Category Archives: work

In the movies…

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As a kid, I loved old movies… Westerns, war movies, dramas… I ate them up. That probably had something to do with spending almost every Sunday afternoon at my grandparent’s house, where the Sunday afternoon nap and movie were a staple of the week. That’s how I remember it at least. Some of my favorite movies were the 50s vintage comedies set during World War II. In fact they’re still some of my favorites – guaranteed to stop my channel surfing in its tracks every time.

Mr. Roberts is the story of a blowhard skipper commanding an unimportant supply ship at the far end of the Pacific war. Actually, it’s the story of the malcontent first officer and long-suffering crew of this unimportant supply ship at the far end of the Pacific war and the hijinks that ensue when they conspire to make life aboard ship a little less onerous despite the captain’s best efforts to make them all miserable. The main subplot revolves around Mr. Roberts ongoing effort to get a transfer and “get into the war” before the fighting is over. In the end, and with the help of crew, Roberts gets his transfer only to be killed by a kamikaze while fixing a cup of coffee. Make of that what you will.

A guy could learn alot about leadership and psychology from Mr. Roberts – from the skipper who values his bucket-planted palm tree above all other things, to the exec who finds in necessary to occasionally bend the rules, to the junior officer who rises to the challenge of telling truth to power, and the dangers of getting what you want most. There’s a message there somewhere in that 55 year old bit of cinematography.

I’ve been thinking alot about Mr. Roberts lately. In fact, some days I’d almost swear I was in the movie. If only the old man had a palm tree…

Closing time…

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I think it’s safe to say that I’m serious about being ready to move on to the next job, but in the same breath, I’m probably more concerned about geography than I am by pay at this point. That’s been a bit of an interesting point of self discovery I made over the last year or two. If the desire for more money was the driving factor that brought me to Memphis, it’s the desire for the right geography that has sent me out on the search for the next great thing and, surprisingly for me at least, pay has taken a back seat this time around. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t consider something out beyond MD-VA-DC, but it would call for a pretty exceptional set of circumstances.

The job announcement for the first of two jobs I’m applying for in Cumberland closes in a few hours. In the parlance of the federal job seeker, that basically means that at some point in the next few weeks someone in an HR department is going to put together a “best qualified” list and send it along to whoever is doing the hiring. Then the person doing the hiring will take a week or two to rack and stack the list and make a decision about who gets an interview and who doesn’t. And then someone will take another week to schedule interviews. After the interviews, hopefully, there will be a decision made about which of the applicants to select and then the name of the selectee will be sent back to HR to make a formal offer. At any point up until the offer is made by HR, the entire process can be cancelled for almost any reason. That’s a roundabout way of saying that closing time is really just the beginning and as an applicant, it’s the only time in the process when you know there’s a hard and fast date when something is going to happen. After closing time, it’s all about waiting, and wondering, and playing what if, especially if your resume is deemed “good enough” to make the first cut and be sent to the person doing the hiring.

Waiting for things to happen, as we all know, isn’t my strong point. But it’s what I’m going to do. While I doing my level best to keep my head down. And avoid any unnecessary contact between me those who seem bent on driving me round the bend at every possibly opportunity… But I digress. Or more precisely, I wait – and you wait with me. Part of me wonders if I should be blogging this at all. Will you still respect me in the morning if I can’t figure out a way to make this happen? In a blog that focuses largely on what has annoyed me on any given day, this whole discussion feels a little extra personal, I guess. The only promise I’ve ever made here is to always write about whatever happens to be in my head… and as you can see, this is occupying alot of time on the old brainpan these days.

As much as I want to be hopeful that this will come together, I’m trying to mentally prepare and protect myself from how much I’ll hate it if this gets jacked up at the last minute… or if it doesn’t even make it to the last minute. As much as I’m trying not to let myself go down the road of “what if” it’s proving to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. Even after ten years on the road and half a dozen cities, I guess it’s easy to see yourself home when the opportunity is tantalizingly close.

And the plot thickens…

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If pondering a voluntary reduction in grade in order to make an escape plan work might be described as an academic exercise, finding a position that would allow you to laterally transfer to the desired geographic location without loss of grade or pay could be described as mana from heaven. Of course the gulf between finding and actually being hired for said job is something akin to believing there’s a Loch Ness Monster and actually catching it with a fly rod. Sure, it’s theoretically possible, but pretty damned unlikely.

I know I’m beyond qualified, but I also know that doesn’t necessarily mean much in the selection process. And as much as I like to think I should be able to walk into this as a gimmie, I feel like I’m in the fight of my life… for a job I didn’t even know I wanted until I saw it announced. The kicker now is to try not getting too invested in the process; to treat it like any other resume I’ve got floating around out there. It’s easy to walk away from most notices that “you were not referred because you were not among the most qualified applicants.” Like it or not, I’m invested in this one and missing out on it would be a heartbreaker.

So now we wait…

How you know it’s that bad…

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One of the worst kept secrets around is that I’m ready to move on. Other than to a few close friends and family I’ve never said it outright, but I suspect it’s more than obvious to anyone paying any attention at all. Memphis was never a place I planned on staying for a great length of time, but having the happy luck to fall in with a good team and a collapsing housing market made my three-and-out plan all but unworkable. I’d mostly made my peace with that. Or at least I thought I had.

The last year has proven to be more challenging professionally than I ever expected. And I’m not using “challenging” here in any of its quasi-positive connotation. The truth is, the last year has mostly sucked, but I didn’t know exactly how much it sucked until this morning when I found a federal job announcement in my career field for a position near my home town. I seriously considered it for way, way longer than I should have if my head were in the right place. I say that because although geographically desirable (to me at least), the job would have been a two-grade demotion, loss of $15,000 a year in pay, and I’d have to pay to get myself and all my stuff from here to there.

But I still though long and hard about it. And not in that wistful Norman Rockwell way. I’m talking about in that running financials and contemplating living in your parent’s basement for a year or two kind of way. You know it’s bad when voluntarily living in the basement to get away from what you’re doing now and for less money doesn’t seem all that bad by comparison. Yeah, I know I should be thankful to have a job and intellectually, I am. Emotionally, though, I’m spent… and it’s showing.

If anyone in Western Maryland sees me working weekends to make extra scratch in a couple of weeks, at least they’ll know why.

Chains…

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There’s a way things are supposed to work. I’m supposed to know what my people are working on. My boss is supposed to know what I’m working on. And so forth and so on until somewhere in the stratosphere one person knows more or less all of the major projects that are running. For the record, “major” projects don’t include informing the building every time someone makes an adjustment to a slide set or when they need to buy a hundred dollars of toner for the printer. The chain of command exists for a couple of reasons and one of those is to make sure information flows smoothly both upwards and downwards. I’m more than happy to report my progress and issues to my boss, who can then report it to his boss, and upwards ad infinitum. What I’m not going to to is generate a completely new class of report that skips several steps in this process. It duplicates effort and basically makes any semblance of structure pointless at best.

We’ve gotten so concerned and wrapped around ourselves doing things because we can, that no one at any level has called a pause to assess whether we should. What a Charlie Foxtrot. Scott Adams would be proud.

Being Sherman…

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During the Civil War, one of the greatest partnerships in American military history was forged here along the muddy waters of the Mississippi. The senior partner would become commander of the Army of the Potomac and bring Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to its knees in a grinding war of attrition, while the junior partner marched his battle hardened western armies south to Atlanta and on to the sea, making the Old South howl.

From camp near Memphis on March 10, 1864 and just after Grant was called to Washington and promoted to command all Federal forces, his old friend Sherman sent a memo of congratulations that read, in part, “…You go into battle without hesitation… no doubts, no reserve; and I tell you that it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew wherever I was that you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come – if alive.”

If you’re very lucky, you’ll find such a colleague and friend once in a career. If you’re even luckier, you get your chance at being Sherman.

An uneasy peace…

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It’s been a good long time since I’ve been anything other than busy at work. Even in the most dire environment, there is often an operational pause; a moment when everyone sucks in a breath and waits for whatever it is that’s about to happen to actually happen. When your jumping from fire to fire, trying desperately to stomp it out with your boots, it’s easy to forget that these moments of pause are nothing if not intensely boring. Plus, they tend not to make for good blogging so the irony is that you have unlimited time to write but really nothing worth writing about.

It may seem that I am complaining about both feast and famine and to some extent that’s true. An environment where the most productive use of time counting holes in the ceiling tile is no better than days where three people couldn’t reasonably be expected to handle your workload. They’re both picture perfect examples of horrendous misallocation of resources. Somehow it seems that there should be a relative median somewhere between too much and too little.

I’m doing my best to take this unexpected down time in stride and make the most of it, but there’s a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that I should be trying to avert some crisis somewhere. It’s probably safe to assume that I’ll get use to this new condition just in time for some other roof to catch on fire. Around here, it’s only a matter of time.

Are we boring you?

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I’ve seen almost every stereotype you can think of in the eight years I’ve been in federal service – the solitaire wiz, the three newspaper reader, the aged technophobe, the guy who nods off during meetings, and even the pointy-headed boss. But the one thing I hadn’t encountered before today was the one who falls flat out asleep in their cube. Now it’s been a slow few days and given the lack of foot traffic, it should be at least notionally possible to fall asleep briefly without attracting undue attention. Snoring on the other hand, is a dead giveaway – but has the up side of providing several hours of entertainment for your colleagues… Especially when you do it again after lunch… and even more so when gravity takes over and your head, arm, or other body part thumps onto your desk.

I have to admit that it’s a pretty ballsy move to take not one, but two naps when you’re only three weeks into your new job. I mean, I can be an arrogant prick, but my hat’s off to that kind of nose-thumbing of authority. Tomorrow I’m going to try keeping my riotous laughter to a minimum as I think it might have disturbed our sleeper. Maybe I’ll bring in a nice CD of Brahms and try to set the right mood for the day. In any case, it’s some of the best in-office entertainment I’ve had in a while. Not sure if that’s good or just sad. Possibly both.

Steam…

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It’s easy to work up a rant when you’ve already got a full head of steam behind you. The real challenge is doing it when the boilers are cold. Right now, though, I’m not about the challenge. It’s feeling more like a stream of consciousness kind of evening. Actually, tonight is feeling more like a trickle than a stream. Well, that’s not exactly true, either. There’s plenty to say; plenty of things that need to be said in the clear. Not that I expect that would change anything other than adding fuel to the fire. I don’t have quite enough ego these days to think that I can make that much of a difference – That got smacked out of me last fall. Maybe the best thing now is to focus on getting my eight-and-out every day, make self-preservation and sanity-preservation a priority, and stop trying to draw fire. I’m not sure I even remember how to do that.

Signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs…

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When things start coming off the rails, there are usually alot of small indicators that its about to happen or that it’s actually started happening. If you’re lucky, you’ll know what those indicators are when you see them. If you’re not, well, aren’t you in for a surprise?

Maybe the best heads up that stupid is in firm control of the situation is when the word goes out that it’s mandatory that everyone get along with one another. Respect is a slippery thing. The best people command it just because of who they are. They wear it like a cloak of authority. The second tier will get respect because of the position they happen to occupy. People will follow them, but their hearts aren’t likely to be in it. The worst of the lot try to command respect through intimidation and by exerting good old fashioned command and control. Sure, that works… For a while. In the end, all you’ve done is breed a culture of resentment, driven real opinion underground, and created a world where it’s better to hide than stand out. In that environment, you’ve set the stage for dissent, frustration, apathy – the great hallmarks of a race to the bottom and the time when you have to start telling people to be nice to each other.

Once you’re bogged down in that morass extracting yourself is a bit of a problem. Not impossible, but certainly not easy. The tendency of people is to stick to what they know. The factions will pile up. The conflict will continue. It’s the only release valve left when you’ve slammed shut the only other avenues of advance. No one wants to fail as a matter of principle and for the most part, people want to believe what they are doing makes a difference. Take that away and what’s left is a tiny universe filled with the cynical, the sarcastic, and the discontented. Not exactly a recipe for high performance teaming.

All the “Working with Difficult People” training and be nice to each other pep talks in the world aren’t going to fix that. At best, it only recognizes that things are on their way from bad to worse. That’s something, I suppose.