Well maybe not so lovely but I just returned from a meeting with all of the middle managers of the agency I work for. It was a sales job - SALES JOB - to get us to support the decisions that were made behind closed doors a couple of months ago. Now when things need to start moving forward we are brought along and told what we are supposed to be supporting, how they all tie together, and how they make us a much better agency. I certainly support one decision that has been made recently. This reaffirms the decision for me to retire - soon - it can't possibly be too soon but I am greedy enough that I will stay until I maximize my lump sum payment for annual leave. Hence January 2 - yeah it is worth quite a bit of money to maximize it but I will still go out on one bad day in a row if it should happen between now and January 2.
I was really looking forward to seeing all my friends at the meeting - only a few attended. I called a few of them and asked why they weren't there. The answer - "We are protesting the travel cap that has been placed on all of us. What better place to protest than a meeting that they want us all to be to." I should have been wise enough to boycott the meeting too.
It is really going to be an interesting year financially and project wise for our district. While I was at the meeting we picked up several additional projects and over $520,000 to do them with. There are still a lot of projects out there with money requested to accomplish them but it is starting to look really good for getting some projects completed that I have been wanting to do for a long time. When I was asked how we got all of that money I simply said "INCREDIBLE THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU ARE CREDIBLE." We have accomplished every target we have been assigned in the last eight years and people know they are going to get completed projects if we get the money and target to complete it. That is a huge comp0liment to the folks that work for me.
There is a down side to this kind of funding though and that is that by the end of this year if we get all of the money we have requested we will have completed all of the projects that we have finished the environmental analysis' for. That is a really tough place to be in for the next year - but then of course I won't be here then and it would be fun for me to see all of these projects done before I retired. I have faith that we will never get through everything we have available to work on because the other areas will pitch a fit if we get all of the money. That right now is probably a good thing.
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4 comments:
With things the way they are now take all the money you can while you can. If the economy doesn't pick up, there might not be any to do any projects with next year.
that is pretty cool and a compliment to your team!!
Thanks both of you that commented - it is pretty incredible that this little district I am in charge of gets so much more than all the big districts out there. My wildlife biologist has received every single award in the agency that is available to biologists. Yeah all the National ones too. makes this old dude look pretty damned good.
Congrats on the additional funding, that's great! Isn't it great to work with great people?
It sure makes work easier when you don't have to babysit people to get a job done.
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