turning their meters back on… and “worrying about getting the bills paid” after the cold passes. Of course that sounds brilliant in theory… everyone in Memphis will be warm and cozy while the temperature takes a dip. And those of us who are paying a power and gas bill and who pay the ridiculously high combination of city and county taxes are the ones who are going to foot the bill for the City’s “generosity” in the end.

I know some whiny liberal is going to tell me that we need to take care of each other, but what I really need to do is take care of me and mine, keep my own nose clean, and my own bills paid. I know it’s the same song and dance I pull out every time government takes another step in the direction of being everything to everybody, but at what point does the average taxpayer reach their carrying capacity? When does enough become too much? Or does it all march on until we are nurtured from cradle to grave in the warm embrace of bureaucracy? I live every day in the belly of that beast… and it’s not something I want controlling the other 16 hours of my day… and that’s the perspective from inside a department that’s actually pretty good at carrying out it’s core missions.

By now I’m probably sounding pretty heartless, but after bailouts, home loan modifications, debt forgiveness, and now making sure all of the City has its lights burning I can say well and truly that I’m tired of paying for other people’s poor decisions. I make enough of my own mistakes to keep me and my checkbook occupied without help. I just wish others would do the same. That’s my pipedream for tonight.

Batten down the hatches…

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With only a few words published by the National Weather Service, West Tennessee is working itself into fits of panic. Those words: EXACT SNOW AMOUNTS REMAIN UNCERTAIN AT THIS TIME… BUT PLANS SHOULD BE MADE FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF AT LEAST A COUPLE OF INCHES OF SNOW WITH ROADS BECOMING HAZARDOUS.

Now the south is a funny place when it snows… The usually slow-paced locals become something close to possessed. I’m sure if it hasn’t happened by now, by this time tomorrow there will be a crush of people buying everything from 60-roll packs of toilet paper to diesel generators. It will be the only thing people will talk about this week and when the worst happens and the snow hits, everyone will forget anything they ever learned about driving.

It’s going to be a long week if this forecast holds fast. Batten down the hatches… There’s weather ahead.

Overpriced…

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Most Saturday mornings I end up watching, or at least listening to the business/financial news on Fox (think of them as cartoons for adults). This week, though, I was caught a bit cold by the strident and almost universal opinion of the assembled group of talking heads that federal employees were the most over paid and under worked employees in the country (actually, I think most of the argument was that there were too many feds making over $100,000 a year). To be sure there are those out there that go out of their way to avoid doing much of anything and those people need to go. But for the most part, feds tend to be very highly educated bunch at the senior levels… Masters degrees are the bare minimum in most leadership positions and PhD’s and advanced technical degrees are not uncommon. Add in that the majority of feds have been on the job for more than 15 years and there should be even less surprise that people are climbing towards the top of the pay scale.

Of course one of the things that no one ever thinks about when they make the argument that the workforce is overpaid compared to other large organizations is that over the last 20 years, the feds have contracted out nearly all of the basic labor functions that happen on other organizations. Janitorial, building management, electricians, plumbers, mailrooms, and other functions are performed under contract and don’t lower Uncle Sam’s average salary the same way they do to private sector companies. So, when you’re accounting for only professional, management, technical, and scientific positions within a large organization, I would be interested in seeing how other large organizations stack up. Of course they never talk about that comparison because it’s not interesting.

Don’t get me wrong here, no one likes to bitch and complain about federal waste more than I do, but I don’t need to fudge the numbers to make my argument… I’ll give you examples from real life. I have no problem cutting waste, but I know what I bring home at the end of the week and I’m pretty confident in saying that I’m nowhere near overpaid for what I do. I don’t see anyone from the private sector knocking down the doors to come take my job, so until I do I’m afraid Fox’s big brains and I are going to have to part company on this issue.

Long haul…

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Driving long distances by yourself tend to lend itself to thinking deeply about things that usually don’t occupy much time. It occurred to me yesterday that I’ve officially lived here in Memphis for three years now. Of course I’ve really been here about six months longer than that, but for purposes of keeping the official record, I’ve decided not to count time spent living in a hotel in that figure. Buying a house seems to be the definitive announcement that you have arrived somewhere and are digging in for the long fight. The ironic thing is that I really never had any intention of staying here as long as I have. I had planned on coming to Memphis, picking up a promotion or two, making a quick buck on a house that should appreciate, and heading back to the DC area in a year or two and get back to my life. The first part of that plan worked out fairly well at least.

The recession and housing collapse have seen to it that the second part of the plan wouldn’t work out as I had envisioned. And, as usual, something unexpected happened… I got comfortable here. That’s not to say that I love Memphis as that would be an outright lie. Memphis is a necessary evil much like every other city I’ve ever lived or worked in. But the ridiculously low cost of living, relative ease of getting around, and ability to get “back east” within a day’s drive or a three hour flight have really made me question whether I’m willing to go back to DC… and the two bedroom condo and three hour round trip commute that I would find there. The fact is that I rather like getting to the house 30-minutes after leaving the office.

I dearly miss the proximity to power that you can only find in DC and given my druthers, Memphis would have a more sophisticated feel and figure out a way to get itself unstuck from 1953, but for the foreseeable future, I think I’ve slowly come to accept that I’m going to be here… Until something comes along back east that’s just too good to pass up. So if anyone up there is in need of a slightly used logistician/process improver/policy writer/strategist let me know.

Quality vs. Quantity

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Family time is a good thing. It’s especially good when you live 900 miles away and don’t get to see them as often as you’d like. The trouble is balancing quality time versus quantity time, particularly when you’re use to living alone and doing everything on your own schedule. I love my family dearly, but I think I’ve reached that tipping point where the best thing to do is get out on my own for a little while, decompress from the just-passed holiday and unwind a bit. Now to find a place in Allegany County that knows how to make a rum punch.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

All about Eve…

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Traveling with dogs is always an adventure. Watching southern dogs try to come to terms with snow is really something you need to see in person to fully appreciate, though. I’m happy to report that this Christmas Eve hasn’t been too traumatic for either the dogs or for my mother this year. In fact, I think she’s starting to warm to them a bit as this year they’ve even been allowed into the living room. That’s a real upgrade from last year’s banishment to the kitchen for the duration of the trip. I, of course, am on pins and needles hoping they don’t leave a Christmas surprise to be discovered later. That would surely send us back to square one. At the moment, there’s a fire in the fireplace, the dogs are curled up at my feet, and mother hasn’t threatened to toss the whole lot of us to the basement. So far so good.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

You’re not that festive…

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In the last two weeks I’ve probably seen two or three dozen cars with antlers sticking out their windows and red tennis balls wired to their grills. I know opinions are like certain anatomical regions, but really those don’t make you or your car look festive. They make you look like a giant asshat. How on earth did you look at those in the store and think “Hey, that would be a good idea?” One more reason to question the health on western civilization.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Use-or-Lose…

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It’s that time of year again when the pace of things at the federal government grinds to a halt and nearly everyone with more that four or five years on the job has visions of the next two weeks off dancing in their heads. It’s use-or-lose leave season in the federal government and that means for all practical purposes, the bureaucracy ceases to function in any meaningful way. The burning of excess leave is one of the great traditions of government employees and I’m happy to be partaking once again this holiday season.

Occasionally, though, you run into a problem during this time of year; an issue that someone thinks just can’t wait until after the start of the new year. That’s when the endless round of phone tag and a steady stream of email interrupts what you were sure was going to be two weeks of rest and relaxation. There’s really not a tactful way to tell people to bugger off, but I’m going to try my best to do it for two weeks starting tomorrow afternoon around 3:30.

As a rule, I do my damndest to avoid contacting people when they are on leave, If I drop them an email, it’s for something they’ll need to know when they get back to the office, not something they should be working on when they are burning vacation time. I’ll never object to answering a few emails here and there or even returning an occasional phone call while I’m gone… But I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I’m going to spend any more than the barest minimum amount of time thinking about or doing work while I’m gone. So, if you want the cheap and easy answer to your questions, ask me sometime in the next 16 days… or if you want the well-developed and articulated answer, give me a call on January 4th and I’ll give it something close to my full attention.

Until then, I encourage those calling on official business to please leave a message and I’ll return your call in the order in which it was received… eventually.

Resolution…

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When i think I’m right, I may have a bit of a tendency to dig in my heels. When I get challenged on it, I have a propensity to get downright nasty. And occasionally, I’m willing to go so far as to write proverbial checks that I’m not particularly going to want to cash later. I’ve had alot of line for a long time and a natural instinct to fight to keep every inch of it when it gets reeled in a bit. Maybe someday I’ll learn to pick my fights a little better. But for now, it seems the best possible outcome is simple resolution… And the chance to pick other fights on other days.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Just an old fashioned guy…

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I’ve been seeing a lot of articles lately about the Kindle, Nook, and various other e-book readers… and I’ve decided that I like real books. I like the way they feel in your hand and the way the paper smells. I like that there is something tactile about reading a book; that the binding has just the right amount of give. I like that a book is a physical manifestation of the knowledge printed between the covers.

I know that I’m about as big a fan of technology as anyone out there, but I just can get behind the whole e-book thing. I’m ok with a cell phone being the size of a business card. I’m ok that my laptop has far more computing power than all the moon missions combined. I have a terminal addiction to the latest and greatest bright, shiny, and new technology… except for this one thing. So that’s my line in the sand. I’m sticking with books made from paper. It’s been good enough for everyone since the dawn of civilization… so I guess that makes me an old fashioned guy.