Tag Archives: priorities

Echo chamber…

Posted on by

Turn on the news and it’s impossible to miss the steady drumbeat of stories about Trump, or Biden, or the health of The King and Princess of Wales depending on which side of the Atlantic your news provider of choice is based. Throw in a sprinkle of Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, and a few unavoidable human interest stories and the whole thing becomes an echo chamber. It doesn’t particularly matter if you’re getting your stories from cable news, the internet, or what passes for newspapers. The mashup is more or less the same, just with a slightly different agenda being pushed.

That’s fine. The news is a business just like any other. Without eyes on screens or pages, there is no news. Like it or not, whether it’s “good for us” or not, the more confrontational the headlines, the more eyes will end up on it. Outlets are doing whatever they have to do to compete. 

This weekend, though, I found myself doing what I do more and more often. I opted out. Sure, I scanned the headlines in the morning, but after that, I shifted over to music or podcasts, or parked my television on a couple of channels that were either running old movies or old TV shows and that didn’t have any interested in trying to sell me the news of the day. Honestly it made for some terrific background noise. I highly recommend it.

I’m not sure if it’s something about getting older in general or about my response to the annoyance of modernity in particular, but my god is it getting hard to give a shit about anything other than the five or six “Big Things” I’m already interested in. Beyond that, most everything is beginning to resemble a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man vying for attention.

I seem to revisit this topic a lot. Every time it feels like it’s becoming more and more imperative. I’d love to know whether that says more about me or about the world. Maybe both. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Results. I’m a reasonably intelligent man with a fairly analytical mind, but I’m at a loss for what to do when results from something like an MRI drop into my online patient portal long before my doctor has a chance to look at and comment on them. As wide as my academic interests are, it’s never ranged as far as internal medicine, so the reports end up being a lot of gibberish with lines, arrows, and color codes that mean precisely nothing to me. That, of course, doesn’t prevent me from using Google to try gleaning a bit of understanding… which never results in anything other than low grade panic or mild confusion. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I almost miss the olden days when the doctor received the report and the patient didn’t know dick about it until the medical professionals called to explain what’s what. I’m not at all sure this current model of complete transparency is helping me in any way.

2. Retirement. In my little slice of Uncle’s big green machine, there are 3 people who do more or less what I do. We’ve been a decent little team for the last half a decade or so. One of the three (lucky bastard) is retiring in a few days. His backfill is nowhere in sight. With three people, in all but the most extraordinary circumstances, we could work around everyone’s schedules and keep the trains running on time. With two, well, I’ve already identified two days that’ll be listed with “no coverage” in the next two months. That number will explode when the other guy adds his scheduled time off to the mix. All of that’s before we’ve even talked about the week or two gap for Christmas and New Year’s. None of those issues should be surprising. We’ve been warning the bosses about it for months. But not to worry… there’s allegedly a “temporary” fill-in coming and the bosses are going to hire a permanent replacement with all the speed and agility the U.S. Government is famous for displaying. With the pace at which the bureaucracy moves, I don’t expect to see either of those things happen until well after the new year, if ever. The only thing I know for sure is that for the foreseeable future, there’s going to be 24 manhours per day of work to do and only 16 manhours of personnel on hand to do it. The math, as they say, just doesn’t math. I know I won’t magically be doing an extra 4 hours of whatever every day, so I reckon the powers that be should probably get prepared for a diminished baseline of productivity and discovering that they’re just going to have to wait until we get around to some things. That’ll go over like a fart in church, but this was an issue that could have been addressed any time in the last six months…  so, I’ll be damned if I’ll be treating the inevitable result of bureaucratic fuckery as any kind of emergency for me. 

3. Exercise. Everyone on the internet loves to tell you that “once exercise becomes part of your routine, you’ll love it.” Maybe that’s true for them, but for me, I can assure you that no, the fuck I will not. Every daily walk or session on the exercise bike is 30-40 minutes I’m allocating under protest, because it’s sucking up an incredibly finite resource that I’d much rather put towards reading, or writing, or anything that I might even partially enjoy. Maybe it’s better than being stabbed in the kidney, but as something to pass the time, exercise is easily the least enjoyable part of my day. I’ll do it because it’s being required of me by someone who has far more knowledge about modern medical theory and practice than I have. Still, there isn’t a power on earth or in heaven that can convince me I’m having a good time. 

Fair warning for the weeks ahead…

Posted on by

The next two weeks are going to be dicey – at least in terms of getting anything resembling quality content and commentary ready to post. I’m not saying they’ll be non-existent, just that we’ll probably skip some days and the quality may be off on some others. A lot of what the immediate future holds will depend entirely on how I feel when I schlep home at the end of each day.

Being a creature who thrives on consistency, this will be a period of anything but. Add in most likely being able to reintroduce Anya to the mix in the middle of this stretch and we’re on the hook to have two weeks of anything but ordinary.

I never doubt my ability to trek through the batshittiest of batshit crazy days, but I do recognize that if something’s got to give, this bit of daily writing and editing will most likely be what I temporarily toss over the side first. Oh, I’m sure there will still be updates – and probably a fair amount of ranting and raving – just don’t expect it to land on time or with quite the normal level of penash or polish.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

It’s been an unexpectedly decent week. Usually by the time Thursday night rolls around, I’ve got a veritable laundry list of topics to distill down into the final three. This week it’s just two and I feel like I owe you the honesty of that instead of just manufacturing a third item just to preserve the purity of my weekly format.

1. AFGE Local 1904. Here we are 19 weeks past the “end of max telework” and the union, such as it is, still hasn’t come through on delivering the new and improved telework agreement. So, we’re still grinding along with only two days a week like pre-COVID barbarians… as if 30 months of operating nearly exclusively through telework didn’t prove that working from home works. All this is ongoing while hearing stories of other organizations tucked in next door that are offering their people four or five day a week work from home options. It’s truly a delight working for the sick man of the enterprise. I’m sure someone could make the case that there’s enough blame to go around, but since the updated and perfectly acceptable policy for supervisors was published 19 weeks ago, I’m going to continue to go ahead and put every bit of blame on Local 1904 for failing to deliver for their members (and those of us who they “represent” against our will) for not getting this shit done. No one’s interest is served by their continued intransigence and the elected “leaders” of 1904 should be embarrassed and ashamed of themselves.

2. People first. There was a work-related town hall type meeting held this afternoon. One of the minor gods in our firmament was scheduled to deliver remarks. It happens all the time. Business as usual. Or it would have been, right up until the point where an email got circulated reminding us that it was an in-person event and our attendance in person was “expected.” Never mind the millions we’ve spent on laying on remote communication and meeting capabilities. Never mind the absurdity of packing in as many as 750 people asshole to elbow so they can share whatever sickness one or two of them may be carrying around. Never mind the sheer convenience of participating remotely so one could both listen in to gain the information and continue to do other things in the background. The important part of the day was putting asses in seats so the venue looked full. I’ve been directed to be seat filler for events since my very first week working for this vast bureaucracy way back in 2003. I can’t begin to tell you how many town halls or other large group format meetings I’ve attended over the last twenty years. The number would be staggering. You might be tempted to think three plague years would have changed that… and you’d be wrong. Today was just another day of appearance being far more important than reality. Thank sweet merciful Zeus that Thursday is one of my regular telework days. Otherwise, I’d have been sorely tempted to violate one of my basic tenants of professional life: Go along to get along whenever you possibly can. It’s best I wasn’t there in person to ask how that whole “People First” thing is working out. I was, at least, comforted by seeing large swaths of open seating in the room when the live feed started, despite the AV team’s impressively quick efforts to crop that view off the screen. My colleagues, it seems, also elected to vote with their feet. Good on them.

The open bay petri dish…

Posted on by

Since March 2020, I’ve taken the reasonably prescribed precautions against the Great Plague. The regular advice to avoid crowded spaces didn’t feel particularly onerous to me. After all, avoiding crowded places has been my stock in trade for most of my adult life. It’s the kind of crisis situation I was built for.

When the bosses prioritize asses in seats, though, there’s no way to avoid the office, which is how you get a poor schlub coming in when he’s not feeling 100% and only hours later popping hot on a rapid test. That, of course, leads to the rest of us sitting around wondering if that brief conversation we had in the early hours of the morning was enough to swing us from exposed to infected. There’s no way to tell until something does or doesn’t happen, so we all just keep on keeping on.

I miss the front half of the plague experience. A positive test like this would have triggered an immediate quarantine and deep cleaning of the physical space. Anyone in the room would have been declared “exposed” and sent home to quarantine for as long as 14 days. Now guidance from the top is “Well, we just have to tell you that you may have been exposed” and an accompanying shrug.

Having been vaccinated and boosted, it’s reasonable to assume the plague isn’t going to be my cause of death. That shouldn’t be taken to mean it’s an experience I particularly want to have. Given the couple of underlying conditions I enjoy that don’t necessarily play nicely with the plague, it’s in my best interest to avoid it. If I catch this bug after two and a half years only because someone at echelons higher than reality is mired in the misguided notion that there’s anything at all I can do sitting at my desk in cubicle hell that I can’t do from my desk in the sunroom at home, there’s a fair chance I’ll absolutely lose my shit the very next time someone mentions some absolute tripe like “synergy, collaboration, and innovation” and the importance of having all the warm bodies back in an open bay petri dish.

Running out the clock…

Posted on by

With three days left in this grand 16 day weekend, I guess you could say the only thing I have left to do is run out the clock.

With a bit of a sore throat and a touch of post nasal drip, but no other signs or symptoms of crud, COVID, or anything else catching, I’ve laid in groceries and have no further plans besides three days of proper hermiting before work raises its ugly head and demands my time again. It’s celebrating this long stretch of days off by doing that which I most enjoy.

These last two weeks seem to be ending with more a whimper than a bang, but I’m not exactly complaining. Being holed up with the animals, rooms full of good books, food to cook, and vast quantities of tea and gin hardly sounds like a disaster. Who knows, I might even get crazy and watch something on Netflix or Hulu instead of just using the television as background noise.

All while in the back of my head rumbles the warning that Monday is coming. I don’t think any amount of time off will ever change how I feel about that.

Feeling pretty good…

Posted on by

It’s not polite to talk about money. That’s the kind of thing people drilled into your head back in the olden days. Maybe it’s still true. I don’t know. Maybe it isn’t polite to talk about money, but I’m going to do it anyway.

Like most people, I’ve had a complicated relationship with money for as long as I can remember. Some times were fat, others thin. Even in those thin times, though, debt was easy. I never had any trouble finding someone willing to let me borrow on their account. I’ve had some kind of unsecured debt following me around since Citibank gave me my first credit card as a college sophomore.

A decade ago, fleeing from an untenable career situation, I racked up a mountain of debt. It went to the costs of leasing out the house at less than I needed to cover the note (before finally selling it off at a loss), paying my own way a third of the way across the country, setting up housekeeping here along the northern reaches of the Chesapeake, and a bulldog with eye watering medical bills, among less dramatic things. It was all wildly expensive – and what I couldn’t cover out of pocket, I financed.

It’s taken every bit of those ten years, but as of this morning, with one last payment, I clawed out from under the last $279 of non-mortgage debt I was carrying on my books. With a rock bottom interest rate and no intention of staying in this house forever, it’s debt on an appreciating asset (and a deduction) I’m just fine with keeping. I’m perfectly willing to make that my modified definition of “debt free.”

Some people have said it’s a liberating feeling. Maybe it is, but mostly what I feel is relief – knowing that I can fully allocate resources to better goals than continually servicing debt. I could have cut costs to the bone, but you know, you’ve got to live a life too. I’m not saying I’ll never buy another thing with someone else’s dollars, but I’ll be a hell of a lot more judicious than I used to be when it happens.

This day would have arrived a hell of a lot sooner if I qualified for mortgage forgiveness back in 2008 or any of the COVID cash giveaways in 2021. There’s a good chance that’ll be a sore spot that festers for the rest of my life. Missing out on two big freebies aside, I’m feeling pretty good about things just now… and not only because I’m just a few hours into a 16-day weekend.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

Posted on by

1. Systems of systems. Outlook was down most of the day on Wednesday. That was after three days of fighting another “file sharing” system. It’s possible that this week will enter my personal record books as the one in which I spent the most effort to accomplish the least. I’m sure there are good and fine reasons why all out tech seems to be tits up more often than it’s not, but it continues to be one of the top two or three most reliably annoying elements of the job. It’s just one of the many reasons I’m dedicated to being able to walk out the door in thirteen years, five months, and a hand full of days.

2. The week before Christmas. It’s the week before Christmas, or close enough for all practical proposes. It’s certainly less than eight working hours before my long Christmas holiday commences. It’s also been just about the busiest week of work I can remember since the beginning of the Great Plague. Easily 50% of the week’s dumpster fires are entirely self-inflicted because someone just got around to looking at something that should have been handled last week, or because our electronic communication system suck, or for untold other reasons. I shouldn’t say this with so many bosses, former bosses, and other trusted professionals following along, but with seven hours left in my work year, every single one of my fucks has already been allocated. Anyone coming at me between now and 4:00 Friday afternoon expecting much more than a blank stare is going to be sorely disappointed.

3. Prednisone. Thanks to the as-yet unidentified reason my arm had been broken out in a rash for about three weeks, I had a 4-day course of prednisone this week. The (mostly) good news is that the arm has sort of cleared up – it at least looks a lot better than it did a week ago and I’m not longer tempted to satisfy the itch by scratching it with a circular saw. What the four days of prednisone also gave me was an insatiable craving for salt, rampaging blood glucose levels, an even shorter temper than usual, and I’m pretty sure at least one panic attack. I have no idea how people stay on that stuff for weeks or months on end. Next time I’ll just scratch myself bloody and it will still be a less awful experience. 

Time, distance, and the laws of men…

Posted on by

It’s that special time of year again when the gods on Olympus like to pretend that they are not in any way constrained by time, distance, or the laws of men. It’s a few days before Thanksgiving and those high and mighty gods have, right on schedule, realized that the minions on whom they depend to work their will will increasingly be unavailable thanks to end of the year leave taking.

Now what someone with a modicum of common sense might do, is prioritize whatever effort or efforts are legitimately “most important” and concentrate on getting those through the gate first. What we’ll actually be doing, of course, is piling on increasing levels of stuff to do and then watching as “leaders” gnash their teeth and rend their garments because it’s not getting done.

The pool of available people to keep up with whatever wild-ass new ideas the bosses dream up will get a little smaller every day between now and the end of the year. It would be comical if it weren’t absolutely predictable. I’ve watched this spectacle first hand since 2003 and can only assume this great green machine has been up to the same kind of pre-holiday fuckery since Washington was a Lieutenant.

Look, I really am sorry… but if you’re looking for a guy who’s going to jump through his own ass, moan, and wail, because your failure to plan has become an “emergency,” I’m just not your huckleberry. Never have been. Never will be. You have my word on it.

Gordon Gekko versus the do-gooder Senators…

Posted on by

The Thrift Savings Plan (hereafter TSP) is billed as the world’s largest defined contribution retirement plan. Having in excess of $700 billion of assets under management, I’m sure it makes a very tempting target for politicians looking for some new and interesting way to make their mark or get their name in the papers.

Most recently, Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tim Kaine (D-VA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), have sent a letter of interest to TSP’s managing board encouraging them to increase the presence of “racially, ethnically, and gender diverse asset managers” overseeing this giant pot of money.

That’s fine, I suppose, if what you’re into is some kind of feel good, hold hands, and sing along kind of moment. When it comes to TSP, though, the only thing I care about is that the fund managers are the very best money makers that can be found for the job. I want the people in charge of growing my principal retirement account to be relentless and absolutely ruthless in finding better returns. It’s simply never occurred to me to care whether they also happen to be black, white, brown, yellow, straight, bi, gay, men, women, or other.

However admirable the above listed senators believe their goals may be, when it comes to managing a vast portfolio for millions of current and future retirees, the old adage is true – if it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense. As such, I’d encourage these distinguished members of the US Senate to take their genuine imitation do-gooder tendencies and pandering elsewhere.

Maybe I should just run for Congress. From the sounds of it, getting your jollies by telling other people how to live their lives or what they’re supposed to care about is a far better way to feather your nest anyway.