Category Archives: work

Clogged…

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In one of the great ironies of the universe, I’m nominally responsible for maintaining both the public internet presence of my organization and as well as our intranet (read: electronic filing cabinet that pretends to be a website). And by responsible, I mean I have a contractor who tinkers with that stuff. At this afternoon’s staff meeting I learned that we have apparently clogged the internet (you know, that interconnected system of tubes that was invented by Al Gore sometime in the mid-1990s?). And by clogged, I mean jammed it full to the point of no longer working… Yep, we filled the bowl of our proverbial toilet with the entire roll of proverbial TP that is our internal document archive and then tried to flush. The result was, well, not quite an epic fail, but it was definitely in the fail family.

So apparently the secret to bringing our private little part of the internet to a grinding halt is to ask several hundred employees to upload their training certificates to our central file management system. Who knew? Some day it would be nice to go to the office and not have the internet groan to a stop under the weight of our impressive bureaucratic capability, or find a project that was running just fine at 3:30 the past afternoon coming unglued by 7:30 that morning, or the building burning to the ground… Well, technically the building hasn’t been on fire… I suppose it just seems that way.

Processing…

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It’s going to be a long week. I’m in the middle of a week’s worth of “process engineering” which basically entails sitting in a room with five or six people and arguing about the best way to do something. You know what the say about opinions, right? Yeah, I figured you did, so I won’t cover that ground. What should come out by Friday morning is a brand-spanking-new business process telling us how we’re going to roll out new and brilliant ideas from here on out… everything from inception to implementation. What always concerns me about investing alot of time and effort into these exercises is that after we pitch the new idea, someone is going to call it a success, we’re going to congratulate ourselves on a job well done, and then it’s going to end up on a shelf somewhere. Or more precisely, on an intranet site where it will never again see the light of day.

Look, I get that change is hard… You’re talking to the original hater of new ways to do things here; the ultimate creature of habit. But even I know that doing things the same way that was unsuccessful yesterday is not going to lead to different results today or tomorrow or the day after that. If you’re going to fall into a habit, why not fall into one that actually gets something accomplished? Sure, that’s not the easiest path, but doing it right will probably take less energy in the long run than trying to run against the tide. Here’s hoping we come up with something worthwhile and can actually make it work.

No more new car smell…

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When you start out with something new, you get the feeling that the gloves are finally off, there are fewer limitations, options that were closed are now available. When you’re the one turning the lights on for the first time, you get to start out with a very minimal rule set… and life is good because you have unrestricted freedom of action. You’re trusted unconditionally to do your part and do it well. What the handbook doesn’t tell you is that this window starts to close almost the moment it is open. Nature abhors a vacuum… and soon enough the rules, policies, and procedures start to close in around you in order to fill that vacuum. Eventually, a real organization structure starts to form and your available courses of action are further limited. The next thing you know, you end up having to pass through systems checks and untold wickets to get approval for everything from travel to ordering pens and paper.

For me, I guess this is the part where it stops being fun. I find myself casting longing backwards glances at a past that really was as close to the wild west as you’re likely to see in any part of a giant bureaucracy. It was a time when the only thing that mattered was getting the job done and not worrying too much about the ways and means of getting there. I miss being a “free agent” in the system and I’m feeling increasingly frustrated by the inherent constraints within a maturing operation. So for now I’m struggling to manage my expectations and sort out what the new normal is going to look like. In the meantime, we all get to experience the pure joy that is an angsty, vaguely hostile, generally agitated, and somewhat sleep-deprived Jeff.

OK, so most of those things are situation normal for me, but still, things are going to be downright unpleasant until I get my head in the right place. Have fun with that, because it should make for some interesting reading.

Go, Go, Gadget…

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I’m a gadget guy and have been since I got my first cell phone way back in 1998 (the pager before that, not so much of a big deal – but it was a pretty shade of blue). Now it’s computers, flat-screen TVs, phones, e-cigs, Blu-Ray, and a whole laundry list of other neat new toys that keep my attention. I love these things not necessarily because they are new and shiny, but because they tend to make my life better than whatever they replaced. Although I’m not the youngest person in the room at most meetings now, I’m still well below the average in or office and one of the issues that has come to the forefront this week is just how uncomfortable (read: incompetent or incapable) our “more seasoned” employees are at using even the most basic technology… Our intranet is a great example. I don’t know if I could count on two hands the number of times I’ve heard “it’s too complicated” or “it’s too confusing” or “I can’t find anything”… and I haven’t even been in the meetings.

My current terror-inducing thought is that at some point in my career, I’m going to turn into those people; the ones who can’t seen to find the search function to find something on a website or how to get tethering to work with my cell phone. There’s no way of predicting what the new great technology will be in 20 or 30 years when I’m riding into the sunset of my career, but I know I want to be able to use it effectively. Seriously, how can you actually work without being able to navigate a pretty straightforward website that’s basically being run like a big old external hard drive… We’re not talking about any kind of advanced technology here; other than the laptops it’s running on, everything we’ve got is 10 years old.

If there is any righteousness in the universe, any goodness at all, I’ll be spared that fate. Or I’ll at least be open to learning instead of just complaining after the fact. If I’m not, then I hope some up and coming Young Turk has the courage to put me out to pasture before I become a holdover from a bygone era.

Doing without…

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Last Wednesday for about six hours my employer joined the ranks of such forward-looking leaders in information technology as Iran and China and blocked network access to Google. Have you tried looking up information without Google in the past few years? It’s not pretty… I don’t care how awesome Microsoft says Bing works, I couldn’t find a damn thing using it. After satisfying myself that the issue wasn’t with Google (i.e. scouring places like CNet and BoyGeniusReport for rants about their epic fail) I called our vaunted Enterprise Service Desk (ESD). The conversation went something like this:

  • Jeff: I’m having trouble getting to Google on my PC, but I can get to it from my Blackberry.
  • ESD: Oh, that’s a problem with Google.
  • Jeff: Ummm… No. I’m using Google on my phone right now.
  • ESD: Oh… Hummm… Yeah… It’s a problem with Google.
  • Jeff: Thanks.
  • ESD: Does that resolve your help ticket?
  • Jeff: *Click*

As it turns out, the disruption wasn’t a problem with Google (I’m shocked, shocked I tell you). Apparently our network operations office decided to start blocking the definitive name in web searching after two individuals “got a virus from Google.” I’m pretty sure they meant they got a virus from something they found using Google. I didn’t have the patience to ask, although it seems like it would be an important distinction to make if you were in charge of network ops. The good news is that the Great Firewall is down now and we can once again use google as a verb.

If an optimist is someone who expects the best and a pessimist is someone who expects the worst, what is the proper term for someone who has no expectations at all? I’m pretty sure having expectations was where I went wrong in this scenario.

Feel the power(point)…

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Let me start out by saying that many, many of you have probably forgotten more about Microsoft Office than I’ll ever know. I don’t make any claim on being an expert or even an advanced user, but I can weave my way through most of the basic functions without causing too much turmoil… Like creating and editing a well-structured memo or building basic spreadsheets.

What I really want to know tonight is how the hell you get to be a GS-12 or higher without being able to put information into a pretty straightforward PowerPoint presentation that someone has taken the time to structure for you. Seriously, all that needed done was adding numbers to replace the “xx/xx” and using actual words to “fill in the blanks.” *sigh* And it needed to be done last Friday, not at 11:55 on Wednesday! All I can say in your defense is that you’re either too stupid or too lazy to burden the taxpayer. Then again, why would you work when you know someone is going to save your ass at the last minute and do the work for you. I guess there’s not much incentive to be an overachiever… Unless more work is its own reward.

It’s the 21st century, people… Technology isn’t going anywhere. Either figure it out, retire, or get out there and see if you can win us a Darwin Award. Since you’re already doing the least you can do, let’s make that a stretch goal for the year.

I may not go to heaven, but hope you go to hell. Asshats.

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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.

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.

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