Category Archives: work

First time for everything…

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In 5 years of service, I’ve never turned down any task that’s come my way until yesterday. I had to give up an all expense paid trip to Kansas City because of this damned bug that keeps disappearing and then coming back a week later to kick my ass. So yeah, I said no to my first assignment ever this week and it bothers me more than it probably should. Putting self above work is sort of an unnatural act for me. It goes against my basic instincts.

In this case, though, I think getting on a plane yesterday afternoon would have done god-awful things to the inside of my head. Apparently if you let a sinus infection fester for too long, it turns into something really bad… Which helps explain why I’ve been feeling like my brain is trying to sneak down the back of my throat and make a run for it. Fortunately, my case is only regular bad and should be cleared up in a week or two with the help of our food friend penicillin. I’ve said it once, but I’ll say it again… Hurray for better living though science!

Is there anything better in the world…

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Somewhere out there the wind is blowing. Somewhere the world is coming apart at the seams. The phone doesn’t stop ringing and email flies across the country. … Sometime between teleconferences you look up… and smile… A warning order rattles off the printer. A nod, a word, and you can throw a team into the fight. Your crew is busy… and you’re in charge. Some days you hold it together by sheer force of personality, but know what? You’re a goddamn emergency manager… Is there anything better in the world?

Not what I was expecting…

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I’ve been holding off on writing this one for a few weeks now. The Army works in mysterious ways and human resource types adhere to a time-table that they alone know. Last Friday, I was asked formally to accept an offer to be the #2 for Plans and Ops. My portfolio is said to include all emergencies in the US, its territories, and dependencies. The plans for how we respond to earthquakes, wildfires, and terrorist attacks will have my fingerprints all over them. In planning sessions with other agencies, I can speak for and commit the organization to courses of action without racing up the chain for approval. The technical description is Lead Civil Planner, but it’s de facto Deputy Chief, Plans and Ops. HR has the paperwork in the queue and I’m expecting the final word to come down before the end of the year.

It’s the job I moved here to chase. The title bump and pay raise are the goal that kept me focused through the post-Christmas move last year and the only slightly organized chaos of creating an organization out of a half dozen empty rooms. It’s why my desk at home is covered almost every weekend with briefing books and white papers.

This should be a moment of supreme satisfaction. The capstone event of a five year race. Hell, most federal employees cap out at a GS-10 or -11 after a 25 or 30 year career. Even if I were to kick back and rest on my notional laurels, the sheer weight of attrition will keep me on an upward glidepath… Not necessarily because I’m the best, but because I happen to be holding the right grade. The whole thing feels a little hollow, really. I spend my life being prepared for the eventualities, but I wasn’t prepared for that. How’s that for irony.

P.S. Yeah, I know I shouldn’t be bitching about this, so tomorrow morning, I’m gonna suck it up and drive on until I figure out what’s next.

Advice from an all day meeting…

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I know you’re not from around here and maybe you haven’t been exposed to some of the finer point of meeting etiquette. All, I can say is that if you want your comments to be taken seriously by anyone, you might start by not sitting there all day with your baseball hat on working on your act to be named Surly Employee of the Year. Oh, and lose the giant belt buckle. It’s not 1977. Until you get those little details squared away, you’ll just be the angry guy sitting in the back of the room.

From Hell’s Heart, I Stab at Thee; or A Letter to the Field

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We built you a sports car. A machine with beautiful lines built for high speed and low drag, taking the best aspects of the past and melding them carefully with the best of the modern. We built you a Ferrari and then made the unpardonable mistake of handing you the keys.

You’ve stripped the gears with your towering incompetence. You’ve run at full speed into every pothole and ditch even close to the road. You’ve taken a thing of beauty and carved it into so many ill-fitting pieces it’s nearly impossible to tell there was any design at all.

My God, how I hate you. How I loathe you in your unerring stupidity. You’ve defined everything that is wrong about what we do. If there is any justice in this world or the next, you’ll have a special reservation in the 9th level of hell.

Unexpected turn of events…

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My current boss has been “acting” in his position for the last year or so. Although he was one of three interviewed for the position, if I had been taking bets, he would have been the dark horse candidate, with the odds of him being selected being very long. While he has been “acting,” he’s been formally occupying the job that I really wanted… effectively meaning the only way I get promoted is if he gets promoted.

As of about 20 minutes ago, the word is officially on the street. The “old man” is getting officially kicked upstairs to the big office, freeing up “my” new position. There are still plenty of wickets to get through, but assuming that there are no serious hang-ups, a significant assumption when talking about a federal job, my promotion could come through sometime after the middle of next month.

I’ll still be playing with hurricanes, charging across the country at a moment’s notice, and probably having even less free time than I do now, but in the end, it’s the job that feels right. It’s the one that I’ve sacrificed for and the one that I’ve driven myself into the ground chasing. It’s here now, just flitting into reach. It’s here now and God help me, I want it. I know I’ve sure as hell earned it.

Fingers crossed…

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I just found out I’m in the running for a new job/promotion. Actually it’s the job I was doing before I moved into my current one. They finally got around to opening it at the right pay grade and in the parlance of the HR pukes, I was “referred” for the position… Which basically means I should get the chance to interview for the position. I’m a little torn because it’s not an “emergency” job, which is what we all know I really want to be doing, but it’s more money, a straight 40-hour work-week, much less chance of getting called on a Friday morning to fly off to cover one crisis or another, and it puts me one step closer to wearing the gold keystone that’s been my goal since coming to work in government.

Basically, if they offer me the position, I don’t know that I can really turn it down. I’d have a better sense of things if I knew a promotion in my current assignment would be coming up, but since there’s someone currently sitting in the job I really want, this seems like the next best option. A la Woodward and Bernstein, my plan is to “follow the money..”

However, I’m putting the cart way before the horse here, so I’ll just keep my fingers crossed and see where I land when everything shakes out.

Testing… Testing… 1… 2… Pee

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As a condition of employment, I’ve always known my position was one in which there could be random sampling for drug use, but I’ve never actually talked to anyone who had had that particular privilege. This morning, I became the bright, shining example of statistical sampling. At 7:30, my boss walked in, chuckled, and handed me a sheet of paper saying, “you are ordered to report forthwith to the address specified below and submit to urinalyses for drug use.” From the time the paper was placed in my hand, I had two hours to report and submit.

I’ve never claimed to be a saint, particularly when I was teaching, and yes, I sampled non-medicinal narcotics on occasion. I never really liked the buzz all that well… something about being that out of control never rested well with me. For the most part, I’d stick with alcohol as my drug of choice. I even admitted my youthful indiscretions in the initial vetting process for work and was absolved of my misdeeds. But still, getting a notice to prepare for inspection, sent the proverbial shiver down my back. Even though I know I’ve done nothing that will get me in trouble, there’s still the nagging fear of what if they mix up my sample with the guy from the next room or what if that poppy seed muffin last week was more than just poppy seeds. It’s totally ridiculous for those ideas to pop into my head, but there they were all the same.

And just for the record, there is something decidedly undignified about carrying a specimen cup of your own urine down a crowded hallway… There really needs to be a better system for that.

Big old jet airliner…

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Other than the obvious work-related foolishness, there really hasn’t been all that much going on this week. I’ve done a little photography in the evenings, but the light wasn’t terribly conducive to getting the long shots that I prefer. I do have a couple from down around the World War II and Lincoln Memorials that turned out much better than expected, though. Hopefully I’ll get them posted when I get back to Memphis and after I’ve had a chance to tweak the color settings a bit. All in all, it’s been a quiet couple of days here in the District. Good hotel, good food, good work. At the moment, I’m at a loss for things to bitch about… and you know how that drives me crazy. Even with that said, I’m ready to hop on that big old jet airliner and get back to the house.