Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

I’m fighting off a head cold at the moment. Stayed over at MG’s place on Saturday and he had a fan going to keep the air circulating, and I temporarily forgot that fan blowing across Moose’s face = dry nose = head cold susceptibility. You’d think with the AC drama over the summer I’d remember that, but no. My own fault, but still annoying. Lotsa vitamin C & B being consumed (yay for Emergen-C) at the moment.

Tonight was a non-food night of shopping at the grocery store. Needed those lovely home staples of bleach, toilet paper, etc., so grabbed the requisite coupons and dragged myself up for it. Didn’t get home early enough to do whites (for which I needed the aforementioned bleach), but I can do that later this week. Did get in a swim after work, drill work this time, and felt good doing it and after. The bike ride home tends to feel a tad chilly, even after I dry off thoroughly, but it’s short enough not to be a hassle.

Oh, and I managed to lose my work badge. Which isn’t such a big deal, except that the policy of the security people is to drive you batty by punishing you for being a dork make you wait ten working days to get a new badge, even though the technology exists to print out a new one on the spot (as well as cancelling the old one). So, metal detector city for me for the next two weeks.  Thankfully that’s pretty easy when I bike in since everything but my keys (metal-wise) is already in my bag from the commute in. So once I come back from visiting my family over the weekend of the 8th I’ll be re-badged.

Did a massage exchange yesterday with a gentleman whom I’ve exchanged massages with before (for those unfamiliar, it’s simply a “you massage me, I massage you” arrangement). He could use some technique pointers, but overall is pretty good. Haven’t done one of those in ages, so was nice to get a little body work done.

And now, time to crash to help sleep off the cold.

To say I was busy at work yesterday would be an understatement. Best way to explain how the day went: When I got to the end of the day, I picked up my thermos (the one I pack my good coffee in from home) to put it in my bag. It was still full. I’d never even had my coffee. And if you know me, you know that doesn’t happen; I always have my coffee. I’m sure I’ll make up for the caffeine consumption today, but, yeah, busy.

Am hopeful this upcoming holiday week will be a tad easier, and let me concentrate on two semi-big projects and get them out the door. That and time to do some research on the new vision and dental plans that the Feds are offering as a choice this year.

Today is about catching up on my games (there were weeds all over my town of Crobuzon in Animal Crossing:Wild World) and cleaning. The off-season is so thrilling. I did swim last night, so I’m not totally slacking, but it’s nice to lay off the exercise for a little bit.

I love going to the dentist for a filling. First they numb you up so even now, hours later, I still feel like a stroke victim who’s lost control over half of his face. Then they run a drill which was just as annoying to listen to when it wasn’t inside my mouth as it was (I checked, it was).  Then, when it was all over, I find out that evidently while they’re filing insurance on our behalf, they’re not taking payment from the insurance company – now they file, but you pay it all up front and get reimbursed by the insurance company. Whee.

Good thing I love my dentist (who gave me a lottery ticket for referring a co-worker to him – I won $1.00).

Add to the grumpiness the unseasonably warm, wet weather (I like warm weather, I like wet weather, but not together and not in November when it’s supposed to be cooler) and that the anesthetic has lead to a slight nausea and you have a fun morning.

In slightly better news™, my boss loved a memo I wrote yesterday for the front office, had no changes for it, simply asked that it be put on letterhead and signed out. Sweet. I don’t think I’ve ever had that happen, so is a good, good thing. Also, had a conference call over a payment issue that’s stretched out for months now, and it looks like we’re finally going to get to make some payments in a law suit now that everyone’s on board with the right database info and numbers. Whew. I will be happy to have that little thing off our plate. Now if I could just kill off the other two big projects that won’t die, I can get back to more normal matters…

Spent a good chunk of the evening going over resumes one last time so I could rank them for our Board of Directors here at the cult co-op. I’ve been serving on the committee that’s reviewing new property managers’ resumes for the Board before they get their own chance at them, hoping to weed out some of the chaff before they get them. As is the way with these things, some where obviously outstanding, and some were obviously not suited to the position, but the majority were somewhere in the middle. I had a hard time classifying some of them, but I think I put the right ones in the right categories.

I had planned to go to the gym this evening after work (I ran this morning), but was feeling a tad too, er, gassy (damn that veggie burger), to make the gym a comfortable experience either for myself or my fellow weight lifters, so came home and went grocery shopping instead. Did need the groceries, so wasn’t a waste, but had been looking forward to the weight workout. I’m trying to stave off further injury in my chosen three sports (swim, bike, run), and need the help, but when it’s not in the cards, it’s not in the cards.

My parental units found an old personal page from 1999 that was still up for some reason. I thought the ISP had deleted the page, but evidently not. Thankfully I still use the email address from them, so was able to log in, archive the site, and delete it from the ‘net. It would be relatively easy for them to find this particular blog, I’m guessing, but one hopes they know better than to read it. If they do, oh well, they’ll certainly get an eyeful.

Had a Deputy Grand Lawyer come in and dump an assignment in my lap at 5:45 or so this evening, which was interesting. All of the stuff he wants is stuff we can pop out pretty quickly, thankfully, but I zapped an email off to the Assistant Grand Lawyer anyway to let her know so she knows why I’m writing all this stuff for the deputy tomorrow. It’s sometimes good to be the sole source, and sometimes not.

I’ve been dealing a lot the last couple of weeks with a serious budget shortfall that we’re dealing with in one of our accounts under the current Continuing Resolution. For non-DC types, a CR is a stop-gap measure that Congress passes to keep funding flowing, in a limited capacity, until they get off their asses and pass our regular spending bills. The last time the entire Federal government didn’t have a CR was somewhere around 1997 or 1998. Before that it was the mid-80s. It’s a regular occurrence that they don’t bother funding the government until sometime in November, or even as late as March. With the current switch in leadership we’re probably looking at a real bill closer to March.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to write about. What these discussions have entailed has been a series of conversations in which I’ve discovered for the first time just how old the workforce is at my Big Government Agency (BGA). Now, the figure that some exorbitant percentage of the Federal workforce is eligible to retire either right now or within the next five years or so has always been somewhat abstract. What I’m seeing now is that we’re going to be facing some serious leadership issues among the career staff pretty quickly here.

In the CFO’s shop they rattled off the names of several top managers who will be going either next year or the following year (typically people leave in January because of how the pay raises work in the federal government, and how that affects their retirement). By January of 2008 we will be missing all of our current top managers in that office, and I’m not sure how we’re going to replace them. In my own office, the General Counsel’s office, something like 60% of our workforce can retire right now. No waiting, they can just go out the door. At least three of our top managers are doing just that in January, and we’re not in a position to replace them right now with the current budget posture.

We’re in a precarious spot in the Federal government, and I’m not sure where we’re going to get the folks we need to do all of these jobs. I don’t know that we’ve ever been in a position where so much of the civil service was ready to head out the door en masse. And never before was it brought home so vividly as it has been under the current budget cycle. It’s worrisome to contemplate. I’m sure we’ll muddle through somehow, but as the Congress continues to (properly) put more requirements to be accountable with the responsibilities we carry out, it’s going to be more and more difficult unless we can replace folks who are already gone, and start to train replacements for the management that will be leaving soon.