Category Archives: work

Bon temps…

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Not long ago, I was thoroughly impressed with myself because I thought I was actually going to get the go ahead to execute a contract with an estimated value of $1M. Today, I spent a good part of the morning discussing a couple of projects that had several single budget lines of in excess of $100B. Thinking in terms of numbers that large takes a different kind of skill set. It’s definitely not balancing your average checkbook.

As fun as it is to play master of the universe with this kind of money, it occurred to me that this is exactly the kind of spending that managed to get us into a $14T national debt. Sure, it’s going for neat stuff, but I think in the back of everyone’s mind they question when the high times are going to stop. Sooner or later we all know that music is going to stop and everyone’s going to be looking for a chair when it does. In the meantime, let the good times roll.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Data call…

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When I ask for some information and mention that it’s for the boss, the appropriate response is not to then get up, walk down the hall, get water for your plants, talk to your best girl friend on the phone for 20 minutes, eat a granola bar and then get around to sending me the info an hour later. Look, I know I’m new in town, but I didn’t get here on the turnip truck. Mkay? Thanks.

I seriously wonder sometimes if it’s my standards that are unrealistically high or if the rest of the world really is just that stupid, ignorant, or just gold fashioned oblivious to everything going on around them.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date

Nothing…

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I’ve been in place now for just about a month. It’s fair to say that in that time, I’ve done nothing. In fairness, it took two weeks for the IT guys to get me set up on the network and then figure out that I needed access to a laundry list of systems. But after that, it’s been pretty much nothing. A few rounds of “hey check these numbers” or “go sit with so-and-so while he does something,” but as far as getting a sense of what I’m actually supposed to be doing in this new job? Yeah. Not so much. I know that sooner or later that’s going to change and they’ll want me to be at least marginally productive, but until then, have you ever tried to fill eight hours a day and 40 hours a week with nothing productive? Let’s just say that I’m reading a lot more news these days. If I can’t be productive, I should at least be well informed.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Tweaked…

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On the surface the range of issues I deal with in this new job is deceptively similar to the position I ejected from in Tennessee. To be sure, there’s plenty of org chart shuffling, PowerPoints to update, and a metric ton of reports of one stripe or another that need to be completed. The difference, though, is that even when it’s minute, you can still see progressing being made on these projects. There’s plenty of infighting and office politics, but on the whole, projects are handed off between offices more or less seamlessly. There’s even collaboration between different departments… and it’s actually encouraged. It’s like someone has taken reality and tweaked it just a bit. Or maybe more like they’ve smacked it in the side of the head with a 2×4.

My perception is obviously shaded a bit by the recent past, but I can legitimately say that this has been the first time in a long stretch when I didn’t wake up in the morning looking for a reason to take a sick day. That long stretch of early morning parking lot pep talks is, for now, a thing of the past. Does that mean things couldn’t turn into a poop sandwich tomorrow? Not so much. For now, I’ll just appreciate it for what it is.

Inner teenager…

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It’s Friday. Before a three day weekend. I’m more than a little surprised that there are more than three people even in the office pretending to work today. Even with a mostly full staff pecking away at their keyboards, it’s painfully obvious that the biggest game in town today is watching the clock roll on towards 4:00… or 3:01 if the powers that be keep up with long-standing pre-holiday tradition. Either way, it’s safe to say we can mostly write today off as professionally useless.
 
On a related note, I’m usually accused of being a 60 year old man at heart, but long weekends have a tendency to bring out my inner teenager. The anticipation of being turned loose. The rush of heading out the door. Rolling down the windows. Turning the radio up. Forgetting about work for a few days. For me, at some basic level, that’s what freedom feels like. Maybe that’s not such a bad way to kick off the Independence Day weekend.

40 hours…

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The 40-hour work week where everyone arrives and departs at the same time each day probably made eminent sense when it was instituted for a country with a massive manufacturing sector committed to assembly line methodologies. When you’re living in an electronic age and the output product of your efforts live in a storage device as a series of ones and zeros, a fully regimented work schedule is a little harder to understand. In a plant where they build cars, you can expect X number of frames to roll by a given point on the line each eight hour shift every day of the week. OK, a standard 8-hour day makes sense there. In the information sector, Wednesdays might be the heavy volume day and represent 11 hours of required work while Monday only requires five hours of work. Even though the requirements have shifted, we largely cling to that magic eight hours a day, five days a week concept.

If I were king for a day, I’d propose a new standard for information workers. In this system, you’re paid your base salary for 2080 hours a year. On days when you get the work done in 5 hours, feel free to go on home. On days when workload is high, plan on staying a little longer to get it done. All things being equal, I’d be willing to bet that in most cases, the time would even itself out over the long term.

Of course we know that all things are not equal. Some people are going to abuse a system based on them being honest about their workload. Some people will work half days every day and others will put in 12 hours every day. So yeah, I intellectually understand that there are pretty high barriers to getting away from the standard work week. I get that my new system is a managerial nightmare and completely impractical, but on those days when I blow through my assignments in 4 hours, it sure would be nice to have the option of punching out for the day rather than sitting around watching the clock tick on towards the end of the day…. because let’s face it, when their actual work is done, no one is sitting around dreaming about what other great things they can do for the overlords, right?

Message received…

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As much as I try to be a good trooper, there’s just something in my personality that seems to pick up on the snarky, the jaded, and the slightly bitter. What can I say; government service brings out the best in my inner malcontent. That makes it hard not to pick out and focus on the little sound bites that hit your ear on a daily basis. Like first thing this morning, when I heard a snipped of conversation between a vexed young line employee and a not particularly grizzled officer turned civilian. She was asking why things needed to be done a certain way, which based on my understanding of the issue seemed like a perfectly reasonable question. His response, though, was telling: That’s the guidance we got from higher; we don’t ask questions, we just do what it says.

That pretty much tells me what I need to know about how to go along to get along in this little part of Uncle Sam’s extended family.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Being local…

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Although I’m one of the last in, I think I’m actually one of only two native Marylanders in the office. As far as I can tell, everyone else has come to the north eastern corner of Maryland from their pre-BRAC homes in New Jersey. For years now, I’ve spent a good portion of my free time griping and complaining about how jacked up things were in Memphis and just how different and therefore bad it was. I’m realizing that these people are in the same boat, though in a different location. For them, it’s Maryland that’s strange and different… and nothing here is right. The traffic is jacked up. The network blows. They’re still working on the building when it was supposed to be done six months ago. Crime is terrible. There’s nothing to do and nowhere to find their favorite food. Everything I ever said about Memphis, they’re saying about Aberdeen… though I sort of chuckle when I pass by and hear someone complain about driving the whole two and a half hours to get back home. If nothing else, it’s fun to watch them get worked up.

Especially when you know they’ve got it all wrong. It must be terrible to be this close to the center of the universe and not even know it.

Signing on…

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No PC? Check. No phone service? Check. No building ID card? Check. Two year old three ring binder full of outdated briefings to spend your first week “reviewing?” Check. No cell coverage at your desk? Check.

It’s fun to be the new guy. It’s a new week… It’s a new job… but it sure does have a familiar flavor.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Being the new guy…

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There’s something incredibly humbling about being the new guy, especially when you’re use to being in the know about most everything going on in an office. It’s hard to shake the feeling that everyone is talking to you like you’re a slightly dull child. I appreciate everyone’s efforts to take a brain dump on me over the last couple of days, but really I’m not going to pick up much until you cut me loose to start working on some projects. That’s coming, of course, so I should probably appreciate the few days of relative calm before being tossed directly into the storm.

Even with the trials and tribulations of being the new guy, I’m a little concerned that the psychotic convolutions of the Uberboss were so central to the nature of this blog that it may be impossible to keep up a steady flow of material without having him around to provide the fodder. Somehow, though, I suspect that there will be plenty of stories to share no matter where in the belly of a Big Government Agency you happen to sit.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.