The Reward for a Job Well Done is More Work!

I am beginning to realize why bureaucrats are the way they are.  In my military career I was taught to strive for excellence.  The cost of failure was too great not to.  Now that I am just a paper pushing bureaucrat I have attempted to carry that same ethos to my job.  I rise early, I am in before I am obligated to, I work until after I am obligated to and I seem to do a pretty fair job at the tasks assigned me.  I've never been wed to the 40 hour work week -- it was all about getting the job done.

As I complete my assigned responsibilities I look around and it does not appear I am the atypical employee.  We have people who spend their day surfing the internet, chatting with friends and families on the phone, and making sure they are, at the minimum, in their car when their 40 hours comes to an end.  These people are given jobs, they perform those jobs and then wait for someone to give them another job.

What I have found is when I exceed expectations, my boss congratulates me and puts me on to his next pet project.  I seem to have 60 hours of stuff to cram into my 40 hours.

Funny thing, when I retired from the Air Force I looked forward to a more relaxed life.  My goal was to drive the monorail at Disney World, but they wouldn't answer my requests for an interview.  Right now that monorail looks pretty inviting.  At least I would know what direction I am going in.

Life of a Balloon, Update 2

I am 7 weeks old tomorrow

I have obviously underestimated how long a happy contented helium balloon can last.  Here we are in week 7 and he is still hovering over me.  He moves a little slower but he is still able to keep it up (the positive attitude, what did you think I meant?)

Voices

In the quiet of the day we all hear voices.  They come from our past, our conscience, our parents, or our pastors; they guide us in the decisions of our lives.  Too many push these voices away choosing to listen to others, their friends, the media, or to celebrities who routinely show a less than solid grasp of responsible life.

The voices I speak of should not be confused with the voices of a schizophrenic mind where they dominate his/her world as reality slips away.  My voices are quiet, subtle reminders of what is important and how I govern my life.

Last night there was an interview with Scott Brown, the junior senator from Massachusetts and it appears he is not following the script the political analysts and self-serving pundits have written for him.  He was to storm into Washington and become the hero that saved the Republican Party and led the way for the Tea Party to gain dominance.  He has angered those in his party with his support of some of President Obama’s initiatives, and he has voted for greater control of Wall Street, working with Representative Barney Frank to find compromise.  Not meaning to toot my own horn but I think I called this in Jan 10. Much Ado About Little

Scott Brown is turning out to be the rarest of rare, a politician that does what he says he will, thinks for himself and appears to put the interest of the constituency first.  He is hearing voices, clearly.  Whether I agree with him or not is irrelevant; he is being honest with himself and with others.  I wonder how long he will last before the system corrupts him.

Dealing with Uncertainty

We live in uncertain times.  We are in a protracted war, we have a fragile economy, the nation is divided between two factions, the President is espousing ideas that divide us, and according to some the end of the world is just around the corner.

Sounds terrible, except these same statements could be applied to us in 1865, and about a dozen other years in our nation’s history.  It could also be said about every nation at some time or another.  The one take away for me is life is uncertain.  You do the best you can with what you have, you worry about what you can fix, you strive to support those who need support and you be honest with yourself and others.

A Simple Question

Life is full of simple questions that, unfortunately, generate complex answers.

Three major religions share a common God, why can't they bring people together?

When does human life begin?

What should we use our collective tax dollars for?

Will Boston win the world series?

How Do You Know a C-5 Galaxy Has Landed Gear-Up?

C-5 touching down

We were chatting today about stories from the past and I recalled a time when I was stationed at Mather AFB, Sacramento, California.  Just down interstate 80, towards San Francisco, was Travis AFB.  At Travis they had C-5's and C-141 Starlifters.

One day as we were getting ready for a flight a friend came in and asked if I had heard the news about the C-5 accident.  I hadn't so he went on to tell me about it.  The C-5 is a very big airplane and there had always been this joke.  "How do you know when your C-5 has landed gear up?"  the answer was "It takes mil-power to taxi!" (Mil-power is short for military power and it is roughly equal to full power +)

The night before; a crew was practicing approaches to improve their proficiency in approaches and landings.  They were scheduled for 30 approaches.  Apparently they flew 29 of them just right.  On the last landing of the night, the one that was to end the mission they forgot to put the landing gear down.

As they touched down, sparks started to fly from where the aircraft was scraping along the runway.  The tower called out they had appeared to have a wheel fire so they put the engines in idle, and started to apply brakes to stop quickly so the fire trucks could get to them.  It was about that time, as the airplane started to slide off the side of the runway they realized the brakes weren't working (because the wheels were still in the wheel well), and they figured out they had forgotten to lower them.

I don't think either of the pilots flew C-5s again after that little mistake.  But it did finally provide the definitive answer to the age old question. "How do you know you've landed your C-5 with the gear up?  Differential braking has no affect!"

County Government

We often criticize government; it is too impersonal, to wasteful, it over regulates, it under regulates or is self-serving.  These are easy things; the harder choice is to participate.  When we sit back it is easier for the city or the county to push off problems to the state or the federal governments and say to its citizens this is not within my ability.

Last evening I was dragged, kicking and screaming, by my wife to a “storm-water runoff workshop” with the county commissioners.  I listened as the public works superintendent explained his annual operations budget was about $1 million and with federal and state grants he had about $1.5M available to fix identified problems that exceed $50M.  His only option was to be reactive, to fix things as they broke, and not get out ahead of the issues and implement unfunded federal and state mandates, or those projects that could prevent catastrophic property damage during periods of heavy rainfall, like a hurricane.

The commissioners listened as various speakers came to the podium.  One from the northeast part of the county complained about water runoff from a landfill and how it was destroying her community, ruining her health and the health of the children in her community.  She cited toxin levels for chemicals I am sure were not good, and the residual problems from this closed landfill.  Unfortunately by the end it boiled down to personal criticism of specific individuals.

Another, claiming to represent Lewis Farrakhan, used the forum for the traditional self-serving purpose of attacking an all white commission.  A third, representing a neighborhood adjacent to an industrial park made an excellent presentation discussing how the lack of adequate storm-water management was destroying his community, causing catastrophic damage to neighborhood homes, and creating innumerable problems for this low-income community.

I was afforded the opportunity to speak to the commissioners on the impact of uncontrolled runoff in the Northgate community and problems with the Gap Creek water basin. 

We ask a lot of our commissioners, but this is where government really meets the local needs.  If these men cannot, or will not, find ways to address the problem -- who else will?  In talking with them I am convinced some are willing to make the hard choices necessary to move this county forward.   Others appear married to the same population pleasing position of “we can not raise taxes.”  The implication of this is lets try and get someone else to pay for it.  At the end of the day the money, if any is to come, will come from some ones taxes.  If we as a county do not stand up to the requirements of our county why should we expect someone else to?   My question to those commissioners who want to bury their heads, to say it is too hard, to appease those who want to pay no taxes and still have full public service, why seek to govern if you are unwilling to do so?