Thursday, September 16, 2021

Lagged...

I can appreciate the sentiment.
The view from my hotel window.
As in jet...

So yes, it's only three hours difference but...

I go to bed at "way too early" Sandy Eggo time (but is a tad late for Little Rhody) and get up "way too early" Sandy Eggo time, but which is perilously late here at the Home Office.

Work has also been very busy, in a good way. Trying to straighten out what is supposed to be in the system and what we had on the ship. Let me just say this, there were a couple of disconnects. We accomplished what the Navy wanted but the civilian side of the government has their own ideas as well.

The two don't always match, guess who gets to make sure it all comes together by December?

I don't get to pick and choose, but I do get to advise. Woe to those who don't listen, the Navy remembers when you don't give them what they need. I mean the guys wearing uniforms and actually under way, not the desk jockeys. The desk jockeys often want their cake and eat it too, which upper management seems to think is possible. But many in upper management are like the Bourbons of France...

Ils n'ont rien appris, ni rien oublié.¹

- Attributed to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand by the Chevalier de Panat, speaking of the Bourbons after their return to France after the fall of Napoléon. 

Ah well, I'm going to bed.

I got nothing.



¹ They have learnt nothing, and forgotten nothing.

20 comments:

  1. Damn....your description of ship repair is the exact sentiments I have been searching for. The sailors love what we do....but that is tempered by them being told that the skilled tradesmen that work on their vessels are lazy, unskilled, and can't get a job doing anything else. Ship repair is a thankless job but it pays the bills and keeps the Mrs happy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sarge, my schedule is such at New Home that when I travel to Old Home, I really do not have to change it much - I just end up waking up earlier and going to bed earlier but otherwise I can manage to not have to "reset" my clock one week out of every four. Other than the fact that in the Winter I essentially spend a third of my existence in the dark, it is not terrible.

    "The disconnect" impacts the civilian world as well, as I am sure you know. Executive and Senior Management's interpretation of needs, schedules, and events is often a great deal different than those trying to execute said tasks or "adjusting" to changes in the schedule or work environment which inevitably are on short notice.

    Perhaps on the bright side, a slightly shorter trip and San Diego in December? At least warmer and sunnier than Rhode Island at the same time of year, I suspect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm looking forward to being underway, even if it's just a couple of days.

      The weather in Sandy Eggo in December is typically better than Little Rhody!

      Delete
    2. "Executive and Senior Management's interpretation of needs, schedules, and events is often a great deal different than those trying to execute said tasks or "adjusting" to changes in the schedule or work environment which inevitably are on short notice."

      I have just gotten out of a meeting where senior management has told us that their solution to short-falls in off-hours support for our clients is to have some people become experts on some of our larger clients and to then be on call 24 x 7 x 365 and for others to have their hours changed to 2nd and 3rd shift. Hiring people specifically to take 2nd and 3rd shift is not going to happen. They say they'll poll the current staff for their preferences before assigning the shifts. I can just imagine what everyone's preference is going to be - and how much they'll matter.

      Delete
    3. They've learned nothing...

      But they'll remember everything!

      A classic scenario demonstrating just that.

      Delete
    4. In classic MBA fashion, they'll hire consultants and more managers to attack the problem and blame it on the workers, when the problem is, of course, yes the workers, but the lack thereof.

      Anyone have 7 or more people they directly answer to? Raise your hands (my hand goes up.) The movie "Office Space" is so funny because it's so true, all of it, every bit, even the Milton thing (every company has a Milton who gets shoved into the corner and is waaaaaay underpaid and mistreated badly but yet is a vital cog in the wheel and when he finally strokes out or leaves or sets the place on fire, the business falls apart. We are all Milton to an extent. And give me back my damned stapler, the one I salvaged and fixed and got running perfectly...)

      Delete
    5. Don't get me started on Degrees. EdD to be precise. They make MBA's look like fricking genius miracle workers.

      Delete
    6. There are two degrees easier to get than a phys-ed degree.

      The lowest and easiest to get, so easy actual morons can complete it, is a degree in Social Working. Yup, that's right, all those social workers have a degree that's actually easier to get than a high school diploma.

      The second easiest degree to get is a degree in Edumacation. With no emphasis on science or math or technology or engineering or anything 'hard.' Nope. But it's harder to get than a degree in social work.

      Now, does that explain our current problem with teachers? That scientists, mathematicians, engineers and technology gurus can't teach, unless they go back and get a useless 4-6 year degree in, what, socialist indoctrination? Advanced babysitting? (no, actual degrees in child care are harder to get than an edumacation degree, barely, but...

      Delete
    7. Beans - I want to argue with you, but nope, I can't, you're right.

      Delete
    8. I saw much evil and stupidity while watching my wife pursue her BA and MA (which were supposed to be BS and MS but that's a whole 'nother story that I might even start drinking if I ever tell it.)

      Most 'liberal arts' degrees are just money-printing machines for academia. As to degrees in Edumacation, well, if'n I can out-teach and out-perform a degreed teacher, outperform them in their own damned field with me having nothing but an AA degree, well, there you go. If parents who barely scraped past a high school degree can homeschool their kids way above what even the best public school kids are expected to perform at, well... yeah, something's smelling like a pile of rotten fish.

      And... how you can tell that public school teachers are, as a group, a bunch of useless scam artists (as a group)? Simple, start talking requiring competency boards for all teachers, new and old, to at least slightly above the level of teaching that they teach at. Oh the screaming, wailing and gnashing of teeth, much smoke, must be fire there.

      I could go on, but... nah... it's 9pm. I want to sleep sometime.

      Delete
  3. I find that about 3 oz. of a decent single malt (blend in necessary 30 minutes before the desired bedtime resets the clock very nicely. I also prefer crossing the Atlantic by ship crossing one time zone a day much more pleasant than flying. Mid-watch East bound, Fore-noon west. Old Guns

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. forgot to put "a" in front of blend, "if" front of necessary not "in", and close the parentheses after necessary. Too close tonoon meal to think. OG

      Delete
  4. Ah, the eternal disconnect between management hookah dreams and statements and the actual reality of life. And on top of that, jet lag and seasonal lag and just home sickness. Ah, don't miss it at all. Only experienced it (all of it, pipe dreams, travel lag, seasonal stuff and missing the honey) a couple times, on the me side and on the her side, and that was enough.

    Even after long vacations (usually at beating-up-people-with-sticks-while-wearing-armor, but even after 'real' vacations) it took days to recover from too much fun and so we always worked in a day of rest and recoup at home before returning to work. It helped, some, but we didn't usually fully recover until the first full weekend at home.

    Bleh.

    Some people are just travelers. They can go places and cross multi-date lines back and forth without any issues. Those people need to be beat with a nerf-sword until the rest of us feel better.

    I'll watch the board and if you don't post by midnight, I'll drop something (chuckles evilly while steepling my fijngers which exlplains the seplling misatkes...)

    Get your rest. You know how much I love watching you work, but, after all, if you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything.

    ReplyDelete

Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

NOTE: Comments on posts over 5 days old go into moderation, automatically.