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| My view as I write ... OAFS Photo |
Well, up to Wednesday it's been hot and sticky in Anne Arundel County. Lots of news about Debbie marching up the coast, and apparently taking no prisoners. (Geez, 14 inches of rain in downtown Charleston!)
Today the rain started up around one-ish, and as you can see above, it came down pretty hard initially. We'll see how the rest of the day goes. We might have a wet drive heading home this weekend. No fun driving conditions!
I'm taking a break from the fiction for a bit, I'm tired, the Muse is tired, but we're having a good time. (Grandkids are not conducive to sleep, especially the boys at 4 and 1. They get up early and it's non-stop action until bedtime. Which for Finnegan is two-ish, then he gets up for round two around 4:00 PM.
Roberto, on the gripping hand, is non-stop from about 0700 until whenever he runs out of gas. Which takes a very long time!
In other news, The Nuke was supposed to go to Vienna (yup, the one in Austria) for work for a couple of days. Didn't pan out. She flew to Richmond because Newark was under the weather, then she flew back to Dulles late Tuesday. Nothing was going direct to Vienna, best she could do was Heathrow but the timing didn't work.
So, an hour drive to Dulles, 22 minute flight to Richmond, long wait in Richmond, 22 minute flight back to Dulles, then an hour drive home from Dulles. All for work. Then she was up at the crack of dawn to go to work to attend the meeting in Vienna via Zoom. Ain't technology wonderful?
Personally, I'm a cheap sumbitch. Every time someone in my company flies out to Sandy Eggo for a meeting I ask, "What, are their classified phones broken?"
"Oh, oh," they plead, "meetings are better in person."
I point out that most meetings are extreme wastes of money and time and are typically just so someone can get out of the office for a week.
No one has countered that yet.
Retirement is looking so sweet right now. 135 days and counting.
Not that I'm keeping track of that or anything.
Heh.
We had rain from Debbie for two days. It was nice. No street thumpers, street racers, crazy people yelling at each other. And the apartment got down to 69 degrees. In August! Whooot! We made up for all the rain we haven't had for a good portion of the year.
ReplyDeleteSadly it probably means mosquitos. Seriously haven't seen them this year, yet.
As to meetings, most that I have been in could have been handled by emails, let alone on tech-tv stuff. Seriously, if you're going to interact with people and get things done, meetings are usually the worse place for that.
Retirement will look good on you. Still expecting The Missus to crack when she sees you so miserable from having to deal with complete idiots and let you retire early. I know, pipe dreams...
I'm used to the idea of December now. Made it official last week.
DeleteBeans, not at the meeting per se, but the breaks, lunch, side-bars, etc., are where a lot of dealings get done though.
DeleteThat's not a meeting, that's a conference.
Delete135 days eh? Congrats on the timeline, now to hide that honeydew jar Sarge........ :)
ReplyDeleteThere is no honey-do jar, list, roster, collection, etc.
DeleteYet!!!!
Deletejuvat
There never will be one,
DeleteNo list because you get everything taken care of before she wills it!
DeleteStay tuned ...
DeleteAn entire post semi influenced by my comment! I feel honored! Haha, not really.
DeleteYou and Nylon12 are both guilty of mentioning lists ...
Delete“No one has countered that yet.”
ReplyDeleteBecause it’s nigh on to impossible to counter the truth.
juvat
😁
DeleteCongrats on having a date!
ReplyDeleteWell deserved time with the family now and in the future will never be regretted.
JB
I submitted a request for my retirement packet, while that doesn't fix it in stone with the company, it does in my mind.
DeleteEnjoy the day.
ReplyDeleteI shall!
DeleteSounds like a fun time with the family, although the weather sounds miserable (Hot, wet, and humid - what is not to like?).
ReplyDeleteHaving spent some of my career as responsible for nothing but meetings and largely involved in them now, it really depends on who is running the meeting and 1) If there is a clear agenda; 2) If the people in the meeting are essentially the people that need to be in the meeting and not just people that want to "be in the loop" or cannot contribute anything; and 3) the meeting is empowered to decisions. Absent those three, it just becomes a conversation.
Congratulations on having a date!
Which cannot come too soon.
DeleteMeetings to share info are OK. Meetings to brainstorm can be OK. Meetings to go over stuff and with ppt? Always a waste of time.
DeleteAmen.
DeleteThe tech for good remote meetings has been around for a long time. I worked at Rocketdyne 86-98 on the Space Station program and we had a really nice video confernence suite. Sound sensing cameras to focus on a speaker at the front table and aligned to go to a push-to-talk mike on the 2nd row. Big screens, dedicated presentation projector, the works. Much better than flying a horde to Lewis Research Center in Cleveland OH every month.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
DeleteGettin' short! Here's something I learned in the Ca. Nat'l. Guard '(not Air Force) 84-'86, What the hell was that for?!?!? "No particular reason, it's just policy", followed by (singing) Hymn, him, eff him...
DeleteMost of the big shots at work view me as unexploded ordnance, so they tread carefully around me. Unless they're veterans, so they already get it and will give me crap just because they can.
Delete(Don McCollor) Several years ago, we held remote project meetings by speaker phone while looking at pre-emailed PowerPoint presentations (numbered). Of course, it was all technical people (engineers and scientists of seven different nationalities mostly speaking the international scientific language [heavily accented English]). Worked quite well.
DeleteI'll take your word for that.
DeleteAre you carrying around a "short timer" stick? Maybe that was in the dinosaur days.
ReplyDeleteAir Force didn't have those in my day.
DeleteMeetings are a waste of money? How dare you break the boondoggle bro-code! Yeah, but the personal interaction sucks over zoom. Now if we had some sort of hologram meeting thing like they had in one of those Avengers movies, or countless other sci-fi flicks, I might agree with you. Sounds like a business opportunity for Raytheon!
ReplyDeleteMeetings are for managers, contracts people, and bean counters. Twenty-five years of being in and seeing the results of meetings in an engineering organization. You want LCS, that's how you get LCS.
DeleteFifteen minute stand-up at the beginning/end of each shift is all you need. Managers want status? Get out from behind your desk, most don't and it shows.
I've had my fill of "status meetings."
Seeing both you and The Muse have put in so much OT lately, your request for leave is hereby approved.....
ReplyDeleteEnjoy!
Yay!
DeleteI've been retired for three and a half weeks, and am still having dreams about applications, and documentation, and provisioning new users, etc. I really hope I can get into the relaxed mode soon!!
ReplyDeleteI'm excited for you Sarge!!
It's tough to stop thinking about what you did for so long.
DeleteMary,
DeleteIt’ll pass. It took me a few months to figure out the new pace, although I still tend to wake up about 0630. But now, rather than rushing off to work, I make a glass of iced coffee and settle in to read Sarge’s blog and several others on his sidebar. It’ll come, just hang in there.
juvat
Word from a pro!
DeleteA friends father told me, "You will retire because of the people not the work." He was mostly correct. I liked the folks in our office but our corporate master couldn't lead hungry wolves to meat. Always problems, but never like any solutions.
ReplyDeleteAs for meetings, my person in charge(She didn't like the word boss) called me for an all hands on deck meeting at corporate. We all arrived and waited for her highness to show up. She never did because she forgot she had another meeting to attend that day offsite and never told us what she wanted covered.
For me it's the work. We keep chasing the latest "thing," which is just an old thing with new buzz words.
Delete