Farewell to Megatron

I'm in our stakeholder meeting, a few weeks ago - presenting one of our new features done by the west coast devs and things are not going according to plan.

Being me, I blurt out "That's not right."

In front of a crowd is never the right time to encounter a new bug. Yet it happens.

I try a few more times, before realizing that the app is behaving fine, I've just completely misread what was happening.

I reset, and get the demo done and hand things over to Noddy.

Noddy launches into their part of the demo - a feature that was supposed to be RFD in January that is only now taking tangible shape in code. Noddy's dev's have endured missing requirements, late requirements, incomplete requirements - and late edits when they were still coding.

Noddy has created features with a single requirement - that is wrong. Noddy's feature work has spawned endless "fix it" stories, to correct some omission or other mistake. Each correction will require changes to automated testing, more time and additional expense.

But now, Noddy has landed the first wedge of their feature - and it's...

...it's a mess. The overall problem that this feature is supposed to solve - CANNOT be solved directly by our product. This feature's value rests on the dubious assumption that our users (who hate data entry) will enter data into our application, print out that data, and then re-enter the same data into the Nachen website.

This makes sense to absolutely no one.

Because Noddy has been on this feature, it is being built in incredibly small slices of functionality. Which is agile, but the fact is this feature is a webform. Something as basic as a webform does not need to have a lot of slices to be built by an agile shop.

Sure, you can say, build me the basic form without the ability to validate it. Then validate it. Then make the printout. Then show me how to find all the forms I've filled out. And so on.

Noddy has turned this into story pong, where features are added - then moved, then shifted to other stories, and finally landing in a heap right before a looming deadline.

Noddy's built their form, and it's maybe a third of what it needs to be in order to be a basic, dumb form. The stakeholders are not mean, but they ask pointed questions until Noddy starts deflecting in their usual way. Talking technical and promising future work until people lose interest.

Pinning Noddy down is just too much work sometimes. Even I've given up most of the time.

The meeting ends and I'm off to get a beverage. I meet HockeyTwo in the breakroom. They laugh at my struggles in the demo, but as they put it "at least you fess up to problems. If that had been Noddy? They'd have pressed on, never said a word, and hoped nobody noticed."

It's a remarkable how often a co-worker can (out-of-the-blue) break into a critical observation about Noddy.

*     *     *

The Noddy effect. It's amazing.

I've been in the hallway and been accosted by co-workers, "GOD, Noddy is just so good at pissing people off, huh?"

I've been at team building exercises that have turned into full blown Noddy venting sessions. One of my co-workers related the story where once, at a work sponsored family fishing outing, their six year old child had caught a fish and wanted to catch-and-release like everyone around them.

Noddy had intervened and told this child (mind you, someone else's six year old child) that "No, that fish is invasive, you need to kill it."

Now, I can imagine saying something along those lines, in the absence of thought. I might do that. But faced (as Noddy was) with a weeping six year old asking Why? Why does my fish have to die? 

-most of us would reconsider. Not Noddy. They insisted - to a six year old - that the fish must die.

And on and on. Ad nauseum to anyone unfortunate enough to be near an employee of NerdHaven. Everyone has a Noddy story.

*     *     *

I leave the breakroom and head back towards my desk, then I remember I have something to check on with Dragonman.

On the way there, I see Atlas talking to Noddy. Atlas wants Noddy to meet with them in their office. Noddy is begging off, they have to do something, but Atlas is insistent, "Right after."

Now, I know Noddy's been on the hot seat for a while now. In fact, most people on UX know that as well. Noddy gets regular meetings with the boss, and a host of performance monitoring activities have become the norm for our entire team.

Hearing Atlas wants to meet with Noddy is filed away.

*     *     *

The day goes on. I'm back to my desk. Runner, Dash and I have our own little UX Shangri-La, separate from our team, and a genuinely nice setup. Windows, natural light and plant life.

Plus? No Noddy.

Our team hired two more devs and there weren't enough chairs for everyone, so Runner and I volunteered to move to the next room.

Noddy offered to move as well - and BigDog was about to go along with it, logic being move all of the UX crew at once - but Runner shot BigDog a look that could maim.

And BigDog pivoted on a dime. "murph and Runner will move over to the other room." Noddy would end up staying in the team room. In a way, this made the most sense. Noddy would be creating work for the team, while Runner and I were doing work exclusively for the west coast devs.

But mostly, we were sick to the brim of Noddy.

I've thought long (way too long) about what I think of Noddy as a co-worker.

They are not:

1. Honest
2. Hardworking
3. Diligent; or
4. Professional

Above that, they have a disastrous personality and virtually everyone hates their guts. 

Runner deserved a break, and I was happy to get one as well. With the new UXer, Dash - we've got a great thing going. Dash is cool - and a pro.

I miss our devs, but I love our new digs.

I ground out some work for the rest of the day, and was on the way out when I run into OneTwentyEight. 

"What's up with Noddy?"

Huh?

"After showcase, they came back, groused something about 'might as well hand in my resignation' and left in a huff."

!!!

This news is positively electric. Nobody wants to call it out as fact, but everyone is thinking it.

Noddy is gone??  

*     *     *

The next day, Noddy is nowhere, and their laptop is missing. Questions are asked at standup, but no one has solid info. Someone thinks that Noddy's child was in the hospital. This is greeted with a certain amount of disappointment. 

Later that morning, we get an email from the boss: Noddy has a family emergency and will be out until the next week.

So that's it. 

Runner is jubilant. Noddy is gone! But family emergency has me wondering - if they are gone, the boss would just say so. I remember all the crazy with H, that dragged on and they ended up coming back. I don't want to get happy too soon.

But days roll on and Noddy does not come back. Frankly, with Arwafn blowing up and damage control in full swing - I don't notice their absence. 

The next week, Gumby tells everyone that Noddy will be gone "indefinitely." This gets all the rumor mills flying, but there's still precious little to go on. Noddy's not here, and we don't know when or if they will be back.

*     *     *

I speculate openly with HockeyOne & HockeyTwo - towards the end of the week, I'm feeling flip and launch into "I think this may be it."  HockeyTwo is skeptical, but clearly thinks this would be great news. Noddy being gone has created a news item, and more than a few water cooler discussions stray into what if?

*     *     *

And then its Thursday, and I walk into standup late. I've been in some catchup session with Gumby or something or other - I've been running late for everything lately - and I blow into the team room right behind Runner.  They look pissed.

The team goes through the standup routine and BigDog is going through their list -

- And I see Noddy back into view. They'd been standing right behind Runner such that I couldn't see them at all. 

And there's the answer. When's Noddy coming back? Right now.

And they are back with a vengeance. We get the story on their child being hospitalized - they are okay now, but it sounded like quite an ordeal - and then Noddy is back onto muddling their way through their allotted work. They have meetings with Ihaq, and are working with Ahhh, the new UX in the west coast office.

Ahhh is a special case, and I'm starting to think that Noddy and Ahhh are on the same page. Noddy can wield a firehose of bullsh!t and I'm afraid Ahhh is starting to think Noddy is credible.

For that matter, I'm worried that Ahhh & Dash are going to need the talk about Noddy in the near future. Runner and I have studiously avoided talking to Dash or Ahhh about the Noddy situation. We'd hoped that the situation would be sorted out before it became necessary, but that hasn't happened.

Dash and Ahhh deserve to know that Noddy should not be relied on. That their pronouncements on Nachen work should be double-checked - always. 

They need to know that Noddy is borderline useless in a great many ways - but...

How do you start that conversation? I want Dash and Ahhh to make their own conclusions. I don't want to just start in with "Noddy's a useless hump," but I don't know a middle ground. I've punted and avoided the issue.  When Dash needs to work with Noddy, Runner and I try to assist.

Dash is no fool, and they have to know that there is a schism between Noddy and the rest of UX - but watching them struggle to collaborate with Noddy is hard. We want to jump in and say "Forget what Noddy is saying, do what you think is right."

The devs hold their fire as well. They are pros, and they are focused on getting work done, not smoothing things out for the new UXers. Sooner or later, they will figure it out on their own.

*    *     *

I'm running late on a Wed and want to check in with the boss before standup. Gumby's in their office meeting with Portal and Noddy on something, so I head to the desk and chat up Runner.

BigDog strolls into UX Shangri-La.

"One at a time, I need all of you to come to BigSad." BigSad is the main conference room.

Runner & Dash are confused - thinking we are each to go to BigSad by ourselves and then come back before the next person goes.

I took it to mean we were all to go to BigSad, but one by one so as not to make a big deal out of things.

I have a momentary flash of panic. OMG BigDog is leaving! Which would be biblically bad. BigDog is awesome and they are about to have another child. Why would they change jobs? They can't do that to us!

*     *     *

We make BigSad together, contrary to orders. Most of the team is there. BigDog tells us to close the door and starts in.

"No other way to say this, but to say it..."

Please, no.

Just no.

I love working with BigDog, they are awesome. They are the most supportive dev I have every worked with - and they kill it in the dev space. Their status as team lead has taken them away from the coding they love and they've been clearly frustrated by it... And they've been fed a steady diet of crap work by Noddy.

OMG, Noddy - if you've cost us BigDog, I will personally-

BigDog finishes in a rush.

"Noddy is being let go today. Portal asked me to get the team out of the room so it won't get awkward."

*     *     *

When the moment finally arrived - it was a total ambush. I was exhausted from the Arwafn grind, terrified that BigDog was leaving, and frankly - numb.

Of course. Portal. Duh. They always do the reaper work.

And today they showed Noddy the door.

Noddy. The person who has caused untold misery and wasted hours - will burden us no longer.

I made an excuse to go to the breakroom and get a beverage. Before coming back, I swung by HockeyTwo.

On the down low, deliverance is at hand.

HockeyTwo nodded somberly. They were totally on the same page.

Back in BigSad, we are told the information is close hold until we hear specifically that it is not.

Oops, already blew that. Odds are good HockeyTwo has at least told HockeyOne.

After a brief stay in BigSad, we are allowed to go back to our desks. Noddy has already been shown the door.

*     *     *

Official word comes during yet another Arwafn meeting. Gumby sends out an email to our team announcing Noddy no longer works at Nerdhaven. 

I'm sitting across from Teacher, who utterly detested Noddy - and have to share. With Gumby's email maximized on screen, I spin my laptop around and offer it to Teacher.

We're on a phone conference, so Teacher keeps composure, but leans over to Juice and relays the news in a whisper. Juice looks at me, eyes wide and I make the touchdown sign.

Somehow, spreading the news makes it real.

This has really happened.

*     *     *

The team went out for a celebratory lunch, and we read Dash into the situation. Dash took it well. "I guess I don't have to feel bad about wanting to redesign all of Noddy's work, then."

Nope!

Later, I'm in the hall and I run into SnT, a wonderful human being who does great, high stress work and yet still finds time to be amazingly nice. 

Did you hear?? I want to say, but SnT's clearly clued in. This news has whipped through NerdHaven like a shockwave.

SnT and I swap Noddy stories for a bit and they're all like "I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, but after that whole egg-kicking thing, I just knew they were a total asshole."

To hear someone as generous as SnT launch into profanity is no small thing.

I laugh and share our nickname for him "We called them Noddy."

SnT blinks.

"Because they were always falling asleep."

SnT busts out laughing. "We called them Megatron."

(apparently, Noddy was fond of using a particular buzzword that ended in '-tron' - thus, Megatron).

I bust out laughing, and we stand there laughing in the hall until we have to explain ourselves to a passing co-worker. And then they start laughing.

*     *     *

And before folks start accusing me and mine of being mean spirited, I would like to offer the following justification.

I tried for over a year to be sympathetic to Noddy. I gather their home life is not easy. But I have watched this person bring misery and additional work to a team I am very fond of for a very long time. 

An untold amount of work was wasted cleaning up after Noddy and stepping up to do stuff they should have done. 

Noddy added stress and uncertainty to the team - and very little else.

Everyone at NerdHaven gets to be happy that those burdens have been lifted from them.

I can separate any feelings of empathy for Noddy and their family from that. Yes, I hope things don't go too badly for them. I genuinely hope they land on their feet. That they find work that inspires them to actually do the work and not just phone it in.

And I sincerely feel sympathy for Noddy's family.

A family whose chosen breadwinner decided to surf Ebay for collectables rather than do their effing job. 

Who, when faced with the prospect of imminent professional death, chose to continue the same half-assed everything that landed them in hot water in the first place.

That family deserves sympathy.

But mostly, I'm happy for my team. The UX lost a staff member and productivity will increase. Morale will improve.

And we will do better work for our customers. 

We get to be happy about that. 

Free and clear.

Last One Out, Close the Door

Back when I was in CorpWorld, Ruby called a meeting.

Ruby was about to be let go, but was good with it. They'd had an opportunity come up that they could take only if CorpWorld would let them go.

Almost on cue, Smiler lowered the boom on them. I'd have loved to be inside Ruby's head when they got the news they were free.

I'd imagine some kind of dramatic scene, but these things were handled remotely - by staffing companies.

Ruby probably did a victory lap anyway, and then settled down to be a pro. They wound down all their project work and - since they were part of a now extinct wing of the UX group - they handed over the keys to all the testing and legacy UX files.

Which was what the meeting was about.

Stimpy and I were given access to a raft of directories containing the blood, sweat and grief of a bunch of people who'd been canned - or were about to be.

Ruby guided us through what the files had been - but basically threw up their hands. "There's no one to keep these files anymore." 

The UX group had websites - detailing standards and design patterns - that were seriously good. These used to be maintained by at least four people. Ruby had been the lone caretaker.

Now the files were passing to Stimpy and I, and the fact that neither of us had the dev skills to maintain them was the small issue. The real problem was neither of us could get buckets - nobody would pay us to do the work. 

The three of us were sitting there in the room realizing that the bulk of the UX group's work product was sitting idle and aging into irrelevance. None of us had any illusions that this handoff of files would change their fate. These files were going to get archived - then deleted. We were just changing their "notify next of kin" data.

After the meeting, I spent some time poring over the files. I tried to remove the clearly unneeded files - maybe a smaller overall file size would help save the archive - but there was just a staggering amount of subdirectories. I moved around a few things - and then I renamed the parent directory.

I called it 

/Last one out close the door/ 

And I was.

And I did.

*     *     *

Today was a strange sort of encore, although for very different reasons.

Last time, I was leaving CorpWorld. 

This time, I was going back.

And while I truly feel I've made the right choice, I can't say there aren't a host of regrets.

My colleagues at this gig are an odd bunch. 

BigMac is my favorite. A veteran engineer - loud and unabashed about everything. Days when BigMac was out were the loneliest days at this job.

BankVet was great, too - but they were all the way at the end of the hall and didn't seek out a lot of conversation. If you had a reason to chat with them - the chatting was good - but there were days I'd come to the office - do my stuff and never see another soul.

Which is why I was on Twitter so damn much. I've come to realize that a certain amount of social behavior is required to keep my mood up. At CorpWorld there was no escaping other people. It could be isolating, true. But you would always be dragged in front of your peers. My requirement meetings would always devolve into a good amount of shooting the bull.

Getting to yuk it up with the group doesn't seem important until you find yourself truly isolated.

At the MacShop, the IS group is based in a secured wing of the basement. Each team member has their own office - with doors that lock. Most of the doors sit open - but nobody other than BigMac ever comes out. 

SilentOne spends the entire workday in their office with the lights off. Standing. You can just see their eyes over their monitor. They are nice enough, but the overall appearance is not welcoming.

BankVet's office is lit, but they are either in it or off at a remote site. 

The Prospector's door is always closed. No one knows what they are up to. When I asked BankVet what Prospector does, they replied "Hopefully... nothing."

Morlock's office is outside of the secured wing, owing partly to a desire for a larger office - but no doubt because there is a lot of bad blood between Morlock and the rest of IS.

Morlock comes in after lunch and works well into the night. Communication with Morlock is on their terms and can obliterate your schedule once it starts. 

Morlock. 

Cannot.

Summarize.

Truth? If I had a lot to do, I tried to avoid them. A simple "Hello" could turn into a three hour encounter.

And then there was the Boss. I like the Boss. A lot. But they are almost never around and there is no way that I've found to track their schedule. They show up like weather. Which led to some odd dynamics - the IS group would swarm on them with every deferred need they'd stored up over the past week. And then - poof! - they'd be gone again.

All of this added up to a lot of alone time. Time I should have used to do development work. The Boss asked me to do a single development project during my tenure. And while I'd been assured that nobody would push me to get it done in a hurry - I surely was behind schedule.

Getting the new Corporate gig forced me into the deep end. I couldn't let the Boss down on this. So I would try to learn a host of things I knew very little about.

Like Unix.

The Boss had asked me to do a relatively simple thing like automate some file transfers between a brace of servers. But to a UX guy, this is like asking me to build a bridge. I'd taken exactly the wrong approach - which was to be SERIOUS.

I would buy books and learn about Perl. I would buy a book about shell scripting. I would read them methodically so that I would understand the subject before I just waded in and did something stupid.

From the outside, Unix is a sick beast. A cryptic landscape of /bin/ and grep and awk. 

Read the man page!

Seriously, anytime I see that on a 'nix help forum I want to kick somebody's teeth in. Save your smug RTFM BS for your wargaming buddies, kay?

Man pages are crap. As in 

Here is every possible option for this command explained as tersely as possible. You will never need 95% of these options, but read them all anyway and try to guess which 5% are worth knowing.

Let's begin. 

Command [filename] [option1] [flags] [location] [underlined text] [pointless elipses]

And so on.

YES. Once you know what you need from a command or why the hell you would use it over some other command, then the man pages are invaluable. Does the flag get set by default? And was it Capital R or lowercase r?  These are things man pages help you with.

How will I parse out my log file? is not something a man page can help you with. Man pages are not for people starting from zero.

Me? zero - rather:

ZERO.

But I'd tried to grok the whole of these kinds of things before starting. Read an entire chapter about grep before having the slightest idea what I would be grepping. This was worse than man pages. These were man CHAPTERS - and knowing exactly nothing about what I needed - getting hooked up to the how-to firehose was paralyzing me.

With three weeks before I left the job, I was forced to plunge in and start scripting.

Which is what I should have done in the first place. Once you have some bits that do something, it becomes easier (at least for me) to see what other bits I should reach for next.

And I had spend a bunch of time defining the problem - requirements analysis was my thang. Now, I just had to search for the commands and syntax that would make those things happen.

If I were cooking - this would be getting my ingredients together. What I had been doing before was like trying to make tonight's steak dinner by reading books about animal husbandry.

I'd stupidly tried Perl first - which is a fine choice, but required a lot more rampup - and had the added danger of being Morlock's language of preference. If Morlock would bend your ear for two hours about how you should be doing a home improvement project you'd mentioned in passing, they would be positively omnipresent when they found out about your perl script.

Shell scripting seemed more approachable and - as it turned out - a hell of a lot of fun. Yeah, it's not true programming, but you can do a truly SICK amount of things with shell scripts.

Next thing I know, I'm grepping like a total dork and getting jazzed on making a multipart email work with an MD5 boundary. Oh yeah, I'm on this... Which I'm sure is hilarious to true unix/linux types. But really-the first time you see your tiny blob of text turn into a perfectly formatted email that arrives in your inbox, you feel like a sorcerer.

But this is Unix, so there is always hidden lore lurking in the wild to make you humble. No two servers are alike - so after I get things working on one machine, I find the other machines turn their noses up at my noble little script. I spend days trying to figure out what kinds of permissions I need to do what, and where this key should be stored and howInGodsName I can get sudo on a remote box when I'm coming over as admin without a password?

CHRIST.

But eventually I wrangle together something that does what I've been asked to do. And none too soon. I'm literally getting the first scheduled use of the update two days before I leave. 

And it works - mostly. So I spend the next day cleaning it up and polishing it.

Which leaves today. My last day.

I'm writing up the instructions so that other people can use this thing. I've had several successful tests, but one thing that MacShop is truly bad at is documenting procedure. Information does not flow freely and each worker is an island.

I want this script of mine to be something people understand and can use. So I spend a stupid amount of time illustrating exactly what people need to do to make it work. Then I have BigMac test it out. Then I revise it because there are all kinds of mistakes.

I'm four hours away from being done with this job, and I need to wrap up everything with a bow. The scripts are done, the documentation is done - I need to get my files cleaned up.

I chuck all my digital cruft. Move all my spreadsheets into common locations so they can be used by the IS group. I zip archives of my scripts (we SO need git) and then I'm doing all the follow up work for the database scripts I ran in the past week. BigMac pops over to say goodbye. They leave in the middle of the afternoon, and their day is done. 

I wish them well. I'll miss them. And not just because they throw chocolate at my head on a daily basis.

Back to the file cleanup. Running low on time. The Boss was going to be back at 3 but they never show up when they say they will. I need to give them my keys and badge. 

I start a checklist.

Timesheet! I need to get my timesheet sent in. I'd managed to get it signed, but forgot to send it in.

Boom, done.

I start the ssh-keygen process for the next stage of this process. Stuff I'll never get to do, but stuff that will help the Boss when they take the next logical step.

And Morlock walks by. I make a point of speaking to them. Yesterday was my goodbye lunch and - naturally - the IS group neglected to invite them. As Morlock is utterly paranoid, this is not only hurtful - but is guaranteed to figure in their next round of calculations about who is out to get them. This was a willful omission by IS - and I should have thought to ask them to come. 

I have failed Morlock. And they are verbose, blunt and hard to deal with - but they deserved better.

I chat them up and soon we are half an hour into a discussion about database record locking. Morlock urges me to put my keys and badge in the Boss's office, and I do. Morlock abruptly wanders off in mid-sentence like they always do. At least I got to shake their hand. 

I'm still thinking about that when I realize SilentOne's door is closed. They went home. BankVet didn't come in today. I guess I made my goodbyes with them at lunch. The Boss sends me a text to tell me they won't be back until after I go home.

Which is sad, but leaves me with a more immediate problem: with my keys and badge locked in the Boss's office - I'm now a prisoner of the secure wing. Every door is now a one-way door.

Packing up is now first priority. I bin all the printouts I'd pointlessly made and kept. All my gear goes into my bag. Coat, scarf, hat - all on the bag. Everything in one place. 

Simplified.

I scour the office three times. Anything I leave behind I won't get back. Just like a hotel. There's always something obvious you forget...

Mostly satisfied, I begin drafting the epic send off email - Here's where I left things. Here's where all my files are. Here's all the things that are done. Here's the one thing that isn't. Here's how that should be handled. It was great working with you.

And it was. The past few weeks have been a whirlwind of learning and doing. Sh!t got done and I made it happen. I'm about as on top of things as I have ever felt at a job. 

Wrapped up in a bow.

I send the email and look up. It's 5:01.

My phone bongs with a text from my Boss. They are great. They thank me for my work and apologize for being absent on my last day. They say a lot of nice things.

It's after quitting time, so the place would be barren anyway - but it's a Friday. So there's double-nobody here. Add to that, the schools are closed - so anybody who was fool enough to think of being here killed that thought weeks ago.

It's dead quiet. I close all my applications, shut down my ginormous iMac monitor, and get my things.

By chance, I notice my name plate - the one I've lugged through three jobs - is still sitting on my shelf. That nagging part of my brain relaxes and I put the name plate in my bag.

Coat, scarf, hat, bag. That's the essential four. The notepad and pens they can have.

I leave the secure wing.

Morlock went out to get food - so the MacShop is quiet as a tomb. The lights are off and I stand there for a while, thinking about the life I could have had at the MacShop. The Boss could surely use the help. 

But idle thoughts aren't doing anything for me. I've done everything they asked me to do here and next week I'll start full time UX work. Rusty or not, here I come. I put in the earbuds and click. 

Leave your past at
   the front door
      and run away like
         you did before...

Blood Red Shoes. Go figure. It's got a good riff, anyway.

I'm standing there, looking at the way out of MacShop - thinking the obvious thing.

And I was.

So I did.

FTE Tuesday

With the drama done, I'm focused on getting myself brought on full time at the new gig. The new gig was contract-to-hire and - originally - I was supposed to have been a full time employee after two to three months.

Not that the contracting part of the new gig has been bad. In contrast to the other staffing company I worked for (and all of the ones I've heard colleagues talk about), my current staffing company has been good. Really good.

As in, they are beating on the doors to get me hired as a FTE. Which is the total opposite of my previous company - who let me sit as a contractor for well over five years and seemed perfectly content to let me stay that way.

Being a contractor has some upsides, but I've always wanted to be part of the team.

The new staffing company was keen to get me situated - it was just my current client is slow to move on just about anything.

Thinking back to how they agreed to hire me on contract - it was a month of zero communication from them before they suddenly asked me to come aboard. That's not terribly normal anywhere else but here - apparently.

In their defense, my understanding of the situation is that they'd signed a contract to provide a contract worker for X amount of hours. My predecessor, Anjin-san, had worked through some of those hours - but a not insignificant amount of hours remained on the contract.

And my client was obligated to pay for those hours whether or not a contractor was working them or not. Were they to hire me before they'd burned through those hours, they would be doling out twice the money for the same labor. Once for FTE me, and once again to pay out the contract.

Not that I'd get paid twice - and not that they'd get twice the labor out of me.

So - my hire date wouldn't arrive until I'd burned through the hours. I'd check with my account rep and they gave me an estimate of mid-August.

Now, the discriminating reader will note that I am writing this in the latter half of October.

Yes. This is true.

And I'd asked about this. My Boss is a great person - but they are literally the eye of the storm in this place. Constantly getting calls or texts or rushing from meeting to meeting at a breakneck pace. They are incredibly smart - and grasp very complicated things in one pass - all the while maintaining several other incredibly complicated things in their head at the same time.

I literally do not know how they do this.

And I hate to add to their burdens. But eventually, questions about holiday plans emerge and re-emerge often enough to signify there are going to be problems ahead if I don't get a handle on when my FTE status will begin.

Because once it does - the magic of five weeks of vacation can begin. There are some restrictions, but you literally can start using them as soon as you come on board. It's ri-DONK-ulous - and I want it. Mom's planning a family vacation down south and gosh darn it, we're going to do that. And I want me a holiday, too.

It's been almost eight years since I was paid for the day after Thanksgiving. Staffing companies don't do that sort of thing. My last staffing company had a few set holidays - but the add ons didn't make the cut. If you wanted that day, you paid in PTO.

My current company doesn't even do that. If my client isn't open for business - as of right now - I don't get paid. I don't even have the option to come in, because the place is closed.

Which - how do you say? - SuuuuUuuuuuuuucks.

To counteract this, my staffing company called me out of the blue before Labor Day and told me they had a nice surprise for me. I'm thinking They're going to pay me for Labor Day! Which seemed like a good guess. Only I didn't manage to get a hold of them until after the holiday.

I'm thinking they're going to send me a gift card or something. Meh.

No. Instead, they're giving me a 15% raise on my salary. Which, by the way, is the largest raise (percentage or absolute dollars) I have ever received.

I was so dumbfounded by this move, that I don't think I adequately thanked my account rep. I just was like "uh, can I get a paper copy that details this?" I literally thought my rep had misspoken. There's no WAY they meant that much...

But they did. And they made the raise retroactive to the last pay period.

!!!

So the following Friday, I get a paycheck that is better than any that preceded it. I immediately made plans to get E and I out of the house for some celebrating. But it got delayed, and then - well, you know what happened.

I still owe her a night out, by the way.

Anyway, I'm hesitant to bother the boss about bringing me on as FTE and now I'm 15% less inclined to do so. After all, there is no way my client is going to agree to be on the hook for this new pay rate.

One of the things that genuinely shocks me about my interview with my current Boss is how blunt I was about money. Well, that - and the fact that I showed up in blue jeans. But mostly the money thing.  I laid out a slightly inflated version of my compensation at CorpWorld and then proceeded to spell out my expectation to continue getting paid at least that as a FTE.

Contract work often is higher than FTE rate - at least in my experience - and I was very clear about not wanting to contract for rate X - and then go FTE at X minus anything. Which is pretty blunt coming from the likes of me. I'm truly terrible at the deal - always have been - and getting all ultimatum-ish with a prospective employer was well outside of my norm.

But I did it, and my Boss indicated this would not be a problem. Score!

So, I'd coasted past labor day - happy to soak up my temporary rate of X +15% until I went FTE at just plan X.

No hurry, man... just take your time...

But like I said, the PTO situation would ultimately be an issue. Knowing the speed of things, I didn't want machinery to start right before Thanksgiving, because odds are it wouldn't stop until right before Christmas. And I did not want that.

Which is why I was bugging the boss about bringing me on right around the time I was talking with that Corporate Recruiter. This needs to stop. I need to settle down.

In my heart of hearts, I'd imagined a scenario where I'd tell my Boss I had this other offer and that I was willing to stay but only at X +15%. The Gordon Gekko approach.

No doubt there are some worlds where that is the norm, but that really wasn't how I wanted to do this. I'd only spoken to the Recruiter so I had a plan B in the event there was some foul up and I couldn't go FTE. And it really struck me as a total jerkwad move.

I'd spoken to Morlock, the sole developer at the new gig and they assured me that my hire was a sure thing. "You just gotta get after the Boss. It'll happen. No question."

Morlock said something else, though. Something about my classification as an FTE: "You're probably going to be classified at Level 1, which means your salary will be set at the lowest level coming on."

Now, aside from the Prince of Darkness, I don't know anyone more pessimistic about things than Morlock. Morlock has been convinced that they've been about to be fired for fourteen years.
You don't talk to Morlock when you're looking for sunshine.

But Morlock is big on the details, so it would be foolish not to address this issue. If there is no salary negotiation when I come on board, my Client might mistakenly give me the wrong agreement.

This is the one thing that could go wrong. And it's my future salary. So, on the same day that I'm telling the Recruiter that I won't take the gig - I'm sitting down with the Boss making sure there are no misunderstandings about what my rate will be going forward.

Without batting an eye, the Boss says "X -11%"

My initial reaction was stunned silence. Then I talked about my expectation that there would not be so much of a fall off when I went to FTE.

See what I did there? - As I said, I SUCK at the deal.

My Boss thought for a moment, then said "You want me to put words in your mouth?"

And I said "Yes."

Totally. SUCK. At the deal.

And my Boss said "You want us to try to meet you halfway?"

And I said "That'd be great."

Understand, this would amount to hoping for "X - 5.5%" Yeah, that would be greeeEEeeeeat.

With that, I go to lunch. Leaving things in the Boss's hands is reflex at this point. The Boss has half a dozen impossible things to do before the end of the day and always manages to get them done. This is just another one.

Also, I'm just not up for some kind of staredown. I know I should be, but I'm not.

After lunch, I come back to find an email from HR entitled "Letter of Hire."

I open it to find a form letter attachment congratulating me on my new status as a Full Time Employee -

-At the going rate of "X - 11%"

They've scheduled me for a two hour meeting with HR at 9am on Monday to finalize the paperwork.

The wrong paperwork.

I immediately head into my Boss's office. "Did you see that email from HR?" I'm trying not to get too worked up, but in the back of my head I'm doing the math. Going from "X + 15%" to "X - 11%" is a hell of a lot of awful.

My Boss's response is immediate. "We'll fix this. I need to speak to the CFO."

The CFO is a whirlwind of stress that buzzes around my Boss wherever they go. Awhile ago the Boss and I were grinding out some manual work at 11pm and the CFO called - they felt their monitor was too dim and could my Boss "run up with a new one?" 

Seriously.

But this is the person who needs to sign off on correcting my wages. My Boss has their ear - and this is just another impossible deed they will accomplish before 9am on Monday.

My Boss is a good person. I believe they will do this thing. I email them the specific number we talked about and thank them for their time.

The number is "X - 5.5%"

And I go forth and I write the Recruiter and tell them "Thank You For Considering Me."

*     *     *

Now, in that very email - I'd left open only a sliver of hope that the recruiter would hold on until I'd gotten my salary situation sorted out. I'd studiously left out any mention of other jobs in my salary discussions - because (and I'm seriously doubting this right now) I thought that was the honorable thing to do.

If the only thing I used the Corporate gig for was as leverage against my current employer - well, it sure felt like I wasted a whole bunch of smart people's time. I didn't want to do that. 

This is stupid thinking. I realize this now. But it was what I was thinking at the time. Don't hit the Boss over the head with this. There is a stack of red tape that needs to be sorted out - and they don't need to feel you're threatening them. It's not a good way to forge a working alliance.

Over the weekend, I was too busy to do much thinking about work. We had our annual gathering of college friends and their families at my house and it was wall to wall socializing.

And great. Being jacked up about the work situation gave me a subject to unload about - but as there was no resolution it was just venting stored up stress. 

What's funny, is when I think about how I described the salary snafu, I'd unconsciously made an edit to where my salary stood. Yes, I told my friends, my job is offering less money than we agreed to, but my Boss is going to make it right.

Make it right.

"Making it right," would be getting me back to X. But that's not what was in the works. My Boss had offered to get me from "X - 11%" up to "X - 5.5%" 

I like my Boss a lot. Maybe that's why I wanted to paper over what was happening. I cannot believe they would do that to me. Not the Boss.

After a whirlwind weekend filled with old friends - and nowhere near enough catching up - everyone goes home.

And I go back to work.

*     *     *

Monday

I'm supposed to meet with HR at 9am. I generally get into the office around 8:30 or so - this job is incredibly flexible about home obligations. Last week - I got to walk with my kids to school every day. Gave me an entirely new perspective on mornings. I love that flexibility. 

Quality of life, man.

But this morning - I'm dropping off the kids by car because I need time to check in with the Boss and see if HR is up to speed on some new arrangement for my salary.

-and I forgot my passport.

I was supposed to bring my social security card to the HR meeting, but I could use a passport for most of it. My SS card is in the safety deposit box and between 12:40pm on Friday and Monday morning - I hadn't managed to get it out of the bank.

And this morning, I'd forgotten my passport. So, back home I go. I sprint upstairs and get the damn thing - then manage to make it to work at 8:45. HR is in a separate building about ten minutes away.

I need to check in to see if my Boss is there - or if there's an email.

They're not. And there isn't.

I'm going to meet HR blind.

I head over - resolving in my head not to sign anything that shows a salary figure of "X -11%." I'm not going down that road. 

But if it's "X -5.5%" You takin' that? Huh?

I'm rewinding back to Friday. Back when I told the Recruiter no. I'd been thinking about quality of life, flexible hours - lots of PTO. But the Recruiter's offer was long on one thing in particular: money.

Gone now.

I dash into the HR building and fumble my way into a cluster of office cubes. There are a brace of staffers there clearly waiting for me. An incredibly poised woman announces that while they could start my meeting - they had late information that something about my salary was still in flux.

She then pointed out that this business does not negotiate on salary. For my classification - there is one rate - the rate they offered. She mentioned there was some possibility of a re-classification - but that would be something that should have been settled before I met with HR. 

"We were not told of this until now."

I sympathize. They are in an awkward position. They expected a pro forma form processing session - and there is something to negotiate. And they are not allowed to negotiate. 

Those sorts of things take place before things reach HR. And HR was not happy about being left with someone else's mess.

My mess.

I told them we should reschedule and I went back to my office. 

Back at the office - I'd gotten another email from the Recruiter. They said they would wait until I met with the people I needed to before accepting my withdrawal as a candidate.

That was incredibly generous of them. I have a moment's flash of jumping at their offer - but I remember CorpWorld. I remember years of not getting a raise followed by years of dread - thinking I'd be laid off.

And less vacation. I hadn't gotten my golden handcuffs, but I wanted them.

*     *     *

When the Boss finally did show up - they had no news for me. They'd been unable to reach the usually omnipresent CFO. Naturally, the CFO was taking a day of vacation and were unreachable. 

I'd entertained thoughts of keeping the Recruiter's offer in my back pocket when and if salary negotiations began - but it didn't look like they'd begin anytime soon. Meantime, the Recruiter's offer was about to turn into a pumpkin while I sat waiting for the goddamn CFO.

I knew I would get to see the CFO on Tuesday, though. My group was scheduled to meet with him so he could give a presentation on our financial situation.

At first, this sounded ominous - but the Boss assured me this was just one of those regular speeches to the troops right around the time that budgets and financial indicators were in flux. "Nothing to worry about."

Nothing at all. And the Boss will handle your salary thing. Bank on it.

Before the end of the afternoon, I contacted the Recruiter to thank them for waiting on me, but that I had been unable to contact the people I needed today. 

They didn't respond.

Pumpkin.

No closer to FTE-hood and feeling ill, I called it a day.

*     *     * 

Tuesday

It started out like a sitcom. I'd been asked by YoungPM to put together some process documents on the work I was doing. They'd asked for a sample document to review by the end of the week, and then 17 more in about two weeks.

The day after they'd asked for a sample document - two days before they said they wanted it done - they asked if it was done.

Process documents are a piece of cake, so it was done. I sent it along within 12 minutes. Here.

No 'thank you.' No 'Sorry about needing it earlier." No response at all. You're welcome.

That was YoungPM last week. This week, Tuesday, they're asking for all 17 process documents by Thursday. That'd be more than a week earlier than what they'd originally asked for. 

YoungPM would like to schedule a marathon meeting with me to crank out the documents - YoungPM and Me working together, in my office.

1) Process documents are a piece of cake

2) I do virtually every part of the 17 processes I need to document; and 

3) WTF would having another person in the room help me with?

All this adds up to a PM who doesn't know what they are doing.

I tell YoungPM I'll make the documents and send them along to review. Once YoungPM has had a look at them, we can meet to discuss edits and cleanup. That's something that might need two people.

I'm looking at process docs from other units and they have dates on them like July. I'm asked to get mine last week, and do them in five days.

This is the PM I will work for the bulk of my UX work.

I grind out docs until it's time to go to the CFO's presentation.

It's for all the admin and IS staff - and it's Goddawful. It begins with the CEO talking in pulseless tones about our 'vision' and strategic goal of becoming a 'center for excellence.' At more than one point the CFO cues the CEO into which group he is speaking to - so the CEO can insert the name of one of our groups into his canned lines.

Meh.

Next up is the CFO. They are a much more dynamic and engaging speaker - but their material has me slackjawed almost immediately. The CFO puts up a chart of our primary funding source over the past decade - it is an absolute flatline. No new money is coming in - and the CFO makes it clear that this picture - at least from this funding source - is not going to change.

The CFO then launches into a whiz-bang discussion of the various strategies that will be employed to gain new funding sources. The most notable among them is borrowing the equivalent of 10% of our current gross income as 'seed money' to fund 'new initiatives.'

I want to barf. I went five years without a raise at my last job. I know for a fact that no one at this gig has gotten a raise in the last five years. 

At this point, the CFO - I'm not making this up - begins to tear up as they thank the staff for their sacrifices over the past several years.

I start to feel that familiar haunting feeling again, right in between my shoulder blades.

I have faced flatlined COLA and downsizing before, and I don't ever want to do that again.

This is a roomful of people who have experienced everything short of layoffs - and their CFO is telling them they are about to go into debt to spend their way out of their problems.

I'm starting to freak out. The spectre of professional death.

This is silly.

But that's just what it feels like. The instant the presentation is over, I go over to my Boss and ask if he has any news. 

The Boss looks up, "I literally just walked into the room before the presentation started. The CFO hasn't responded to my messages."

I can't spontaneously interrupt the CFO and CEO for my problems right now - but I need them to sort me out. If I can get at least signed up at a decent rate, I could hang on for a few years and soak up some good PTO. Get some vacay with the fam....

I'm car-pooling back with the SilentOne - a co-worker of mine who (as you might expect) doesn't talk much. Post meeting they are more chatty, though. They think the CFO's tears are rehearsed - and they tell me they've never seen a meeting like that one before.

I blow into my office and check to see if the Recruiter has gotten back to me - nothing.

Pumpkin. You blew it.

Morlock shows up to complete the day. Morlock is, without a doubt, somewhere on the Aspberger's spectrum. They are obsessed with dates - are incapable of summarizing anything - and are bruisingly blunt about everything. 

Molock is mad because of something I've screwed up. Morlock is capable of keeping a truly insane amount of detail in their RAM at all times. Conversations with Morlock begin with a muttered "Last month I showed you this line of code - do you remember?"

I never remember. With Morlock - I write everything down. Morlock believes nothing you say unless you  can point to a primary source. "How do you know this? What is it based on? Okay. Fair enough."

I can't remember what Morlock was mad about that afternoon as I was barely listening to them. If you ask Morlock what time it is, they will tell you how to build a watch. They will then explain the intricate ways in which time is recorded and calculated according to an episode of Nova that they watched a few years ago.

If you interrupt, Morlock will get angry. If you try to change the subject, Morlock will get angrier still. They. Are. Not. Finished. Yet.

I have sat through innumerable sessions with Morlock spouting gouts of information in a steady stream. It's like listening to an audiobook of the final chapters of Kafka's 'The Castle' cranked up to double speed. 

At first you listen, then your brain requests a time out. Then you fidget nervously as you realize you haven't followed a single word for the past ten minutes. Morlock is bound to ask you a question and you won't be able to answer. Morlock will know you haven't been listening - and that will make everything worse.  

You invent a reason to leave. I need to move my car, I need to go to the bathroom, I need to go throw up for a few hours. Anything. You just need to get clear - get some air - something.

Morlock tells me we have to have a meeting later in the week to review some things. They are incredulous that I don't just know these things. "Don't you remember? We talked about this in June"

Whatever excuse I make, I get out and spend the next few minutes stalking around the building desperately replaying the past day.

I will be paid significantly less than I'd signed on for.

I will get lots of time off.

It will be years before I will get my next raise.

I will work hand in glove with Morlock.

I will perform my UX work in service to YoungPM.

But I keep going back to the first item. I'd made a deal to be paid X. And it wasn't going to happen. I'd botched the follow up negotiations, but really - this is not something I should have been discovering this late in the game. If there were issues with my salary requirements - or questions - they could have asked me. I'd said to the Recruiter that the one thing that would make me bolt from my job was them welching on my salary. 

And here they were welching. And what was I doing about it?

And what was keeping me from taking the Corporate gig all this time? Sensei had already greenlighted the work. They'd been there long enough to know their crew was solid.

Their PTO was only 4 weeks first year, but with 12 paid holidays, that was closer to decent.

I'd had the Corporate gig's VP on the phone and asked about flexible time - they'd said they support flexible schedules.

Why the Hell had I let that one go??

My current gig was noble work. Lord knows the Boss could use some help digging out of the mud - and I'd envisioned a long, hard slog that led ultimately to me helping land a collossus of a new system with the grace of a butterfly.

But nothing in the culture that I'd seen in seven months suggested this gig was anywhere near putting my skills to work. I would slog along in the basement and if any system did land - it would not be something I could point to at the end and say "See, I helped make that."

Years of underpaid slog that would appear on my resume as "treading water."

And the corporate gig was formal UX - with a dev team ready in the slips. They are making stuff for a national product. This would have been work you'd refer to on a resume - bank on it.

And you told them to go away.

Twice.

And there's nothing in my inbox.

*     *     *

Bong!

I'm outside the building, heading towards the coffee place across the street. My phone informs me I have an email from the Recruiter. It's about four hours old.

I'd had WiFi off by mistake - and cellular data in the basement just doesn't happen. Now that I'm back in the surface world my phone is again bathed in 4G.

I open the email - it's one line.

"Let's connect today, Okay?"

I mash the screen like a meth addict. "Sounds like a plan."

Still nothing for sure, but more than I'd had all day. They may just want to formally tell me to buzz off, but after this day, I'll take anything.

It's almost 1pm and I wait a whole three hours for my Boss to come by and say something about the status of my becoming an FTE. Or if they've spoken to the CFO. 

But nothing happens. I go outside and call the recruiter. They don't answer and I leave a message on their mobile.

I go back down in the basement and finish my shift. No word, not even an email about my salary situation - from anyone.

5pm comes and goes, I'm checking in with E to see if she'd be okay with the corporate gig. Of course, that's a terribly loaded question - and E is of course awesome. She's good with whatever I think is the right move.

And - more than any other thing I know at that moment - I know I cannot let this Corporate gig get away from me. I need to have this. 

The Recruiter calls me back just as the family is piling into the car to go get our flu shots. 

Recruiter is cordial. "Good to hear back from you."

I try to be calm and direct. "Do you still need an Interaction Designer?"

Recruiter laughs. "Does this mean you're taking the job?"

I'm seeing flashbacks of Juno's note on the wall. If you're still in...

"I am if you still need one."

Recruiter laughs again. "You know we do! The UX director will be so excited to hear this!"

The kids are pounding on things and I'm supposedly backing out of the driveway when all this is happening - but honestly - it's all a blur.

I got it. Days after selling my professional future down the river - I finally realized what I was doing. I was taking the safe, in-hand thing because it was less immediate risk. 

And I remembered CorpWorld, but good.

But not all of them are the same - and regardless, you should never march backward on pay - not while you have a choice. I was letting my foot off the gas because I didn't want to offend my Boss. 

But I remember how totally jazzed I was after meeting the Corporate gig folks. I felt strong, competent, useful. 

And contrasting that with how I've felt at my current job - there was no choice to make.

I'm going Corporate again. This time, as a FTE.

And I'm good with it. 

Happy even.

Funny thing? If I'd have been made an FTE at the Nonprofit on the original three month schedule?

I'd have never even taken that Recruiter's call.

You just never know.

A Better General vs. the Army of Death

Atul Guwande writes another thought provoking article about the state of health care:

The simple view is that medicine exists to fight death and disease, and that is, of course, its most basic task. Death is the enemy. But the enemy has superior forces. Eventually, it wins. And, in a war that you cannot win, you don't want a general who fights to the point of total annihilation. You don't want Custer. You want Robert E. Lee, someone who knew how to fight for territory when he could and how to surrender when he couldn't, someone who understood that the damage is greatest if all you do is fight to the bitter end.

(H/t Atlantic)

Financial Access at Birth

(Via Felix Salmon)

Here's a clever, yet depressing idea:

We propose that starting November 11, 2011 (11/11/11), every child born in this world will start life with a Financial Access at Birth (FAB) bank account. The opening of these “FAB” bank accounts would be integrated with the official birth registration process and perhaps with electronic banking. Governments, with the help of institutional/individual donors will make a deposit of US$100 in each FAB account.

The barriers in the way of this idea are legion, the scope of the problem they are trying to solve is depressing -

-but it's still a damn good idea.

Yet Another Gay Basher Comes Out of the Closet

CA state Senator Roy Ashburn admits the obvious.

Memo to closeted, outwardly conservative types... there is such a thing as protesting too much. If you can't publicly be yourself - at least be mellow. You go all vitriolic against the gay community you're going to get a reputation.

Then when you do get caught DUI coming from a gay bar, you'll be embarrassed - but at least you won't be exposed as a total hypocrite.

Yeesh.

I Pay You Nothing

(Via Felix Salmon)

I love this.

5th Pillar...has a unique initiative to mobilize citizens to fight corruption. In India, petty corruption is pervasive – people often face situations where they are asked to pay bribes for public services that should be provided free. 5th Pillar distributes zero rupee notes in the hopes that ordinary Indians can use these notes as a means to protest demands for bribes by public officials.

In other words, if an official asks you to pay a bribe - you give them this:

Brilliant!

Yet another novel way to fight corruption.

Lies His Teacher Told Him

(H/t to Bad Astronomy)

I wish I had a professor in college that was as unbelievably brilliant as the one Kai Peter Chang had:

“Now I know some of you have already heard of me, but for the benefit of those who are unfamiliar, let me explain how I teach. Between today until the class right before finals, it is my intention to work into each of my lectures … one lie. Your job, as students, among other things, is to try and catch me in the Lie of the Day.”

...

This was an insidiously brilliant technique to focus our attention – by offering an open invitation for students to challenge his statements, he transmitted lessons that lasted far beyond the immediate subject matter and taught us to constantly check new statements and claims with what we already accept as fact.

But the technique only gets better as it goes on, read the whole post from Zen Moments.

A for-pay model to stop corruption

(Via Newshoggers)

Graft and corruption have both a demand and a supply side.
-Shaffi Mather

You have to love this man.



Here's a guy that brought a for profit, self supporting, ambulance service to India as a response to inadequate public service.

Now he's using a business model to go after a more pervasive problem.

In the modern day world where time is premium and [the] battle for subsistence is unimaginably tough, the hapless common man simply gives in and pays the bribe just to get on with life.

A group of us have been working on a pilot basis to address individual instances of demands for bribes for common services or entitlements. And in all 42 cases where we pushed back such demands using existing and legitimate tools like the Right To Information Act, video, audio, or peer pressure we have successfully obtained whatever our clients set out to achieve without actually paying a bribe and with the cost of these tools being substantially lower than the bribe demanded.

I believe that these tools that worked in these 42 pilot cases can be consolidated in standard processes in a BPO kind of environment and made available on web, call center and franchise physical offices - for a fee - to serve anyone confronted with a demand for a bribe.

The target market is as tempting as it can get. It can be worth up to 1 trillion dollars being paid in bribes being paid every year or equal to India's GDP and it is an absolutely virgin market.

I propose to explore this idea further. To examine the potential of creating for a for-profit, fee-based BPO service to stop bribes and prevent corruption.

You have to root for this guy - but you hope he sets a good amount of his budget aside for personal and site security.

As he puts it in the video: I just have to get through the initial days where I don't get...eliminated.

Here's to ya, man. The market is huge, the margins are ripe for plucking.

What a great f-ing idea.

SecDef Gates: We are equipping ourselves for wars we aren't fighting

(Via Danger Room)

SecDef Gates has been trying to pare down the extravagant spending on weapons better suited for a clash of nations in favor of equipment better suited to the wars we happen to be fighting right now.

It's a thankless, uphill slog - but I'm cheering for the man.

When was the last time you heard a Defense Secretary talk like this?

...after September 11th, some things did change. The base defense budget – not counting spending for the wars – increased by some 70 percent over the next eight years.

...when all was said and done, the way the Pentagon selected, evaluated, developed, and paid for major new weapons systems and equipment did not fundamentally change – even after September 11th.

Indeed, the kinds of equipment, programs, and capabilities needed to protect our troops and defeat the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan were not the highest priority of much of the Defense Department, even after several years of war.

He points out that while other nations are buying new weapons and modernizing their forces:

...other nations have learned from the experience of Saddam Hussein’s military in the first and second Iraq wars – that it is ill-advised, if not suicidal, to fight a conventional war head-to-head against the United States: fighter-to-fighter, ship-to-ship, tank-to-tank. They also learned from a bankrupted Soviet Union not to try to outspend us or match our overall capabilities.

He then takes a good hard whack at the F-22 figher jet:

...the F-22 is clearly a capability we do need – a niche, silver-bullet solution for one or two potential scenarios – specifically the defeat of a highly advanced enemy fighter fleet. The F-22, to be blunt, does not make much sense anyplace else in the spectrum of conflict. Nonetheless, supporters of the F-22 lately have promoted its use for an ever expanding list of potential missions. These range from protecting the homeland from seaborne cruise missiles to, as one retired general recommended on TV, using F-22s to go after Somali pirates who in many cases are teenagers with AK-47s – a job we know is better done by three Navy SEALs. These are examples of how far-fetched some of the arguments have become for a program that has cost $65 billion – and counting – to produce 187 aircraft, not to mention the thousands of uniformed Air Force positions that were sacrificed to help pay for it.

In light of all these factors, and with the support of the Air Force leadership, I concluded that 187 – the program of record since 2005, plus four more added in the FY 09 supplemental – was a sufficient number of F-22s and recommended as such to the president.

-and then he beats on the F-22's proponents, hard:

The reaction from parts of the Washington establishment has been predictable for many of the reasons I described before. The most substantive criticism is that completing the F-22 program means we are risking the future of U.S. air supremacy. To assess this risk, it is worth looking at real-world potential threats and assessing the capabilities that other countries have now or in the pipeline.

Consider that by 2020, the United States is projected to have nearly 2,500 manned combat aircraft of all kinds. Of those, nearly 1,100 will be the most advanced fifth generation F-35s and F-22s. China, by contrast, is projected to have no fifth generation aircraft by 2020. And by 2025, the gap only widens. The U.S. will have approximately 1,700 of the most advanced fifth generation fighters versus a handful of comparable aircraft for the Chinese. Nonetheless, some have portrayed this scenario as a dire threat to America’s national security.

His central theme is one that I wish were central to discussions of our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (emphasis mine):

The grim reality is that with regard to the budget we have entered a zero-sum game. Every defense dollar diverted to fund excess or unneeded capacity – whether for more F-22s or anything else – is a dollar that will be unavailable to take care of our people, to win the wars we are in, to deter potential adversaries, and to improve capabilities in areas where America is underinvested and potentially vulnerable. That is a risk that I will not take and one that I cannot accept.

Amen.

I have my doubts that a presidential veto threat is going to reverse the behavior of Congress - but at least somebody's trying.