What Annoys Jeff this Week?

1. Blue Falcons. From time immemorial there have been Blue Falcons. They’re the kind of people who would step over their own sainted grandmother or cheat their best friend if they thought it was a chance to get ahead. The ranks of the great green machine are thick with them to some greater or lesser degree. The worst of them, the ones who create a lot of smoke and heat but not much light, are the staff schmucks who think they’ll gain the barest marginal advantage by selling out someone down the hall over an issue that could have been remedied with an email. Being a buddy fucker isn’t a good look, friends. Even if you gain a nominal advantage temporarily, the taint will be on you till the end of your days.

2. Weekends. The problem with the weekend is whole vast swaths of the population are off at the same time. I found myself unavoidably out on Saturday afternoon to do some business with places that don’t obligingly open their doors before 7 AM. To my never-ending horror, there were people everywhere. Traffic backed up at every light. It’s goddamned nightmare fuel. Maybe I need to find a gig where I can take two sequential weekdays off instead of Saturday and Sunday… because weekends are absolutely not relaxing when I have to subject myself to the crowd.

3. There’s been a wave of “climate protests” across Europe. The most recent spate of “protestors” feature assholes damaging and destroying art across the continent who rank right alongside the Taliban scum who blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas or the ISIS fucks who destroyed the Roman theater at Palmyra. At best they’re petulant little shits throwing a temper tantrum because their ideas can’t draw support on their own merits… but in my estimation they’re domestic terrorists who should be delt with as such.

On deciding not to be a blue falcon…

One of the best things about working for Uncle is the cornucopia of new and interesting words that have entered my lexicon. That’s particularly apt this morning, when I’m looking out as far as the floodlights will let me and seeing wall to wall blue-falconsnow, wind blowing like a mother, and a temperature hovering at 16 degrees. It’s the operative definition of “not fit for man nor beast.”

Wisely, my employer opted to pull the trigger on a 4-hour delay. Under normal circumstances, for someone who maybe lived closer to the office, that would be a good thing. For me, with a 50+ mile round trip, going in for four hours in weather like this basically means I’ll spend more time commuting than I will actually at work. Logic would dictate that I just go ahead and take four hours of vacation time and call it a day. Of course logic has no place in government service, so it’s not that simple.

Punching out today would basically make me a blue falcon, leaving whoever was unfortunate enough to show up at their desk to cover a spectacularly useless meeting that I’m supposed to endure this afternoon. I already inflicted that fate on people while I was off for Christmas, but since it was scheduled in advance, it feels less falcon-ish somehow.

Once the sun comes up, I’ll get after the shoveling, cleaning off the truck, and give it the ol’ Frostburg try at getting to the office somewhere in the general vicinity of on time today. I’ve decided not to be a blue falcon. Because I clearly lack good decision-making skills.