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Recent News... Just for Pope Gregory... |
2001-10-17 - 7:49 a.m. Across the map divide This week shall be known as harried autocrat week. Actually, not really, it's just very full of last minute things. One of my sew-ers couldn't finish her portion of the field walls, so I had to adventure out (of course on the night of the pouring rain/wind during rush hour), pick up her share and finish sewing it last night. It really isn't her fault - another Shiremate is happily pregnant. However, the first trimester makes you very sensitive to smell and sewing the painted fabric was making her physically ill. No way we were going to let that persist. So I call and get directions and head out into the storm. Just as I find the first turn I discover the directions failed to download toy palm pilot. However, her address transferred over correctly and I had a map in the car. Cause some of us keep maps in the car � Kevin. Grin. Unfortunately, the turns into and through her neighborhood are across a map divide, so I keep flipping the pages in the infamous county map book as I wind through the darkening, windswept streets. I love to watch the leaves dance in the wind. The way they swirl in a vortex makes me feel like magic is real. Mission was successfully accomplished and I head home to an evening of TV and sewing. Buzzed by Bubbles to get a long stapler for site booklet collation and pickup the dress I lent her for a pattern. Just I as turn to leave, Buttercup dashes out the rain after a nasty two hour commute and I make her go right back out and move cause she's parked me in. Sorry, love you. Sewed happily through Buffy, Roswell and Smallville. John Schneider as Superman's father? 'Luke Duke' as 'Jonathan Kent'? Smallville is very promising, thumbs up. Unfortunately, it competes with Roswell, which I really like, so I have a problem. Why do networks put sci-fi against sci-fi show? Wouldn't it make more sense to put sci-fi against comedy? Then each network would get the full share of the sci-fi audience rather than part. Now a small rant about job frustrations. My current assignment, which has lingered for three years, has been a rough experience. My team has been unappreciated and our efforts to provide quality engineering have been met by disdain from the project management. My organization management is very frustrated, but they've left me in the midst of the 'Somebody Else's Problem' field for three years, and they never even bought me the bottle of Scotch they promised. I'm an engineer. I don't mind working hard, but I *hate* working stupid. Fortunately, this will end soon. I've been looking into other assignments. In fact, I applied for, interviewed and won my ideal position through an internal job posting back in May. Except the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that rules all government jobs hiring put a hiatus on that position before formal offers could be made. So I won a job I can't have, that the supervisor in question desperately needs to fill, and he keeps asking me to pinch hit for the assignments he would give someone in that position. So I can do the work without the privileges, proper support or raise in salary. Ummm, no. I also applied for a training program, which would train me to do the job they've already selected me for and are trying to have me do under the table. I'll skip the boring details, but this opportunity would be a good year, year and a half experience and leave me with better hiring options. So I apply through the wonderful new Office of Human Resource (OHR) automated Resume Builder system. This web based thing automatically selects qualified candidates. Do you see a database problem coming on? Non-technical people put 'buzzwords' or 'keywords' into this system associated with the skills for each vacancy. If the resume their system builds for you after you enter enough information contains a sufficient number of these buzzword hits, you get an interview. I did not get an interview for the training program to teach me how to do a job they've already selected me for but can't hire me because of OPM rulings - see beginning of story. They sent me a cute letter stating I was not among the qualified candidates for the position. This is made more ironic by the people running the program, who are victims as much as I of the OHR and OPM rules, are upset they can't interview me. Let's just say I was heavily courted to apply for this training program. So far, I get a lot of sympathy, but no tea and, really no results. I don't like no results, so I've begun pestering OHR to provide me specific rationale for why I'm not qualified for said training program. No response to phone, so I switched to email to provide a paper trail. Meanwhile, Theo left with no immeadiately fascinating prospects, which is okay. I'll be perfectly happy to have some down time at work until after the new year. Read those technical journals I never get time for. But they are *not* going to end this by telling me I'm not qualified to train for a position I've already been hired for. You know, the union president sits right across the hall from me. This will be an interesting little cat and mouse game for the next few weeks. � � � 
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