Pennsylvania Jim
Pennsylvania Jim is not the same person I have mentioned earlier as Jimbo. Pennsylvania Jim does not work for the Government any longer and there is hardly anyone left at the Agency who remembers him.
Pennsylvania Jim arrived at the Agency before I did and he also worked in Personnel. He was very intelligent and was a Civil War buff and a very good conversationalist. Jim and I became friends quickly. Jim would spend a great portion of each day making up lists of various topics. It could be to list all the brands of cars he could think of; all the brands of beer he could think of; famous battles of the Civil War and the generals on each side; or just about anything you could imagine. Jim would have been the most feared Jeopardy player of all times - except maybe for Ken Jennings.
Jim had a lovely wife, MariAnne, and both were devout Catholics and therefore did not believe in any type of birth control. By the time that Jim was 30 years old, he and MariAnne had 6 children and she would have been happy to have even more! MariAnne loved children and one time got the most shocked look on her face when I said that I would rather have a puppy! Fed was not always known for diplomatic tact! Jim knew that his salary would not permit anymore children so he started his own "Catholic approved" method of birth control. Jim would go home late from work, take a bottle of cheap bourbon from a hiding spot in his garage, swirl a mouthful in his mouth and dribble it out on his clothes and spit the rest out. He would then walk into the house pretending to be unsteady on his feet and loudly demand his supper and then just as loudly would demand sex from MariAnne. Needless to say, this method proved successful to Jim not having to worry about more children!
Jim's other problem was constant tardiness to the office. MariAnne was not sleeping with Jim - for obvious reasons - and would not tell him to get up and get his butt to work on time. Jim was docked pay each payday for time lost and this led to his becoming more and more tardy. Obviously Pennsylvania Jim had a self-destruct complex. Jim's supervisor, Holt, had all he could take of the persistent tardiness and talked to another Personnel Officer who agreed to have Jim transfer to his station. Jim agreed to do this instead of being terminated and MariAnne did not care since she had just served divorce papers on Jim.
I kept track of Pennsylvania Jim for a few years and then after my phone calls were not returned, I found out he had been fired for - yes - persistent tardiness at his new station. I learned he had gone back to Gettysburg, and was now living with his parents at age 38. I have wondered what ever became of Pennsylvania Jim and if he ever got another job or is he sitting on a park bench in Gettysburg, making up lists all day long? Actually, many years later, I did call Jim's home and got information from his father. Pennsylvania Jim was working the graveyard shift in a Gettysburg paper mill.
The point of this posting? You meet all types of people when you have a 36 year long career. Some are happy stories, some may be stories about tyrants, and some are just kind of sad little stories about a person with a very promising future but just did not know how to handle the problems of life.
A Great Feeling of Retirement
Yesterday, my wife (Mrs. Ex-Fed) said to me that we had not gone anywhere for a while and since it was a slow day around the Ex-Fed household, she suggested that we drive up to Charlestown, West Virginia, to play the slot machines for a while. It is only about an hour drive from our house so I agreed and we took the larger Lexus (the RX-300) for the short trip.
I was thinking on the way up there that we are actually being paid to go to gamble! Yep, these government annuities are just great! On the first of the month, it is grand to look at the banking statement on the Internet and see that a sizable hunk of money has been placed automatically into the account - and all for doing NOTHING!!
The casino was not jam packed but there were a lot of people - and not all retired - playing the slots. Some of the West Virginia rednecks playing the dollar slots looked as though they had to mortgage their trailer to get the money to play the machines for the afternoon. They were pouring $100 worth of tokens into machines in just a few minutes and I did not see any big winners. Some were griping about the payoffs that seemed to be getting less and less each time they came to the casino and that the casinos in Deleware paid off better. The free booze is not a big enticement for people to come to the casino because the cocktail waitresses are so doggone slow. I ordered a beer and never received it! Well, that waitress lost out on my 25 cent tip!
I played a few different slot machines and really like the new ones that are almost like video games. They are interactive when you hit certain combinations on the electronic reels and a bonus screen pops up. You can win bonus money by playing the different options. Slot machine manufactureres are really pretty smart. Coins do not automatically fall into the tray after a win anymore. They are shown as "credits" and you just keep on playing. A lot of the slot machines do not even take coins anymore but only bills. It is so much easier to spend a lot more money in a slot machine in a lot less time than 20 years ago. I came out a few dollars ahead and Mrs. Ex-Fed came out a few dollars down so we basically broke even for the afternoon and just a great outing for the day.
What is the point of this posting? The point is just to say that RETIREMENT IS GREAT! It is a wonderful feeling to be able to just pick up in the middle of the day and do whatever we want to do. We do not have to plan and request annual leave. We do not have to call in for one of the "slick leave" days. My advice is very simple. If you are of the retirement age and are able to do it - RETIRE NOW! Do not feel guilty about "who will they find to do my work" or "my office depends on me being here or the work will not get done". My job has not been filled in 5 months and I know that my remaining co-workers (Jimbo and Ruby) have picked up as much as they can. If the work does not get out in a timely fashion, that is just too bad. They should have prepared with succession planning but this was not done due to a lack of foresight on the part of leadership of the group. Once again - if you are able to retire now - DO IT!!!
Gene
I have had postings entitled with something descriptive about the people before but this one is just called "Gene". Why is that? Well, there is no one word description that would fit Gene. He is truly a gentleman in all respects, is kind of off-the-wall at times, is the most generous person you have ever known, and has a cantankerous streak with a large vein of gold going through it. That kind of person cannot be described with just one word so it is "Gene".
Gene began with the idea of becoming a Social Worker but soon decided that that was not the right field so he joined the Federal government in Personnel (as it was called at that time). He worked at different stations for our Agency and ended up in Washington, DC. Gene was one of the most dedicated Federal employees you could have met - until the Reorganization came along!
I knew practically nothing of classification when I joined the staff and Gene and Jim really helped me learn. It was a great staff at that time. Gene would come in to the office on weekends and catch up on work and was always available to help others when they had too much to do. Then came Arnold!
Arnold was very intelligent as a standards writer but for some reason, took and instant dislike to one of our junior classifiers, Mikey. He tried to fire Mikey and no one knew why. Gene thought this was Arnold being a bully but no one really knows and will probably never know. Mikey was not a fantastic employee but certainly not the bottom of the barrell and certainly not worthy of being fired. At that point, Gene was still a great employee and even though he hated Arnold, he liked his work.
Reorganization to the Customer Advisory Group came along with the Fearless Leaders. At that point, Gene decided he hated what was going on - and rightfully so - and hated his job. These Fearless Leaders actually drove one of the best Federal employees that ever served with the Agency to hate his job so much that he retired on the first possible date he could.
Gene purchased land in Georgia and totally enjoys helping his extended family with their farming and horses. He has turned into a very good golfer, volunteers with seniors, and, I am most happy to say, remains as a good friend of mine.
The Fearless Leaders
Well, where to begin? The Customer Advisory Group was created to bring about something called "One Stop Shopping". The idea was that when a telephone call for any kind of HR assistance came in, the poor slob that answered the call would be charged with finding the right answer for the joker on the other end of the line. All of us were Specialists in one of the various HR specialties - hence Specialists and not a Generalist. The process in the pure concept would be that the poor slob that answered the phone would either know the answer right away or would consult with a Specialist in that specialty and would be responsible for getting back to the HR generalist in the field with the right answer. The problem would come when that one answer would lead to another and the whole process would start all over again. Naturally, this failed right away. Not to worry, said the Fearless Leaders, this was not to be like a light switch but rather a rheostat with the learning process being tuned up a little bit each time. What a crock that was!!
Who are the Fearless Leaders? First is Curley. He is a very short man with a bald head. In fact, he is very similar (both in looks and actions) to the pointy haired boss of Dilbert - but gets (and deserves) less respect. Curley is the poorest public speaker you could imagine and is extremely boring to listen to. You could fall asleep while he is presenting you with an award! Secondly, we have Carol. Not a bad looking chick at all but once again, way out of her element as a leader. She does not have a knowledge of all the facets of HR but tries to cover by asking you questions when you ask her a question. The trick is to avoid her at all costs or you will have to do extra busy work just to justify your original work. The third Fearless Leader is Barb. Try to imagine a Barbie Doll on a mega caffiene rush! She is quite short with carrot orange hair and also wears Coca-Cola bottle glasses. Barb is the brightest of the Fearless Leaders but this leads to her being dangerous, too. Since Barb knows something about HR, she is going to try and come up with all sorts of off-the-wall possibilities for each scenario and you have to be able to find the answer for each possibility. She is also a tough slave driver with her team of Specialists working extra hours each week with no overtime or comp time.
I bet this makes you wish you worked for my Agency, doesn't it? If you were competent as my team was, you learned to work by yourself without involving the Fearless Leaders in any projects. I managed to do this and stayed pretty happy all of the time. I have a friend in another agency whose mantra is, "I hate my job and my boss is an idiot." I did not hate my job but ...
