Category Archives: work

Business travel…

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The following is an excerpt from an email I received this morning. The worst part, perhaps, is I was well into the discussion on changes to lodging policies before I realized it was supposed to be farce. When you work for Uncle sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between real life and comedy… and even then sometimes real life is comedy.

ALCON,

Please be advised of the following changes to TDY per diem allowances:

TDY/TAD Travel: In keeping with the latest round of DOD budget cuts, changes will be made to the Joint Travel Regulations (JTR). Effective Monday, 11 February the following revised procedures apply:

Lodging: All DOD personnel performing temporary duty (TDY) are encouraged to stay with relatives and friends while on government business travel. If weather permits, public areas such as parks should be used as temporary lodging sites. Bus terminals, train stations, and office lobbies may provide shelter in periods of inclement weather.

Transportation: Hitchhiking is the preferred mode of travel in lieu of commercial transport. Luminescent safety vests will be issued to all personnel prior to their departure on TDY. Bus transportation will be used only when work schedules require such travel. Airline tickets will be authorized in extreme circumstances and the lowest fares will be used. For example, if a meeting is scheduled in Washington D.C., but a lower fare can be obtained by traveling to Omaha, NE, then travel to Omaha will be substituted for travel to Washington D.C.

Meals: Expenditures for meals will be limited to an absolute minimum. It should be noted that certain grocery and specialty chains, such as Costco, Hickory Farms, General Nutrition centers, and occasionally Safeway often provide free samples of promotional items. Entire meals can be obtained in this manner. We realize many of you survive your weekends this way.

Travelers should also be familiar with indigenous roots, berries, and other protein sources available at their destinations. If restaurants must be utilized, travelers should use “all you can eat” salad bars. This is especially effective for employees traveling together as one plate can be used to feed the entire group. DOD Personnel are also encouraged to bring their own food on business travel. Cans of tuna fish, Spam, and Beefaroni can be consumed at your leisure without the bother of heating or costly preparation. Cost of these items will not be reimbursed.

Miscellaneous: All DOD personnel are encouraged to devise innovative techniques in effort to save tax dollars. One enterprising individual has already suggested that money could be raised during airport layover periods, which could be used to defray travel expenses. In support of this idea, red caps will be issued to all personnel prior to their departure so that they may earn tips by helping others with their luggage. Small plastic roses and ballpoint pens will also be available to personnel so that sales may be made as time permits. Proceeds must be turned into the Defense Finance and Accounting Service at the conclusion of the TDY. We welcome any suggestions for further fiscal innovations, cost avoidances, and waste reduction techniques.

That old, unpleasant “off” feeling…

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I’m a guy. I don’t do “sick” well. It’s just one of the charming aspects of the gender that I know all the women-folk out there enjoy. In keeping with that theme, one of the things we guys like to do is complain loudly and at length about how bad we feel. Since this is my megaphone of choice, that means you all are along for the ride.

Let me say for the record that I don’t feel awful, just not as good as I think I should. Not achy and full of snot. Not shivering and covered in blankets. Not sneezing and yacking up lunch. It’s just a more generalized “blah” kind of feeling that lets you know something in your system is minimally off. Since there’s no real symptoms besides this generalized blah, there’s really nothing to be done other than load up on fluids and vitamin c, try getting to bed early, and hope to wake up feeling ok in the morning. Even if I wake up feeling less than ok, this isn’t a good week for it. Tempting as it might be to spend the whole day on the couch watching old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (my go-to sick on the couch activity of choice), I’ve done a far too successful job of hoarding information this week and have, unfortunately, made showing up at work tomorrow not an optional activity. That one part of my conscience that isn’t dead or numbed out by life won’t let me throw someone under the bus if I can avoid it.

Since tomorrow is a work day whether good or ill, I’m going to go heavy on the hope that this is a passing funk that will clear the system overnight so I have some kind of chance of being at least a marginally productive employee. In case you’re wondering, that’s about as selfless a statement as you’re every going to drag out of me, so go ahead and enjoy it.

With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan…

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Last week, I mentioned something on Facebook about Gilbert and Sullivan. That turned into a whole discussion, and then you end up with what we have here… and very, very badly rhymed example of what happens when your brain spends too much time churning on something that was said two weeks ago. Before I change my mind and burry this far, far out of sight, here’s, what I cam up with…

I am the very model of a modern Civil Service Slug,
I’ve information lesser men than me could barely ascertain.
I know regulations and can quote from all them quite at length,
From AR 1 dash 1 and on – this isn’t metaphorical.

I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters operational,
I understand OPORDERS, both the easy and fanatical,
About the latest memos I am teeming with a lot o’ news,
With many dull ass facts about the Old Man’s squirrely views.

I’m very good at email and at taking margin notes;
I know the acronyms of systems thought to be far too arcane,
In short, in matters questionable, marginal, and edible,
I am the very model of a modern Civil Service Slug.

I know our mythic history, Al Myer’s and Saint Mercury;
I’ll answer random questions and have no shame using PowerPoint,
I quote lengthy orders from the peckers in the Pentagon,
In a comic flaw of short attention span;

I can tell unfounded lies from grand plans and strategies,
I know the gasping sound of interns drug down to their knees!
Then I can make a note of stupid things that we already tried before,
And feel myself trapped in that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

I can draft a contract longhand using not a single form,
And tell you every minor fact of current civil service law.
In short, in matters questionable, marginal, and edible,
I am the very model of a modern Civil Service Slug.

In fact, when I know what is meant by “empowered” and “process flow”
When I can tell at sight a Gantt chart from a cover sheet,
When such affairs as taskers and surprises I’m more troubled at,
And when I know precisely what the bosses mean by “new format.”

When I have learnt what progress has been made in modern management,
When I know more of theory than an intern stuck at old Fort Lee–
In short, when I’ve a smattering of elemental banditry-
You’ll say a better Civil Service Slug has never mocked drily.

For my breadth of knowledge, though I’m plucky and adventury,
It’s only been brought up since around two thousand three;
But still, in matters questionable, marginal, and edible,
I am the very model of a modern Civil Service Slug.

A face in the crowd (and better off for it)…

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The best part of just being a face in the crowd is that you get to spend a lot of time watching people in power, whether that be the legitimate power of elected office or the almost completely fictitious power that resides in a fancy sounding title. The most common denominator that I’ve observed so far is simple – the more powerful the individual being observed, the less control they have over their own lives. The ones with real power, the ones who are minor princes of the universe, seem to have their days scripted, their movements controlled, and have barely a spare minute to do so much as scratch their own arse.

It’s hard to believe, but a younger, more ambitious version of me once thought that sounded like an ideal way to spend a career… long flights, clamoring between meetings, and generally being indispensible. With a third of my career in the rear view, I can honestly say that the shine is well off that idea. These days, the last place I want to find myself is at the center of the hive. The older I get, the less inclined I am to let other people dictate my schedule or to cede control over any portion of my life. My one concession is the 40-hours a week that I spend working for wages… and that’s only grudgingly because I like eating and having a roof over my head.

I’m sure it’s a fine way to live and all, but for me, having the maximum amount of personal control over who I interact with, what I do, and when I do it is pretty damned important. On balance, short of being named absolute monarch of a small tropical island, I’m not sure that’s something I’d want to give up – especially not for something as temporal as a spiffy sounding title and not much else.

Saved this space (for no apparent reason)…

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We had a “surprise” town hall meeting at work today and I was saving this space for some sharp and scathing commentary on what I assumed would be breaking the official silence on sequestration, fiscal uncertainty, and the impending budget cuts to our little slice of paradise here at the top of the Bay. Instead we got the typical once a quarter, “you’re doing great work” speech and a few other pearls of wisdom. In the absence of crippling financial news, I find that I don’t really have anything to say.

Waiting to find out what the world will look like a month from now every time someone calls a meeting is a tough way to live… especially in a place that loves meetings as much as we do. So yeah, this space stayed blank for no apparent reason today… but there other shoe is out there somewhere. It’s lurking, and waiting. Waiting to fall out of the sky to pummel some poor dumb group of unsuspecting employees that had the misfortune of thinking that going to work for their Uncle seemed like a good idea at the time. Boy are they gonna be surprised.

I’m glad that for today at least it wasn’t me… but since every silver lining has a dark cloud around it, it’s pretty much left me with nothing interesting to say tonight.

Liberal leave…

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Vast swaths of the federal government operated with a “liberal leave” policy in place today. Loosely translated, this policy says “Travel conditions may or may not be dangerous this morning so instead of us actually making a decision to be open or closed, we’re going to let every individual go ahead and flip a coin to decide whether they want to work today or not.” I don’t have any particular heartburn with them using this approach on days when the weather is decidedly questionable in the early morning hours.

Rest assured, if at any time I realistically thought my life was endangered by the commute, I’d be the first to throw in the towel and head back to the house. As much as I would have enjoyed a Monday spent hanging around the house drinking coffee, I just wasn’t so in love with the idea that I wanted to use up a day of my own annual leave to make it happen. What I really wanted was for Uncle Sugar to go ahead and give me another day free of charge. Let’s be honest, it’s going to have to be a blizzard of epic proportions before I’m willing to say it’s so bad out there that I want to burn off a day of precious, precious vacation time… and usually that’s when Uncle ends up making the “right” call anyway and letting everyone stay home.

As nice as cooling my heels for an impromptu four-day weekend would have been, I’m too much of a leave hoarder to make it happen today… but don’t think for a second that I didn’t regret that decision when I was sitting at my desk looking at a metric ton of new emails that had been piling up since Thursday afternoon, the flashing “voicemail” light on my phone, and a line of people that had things that needed discussing. In retrospect, maybe I should have been a little more liberal with my leave after all, but that’s just another day of putting off the inevitable.

The view from my fighting position…

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I’ve been blogging here at jeffreytharp.com for almost three years now. For all my other ranting and raving, the single most searched for and commented on posts were consistently focused on the 2011 Army hiring freeze. Some version of “hiring freeze” has been in the top spot for searches that bring people to the blog. Now, I love web traffic as much as any blogger, but honestly, I hoped that was a topical area that I’d be able to leave dead and buried. The hiring freeze that trapped me two years ago is long gone, but it’s been replaced by a newer, broader, and seemingly more permanent version. That doesn’t bode well for the average person working the line in an organization that has always sung the praises of personal mobility as a means to progress to reaching bigger and better opportunities.

In a world where a one-half-of-one-percent raise is a political football, the future does not look like a particularly bright, shiny place. Throw in what looks like a cross between budgetary indecision and panic at the most senior levels of leadership, the knowledge that the worse of the cuts aren’t yet here, and that there’s now open talk of across-the-board furloughs and reductions in force for the first time in a generation, and well, you’ve got yourself a workforce that shows up every day wondering when the other shoe is going to hurtle out of the sky like a dying communications satellite.

Even if the budget situation is resolved without what feels like almost inevitable bloodletting, it’s already taken its toll. Not backfilling empty positions, piling more work on those who remain, holding salaries flat as the price of everything else increases, and repeatedly telling everyone that the worst is yet to come isn’t a recipe for getting the most out of a workforce. In this one case, my hat’s off to management for trying their best to moderate the worst of the outside forces that impact all of us… but when your fates all hang on the ability of politicians to get things done in a smart and timely manner, well, you can understand my not being particularly optimistic about what the future holds.

That’s my view from my fighting position, anyway. So let’s all cross out fingers and hope that someone proves me wrong.

One bad mother (shut your mouth)…

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I generally make a point to avoid using this as a venue to talk about work. For one thing, it’s just bad form to grouse too much about the people who sign your check. For another, work is hard enough without everyone looking around wondering what embarrassing story you’re going to tell next. Finally, work is usually the last thing I want to talk about when I’m not, you know, at work, so most of those stories never get written, let alone see the light of day.

This post isn’t going to break that mold in any meaningful way, but I don’t think I’m talking out of school when I say that other the last week and a half has been a real mother. It’s been seriously busy. And I mean busier in the last ten days than any other tend day stretch in the last 17 months. It’s not that the work is any harder, just that there seems to be more of it… and between flu, random sickness, planned time off, meetings, uncertainty about the budget, impending sequestration, no raise for 3 years, and a host of other things, I think it’s safe to say the whole place is just in a mood.

I don’t know what the remedy is, but for the time being the best course of action is probably just keeping my head down and doing my best not to draw unnecessary fire. I’m not wishing my life away, but 4:00 Friday afternoon can’t get here fast enough.

ID(on’t)…

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At any given time, I’m carrying around three or four separate pieces of plastic that confirm that I’m really me – The card that gets me inside the fence, the card that gets me inside the building, an ID from three jobs ago that for some reason is still stuck in the back of my card holder, and my venerable old school driver’s license. It seems to me that it should be possible to take the information on all of those cards, link it into one master database, and then figure out how to issue me one card to rule them all.

Better yet, just let me keep all my pertinent information on my phone. Lord knows I’m not going to leave the house without that. It just seems that there should be better technology available than a metal chip sandwiched between two layers of plastic. Maybe the answer is biometrics – a thumb print and a retina scan to prove we are who we say we are and that we’re where we’re supposed to be. It just seems that in the last 100 years we should have made more progress than simply transferring information from a laminated paper card to a laminated plastic one.

Oh, and managing to make it something I’m not chronically prone to leave laying on the kitchen table when I’m on my way out the door well before the break of dawn would be pretty damned helpful too. Feel free to just jam a chip in the back of my head and get it over with. Sure it’s intrusive and has all sorts of negative privacy implications, but it would prevent needing to drive all the way back home to pick up my ID and that’s really the only thing I’m looking for at this point.

10 years on…

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10-year-anniversaryAround this time a decade ago me and about 30 of my brand new friends were herded into an auditorium that would be our home for the next six months. We were handed about 371 pieces of paper needing our signatures, took our oath of office as government employees, and, as I recall, spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what the hell we had gotten ourselves into after accepting a rather vague sounding job from an obscure sounding Army office.

I’m not going to lie, this career hasn’t been what I expected. It hasn’t been all good, but it hasn’t been all bad either. All things considered, Uncle Sam carved out some amazing opportunities for a guy with a history degree whose only real ambition in the winter of 2003 was to get as far away from teaching as possible. Ultimately, work is work. I’ve had some good days and there have been some spectacular flops too. On balance, it feels like there has been more good than bad, though.

Ten years feels like a pretty impressive milestone for a guy who up until that point had never stayed with an employer for more than three years… of course the pessimist in me can resist pointing out that all a ten year anniversary means is that I’ve got twice that amount of time before I can even think about hanging it up. That sounds like an awfully long time until I remember just how fast the last ten years have seemed to go. I have a disturbing feeling that I’m going to wake up one morning a month from now and see the 20 or 30 year mark coming over the horizon.

Apparently time doesn’t just fly when you’re having fun. Time just flies.