Watch It!

Recently, my employer implemented a new policy where all employees are required to have a spotter when backing agency vehicles.

There's a logic to this: namely, that some employees (like most human beings) are not actually competent to operate heavy equipment, and have been running over things that were left in their path that were not easily seen when backing up. Material piles, I'm guessing. Coworkers. Things like that.

The thing is, this blanket policy makes sense for employees whose job involves operating heavy equipment, but perhaps not so much for desk-job employees whose interaction with fleet vehicles never goes beyond taking a trip in a Toyota Prius.

Nothing inspires public confidence in an agency like the sight of an employee using a professional flagger to back a sub-compact out of a gas station parking lot.

Another method of putting greater ownership on employees has been the implementation of an inspection sheet, similar to the ones that you ignore from the rental car company, which come back to bite you in the ass when it turns out your Taurus had chocolate sauce stains in the glove compartment.

I resent these. We pick up an agency car from the agency shop, which, as I understand it, is almost entirely staffed by mechanics. So I fail to see why I have to test the horn, lights, brakes, and fluid levels. On my most recent trip to South Padre Island, I walked back into the shop as soon as I started up the engine. "The 'low tire pressure' warning light is on," I told them.

"Do the tires actually look low?" they asked me.

"I'm not really sure," I said. I mean, they didn't look flat. But what do I know?

They sighed. "It's cold out, that's all," they told me. "Once you start driving and the tires warm up, the light will go off. Of course, we can take a look at it, if you're really worried."

They looked at me. They were eating lunch. "I guess it will be fine," I said.

It never did go off, but at least I made it to South Padre and back without a blowout.

And There Was Much Rejoicing

It's about time, after our division has been bleeding bright, talented people for so long, that we should get rid of someone incompetent and useless. And we're in luck! Late yesterday afternoon, a memo was sent out to let everyone know our division administration manager is retiring!

Of course we'll have to have a going-away happy hour for him, just like for everybody else. But unlike the ones we have for everyone else, I think we'll dispense with the minor detail of inviting the guest of honor.

This is the guy who opens and reads all mail sent to anyone in the division; who supervises a full-time staff dedicated to poring over all our internet activity records to make sure no one else is wasting taxpayer money; who would never respond to repeated emails from a friend of mine requesting some files my friend needed for a project, but was never too busy to send plenty of division-wide nastygrams to scold people for burning microwave popcorn or pilfering paper towels from the bathroom to use in the kitchen. This is the guy who took two years to reshuffle the seating arrangements for about 30 people on our floor, to the point where I suspect several employees retired or quit out of sheer exasperation.

This guy is, in short, a complete and utter git.

From the memo announcing his retirement:

For twelve years Complete Git was a revenue agent with the Internal Revenue Service and a special agent for the U.S. Treasury's Criminal Investigation Division. For ten years he ran his own investigative business.

I knew he was a dick!

Upon retirement, Git plans to spend more time with his family in the Dallas area and pursue new opportunities in the private sector. Please join me in wishing Git the very best in his future endeavors.

It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for the private sector. Too bad Git's family isn't in the Corpus area. I know a company there that could really use a man of his talents.

Having a Craptacular Time! Wish You Were Here!

How come people who are on vacation are expected to send picture postcards to their friends, innocently going about their daily routine at work? This only serves to foster envy and resentment, don't you think? Why don't people at work send postcards to their vacationing friends? I think this would make a lot more sense. At least, that's a thought that was occurring to me right as I was racing down the stairs to morning break, and came very near tripping and being killed in a freak stairwell accident.

The rubber treads in the east stairwell are cracked and peeling, and chunks of them are missing. Several months ago, everyone in our building received an email notification that they would be replaced. (The stair treads, I mean, not everyone in the building, though that's also a rather intriguing idea.) This hasn't happened. But today some workmen came and ripped out a perfectly good wall on the south stairwell, taking care to turn off the adjacent elevator first. I don't know how the smokers made it to their cigarette breaks. They might have had to dive out the window, which I think is slightly more probable than their walking all the way to the opposite end of the building to use the other elevators.

We, the break group, suspect these were the workmen who were supposed to replace the stair treads, but that the project is being overseen by the infamous director of the administrative section: he who coordinated our division's move with such staggering incompetence that what should have taken two weeks, at the outside, ended up taking almost two years; he who opens and reads all division employees' mail; he whose brainchild our Big Broth^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Scotland Yard software is, which pretty much everybody except our (new) manager's group seems to find some excuse to get out of using; he who was supposed to order Bitching Smoker a replacement ergonomic keyboard for her new computer, but whose underlings finally informed our boss, non-apologetically, after sitting on the request for five months, that the paperwork appeared to have been misplaced and would need to be resubmitted; he who sends out urgent, division-wide emails telling people not to burn microwave popcorn or take paper towels from the bathroom to use in the kitchen (they are purchased from a different budget, so this is a huge deal, you know) but will never respond to repeated emails asking for actual information pertaining to his actual job function; he whose name has become so universally synonymous with the term "great vast blithering idiot" that if you so much as mention him to anybody in our division - I am not exaggerating, this is totally true - they will immediately say "ugh" and roll their eyes. Seriously. They can't help it, it's reflex.

In our staff meeting yesterday, our supervisor had apparently been instructed by someone - senior to herself - to stress to us all that we have to, have to, have to be sure to keep our Scotland Yard updated. We've been told over and over and over again that it's only a tool to let anyone looking for us know where to find us. It is not a time clock. But in our meeting yesterday, our supervisor once more stated that, while it is definitely not a time clock, and she is definitely not trying to micromanage us, we really need to be sure to keep it updated for our own good. You know, so that when the people who are snooping around on us come to her to tell her that we're a bunch of lazy, no-good, do-nothing slackers who come in late all the time, she'll be able to pull up reports from Scotland Yard to demonstrate that we in fact have signed in right on time every single day, and therefore defend us. To whoever it is that's attacking us. She didn't say.

We took extra-long breaks yesterday, and I spit on my resume a few times, and shined it up a little bit with my sleeve. The thing is, the one thing this rather silly job has going for it is that it's been entirely stress-free. I'm a little cheesed at the attempts to address this and only this aspect of working for the state.

Want to see the picture on my postcard?