My job

Today I had a long discussion with my Branch Head. Surprisingly enough, previous Branch Heads and my previous Division Head (Branch Head reports to Division Head, reports to Department Head...) had all recommended that I pursue a Branch Head position myself. This Branch Head, the current one (it will change on Oct 1st to another person) was surprised to hear that. He told me he saw me more as an S&T (Science and Technology) guy himself and had never considered me 'branch head material'.

Lovely. So, for the past couple of years I have been working toward a goal that this Branch Head does not support for me, but he never told me... his Division Head supported it and she never discussed it with him. Just me. So... Wasted 2 years of work on something because I stupidly thought that my Division Head, Former Branch Head, and Branch Head might have discussed my career... seeing as how I had asked all of them about this over the last two years and today this one all of the sudden has not one clue that that was my career aspiration!

and they wonder why I feel that this job is a dead end for me.

S&T

A few years back I had a bad experience... Silly me, chastise me in the comments if you wish!

You see, I had this idea for making Navy S&T at my base more cost efficient, saving money and getting more capability... at no extra cost. Anyway, this one Chief Engineer there rained all over my parade. This has happened a LOT since I have been there and this time I just said, fuck it. Screw them, I am not going to try any more. I mean, I had done all the background work and everything only to have this asshole not even listen to my argument, look at the numbers or hear what experts in that field had to say (yes, I had experts lined up to talk about it during my presentation!)

So... Today I get an invite from the just about chief honcho of S&T at the base. He is inviting me to sit on a panel. Well, not ME, me and a bunch of other guys... Including the aforementioned asshole, er, I mean, Chief Engineer.

As part of my plan to turn myself around, I accepted the invite, rather than declining it as I have been doing since that camel broke the straw's back.

Maybe I can get back into the swing of things, or at least feel (once again) like a valuable S&T contributor.

Yeah, my main project values me and expresses it by giving me more and more work, but... I would also like to be seen as an S&T guy.

Outward Bound

I did the Colorado Outward Bound Course in the summer of 1976. It was the entire month of July for me. It was the first and best adventure of my life... I recommend it to everyone.

A little background: Back in WWII the British discovered that about 95% of people on a ship that was sunk died. Of those that survived, if they were on a ship that sank after their first experience, about 95% of the time they lived. Thus they drew the conclusion that it was having had the experience of surviving that made people KNOW they could survive!

SO Outward Bound began, to take you past the barrier of not knowing to the area of knowing you can. That is an interesting idea, you think you can't, so you die. You think you can, and you LIVE. Not because you will live, but because you lived the last time, so you BELIEVE you will and you then DO!

If you can attend an Outward Bound Course, do it. If you have kids, send them to one as young as possible. It changed my life, it will change yours, or theirs.

Racism

Back when I was a young teen, 13 or 14 or so, this was about 1973 or 1974 maybe, I was grocery shopping with my grandfather. Maybe he was 68 or so. We were in the Kroger in Frankfurt, KY, in the produce section and he was looking over the veggies. An older black man was down the other end of the veggies, checking them out also and as the two older men got closer together my grandfather asked the other, similarly aged man, "Hey, Boy, do you see anything you'd consider buying?" or something very close to that. I was raised in the north. In Massachusetts. So, I immediately chided my grandfather for calling a man, "boy" and told him that that was a racial slur and that he should never say such things as that. My grandfather said nothing, but the black man immediately told me that I had no right to say such a thing to men of his and my grandfathers age. That I should respect my elders and never try to correct them, that he had been fighting racism his whole life and he'd be damned if someone was going to step in for him, he'd fight his own damn battles. And he apologized to my grandfather for my poor behavior and told him that clearly my parents hadn't raised me properly. y father died before I was 3 so I can't say he 'raised' me. My mom, she was always working or in school... so I can't say she 'raised' me. Basically I can just say, it's my fault. I guess it is all my fault. I read this post the other day, it's good, I recommend it! http://gawker.com/i-used-to-hate-white-people-1714746295