My little packet of justice...

I'll be honest. I almost gave up. Almost. On our State Legislature that is.

Those of you that are familiar with the events of the past year, and how they affected me should appreciate this. That is a VERY unpubilicized report on the findings of the Legislative Committee on Personnel Practices. It is in regard to the "Zero Tolerance Firings" that took place at DelDOT a short time ago.

Allow me to share with you, some of my favorite excerpts...(with emphasis on my REALLY favorite parts)

"Further aggravating the circumstances of the firings was a statement to the press from the Secretary suggesting that employees fired due to this policy were exchanging pornographic material. The Committee believes that this may have been the most egregious and unfortunate action in the ordeal. The accusation added insult to injury and shamed employees and their families. The Committee unanimously agreed that while many of the e-mails were in poor taste and should not have been viewed on the state system, none could be considered blatantly pornographic. Pornography is subjective with connotations of immorality and deviant behavior and the committee stated that the Secretary should have taken this into consideration before commenting to the press. In the absence of a formal apology by Secretary Hayward, the Personnel Practices Committee issues an apology to the employees and their families."

Excuse my french but it's about fucking time. And I'd also like a badge to wear that says "I told you so", so that I can once again hold my head proudly when interacting with the professional community. You can't possibly know what it's like to get "those looks" from others in the work community like you're a criminal. I've done nothing but work hard all my life to build and maintain a reputation within this community and quite frankly, it hurts.

Some more favorites...

"During the course of the investigation the Committee issued subpoenas. The Committee wanted to ensure that witnesses felt comfortable answering all questions posed. This also ensured that there was a legal recourse if false testimony was given. The Committee believes false testimony was provided under oath. This issue was forwarded to the Attorney General for review and action. The Committee believes that this is a serious matter and action should be considered to safeguard the authority of an official body created by the Legislature."

I hope they all serve time. And I hope someone lets me know when they're carted off in handcuffs so I can video tape it.

"Positions seem as though they were created at will by the Secretary with salaries that did not directly correspond to job duties and responsibilities. This created an environment of chaos and suspect cronyism."

No surprise there.

And perhaps my most favorite part. Or at least the part I'm looking back into...

"The General Assembly should, through epilogue language, make whole all employees who were disciplined due to the Zero Tolerance Policy. This includes:
receiving back pay, reinstatement to original workstation, and removal of records (dated previous to the OMB opinion) pertaining to this incident from their file. The Secretary of the Department of Transportation should discipline these employees appropriately according to the Merit Rules and Progressive Discipline Guidelines."

I encourage everyone to send this report to any form of media they have access to. Because we all know, THIS won't receive press any other way. UPDATE: Fellow Blogger Mark pointed out this article to me in the News Journal.

I've become so numb...

Note: the editor has about had it and needs to vent, so the following may will contain swearing.

Ok. Remember my last post? If you don't, just scroll down because I'm too lazy to link to it. Take all that. Got it? Ok, now add in a a fucking wedding (I warned you) and the fact that a Senior Project Manager at work just quit and guess who gets his workload? And I'm not just talking a few more clients, I'm talking some major clients and supervision of his fucking staff. And this isn't about the money. Although a little more never hurt anyone. But my already massive lack of personal life was just extinguished in one fell swoop. The bad part of consulting is that you can't just replace people when they've built relationships with clients for the past 10 years. You stick the person with the next best relationship in there to soften the news and hope they take it ok. And whattayaknow, that just happens to be ME.

Whew, I needed that...
So how exactly did I get to this point? That's a question that I ponder to myself everyday I'm driving back and forth to work. Long drives in the car lead to a lot of thinking time. There comes a point where you have to ask yourself if it's really worth it? What would I be doing if I wasn't doing this? Would I be more content? Would I be married with children? Would I have a dog?

I actually had to stop and figure out my age the other day because I forgot how old I was. I shit you not. I was within a year, but I wasn't sure.

To quote Ferris Buller: "Life moves pretty fast sometimes, you've got to take time to stop and smell the roses."

That's all well and good, but in my world, if I stop to smell the roses, I'd better have a GPS unit on my back and be plotting a point...

I've been everywhere man...(my life's theme song)

This past week is the first week I have not left the state of Delaware since April 2005.

Take a second and reflect on that.

I have this very cheesy habit of buying something from each place I visit. Just something to remind me of the time spent at where I've been. This in in preparation for a year or two when I burn out from my job and finally go insane, I'll have things to play with.

Unfortunately, most of my time is spent in airports, so I end up buying things like "<insert appropriate city here> collector shot glasses." So now I have this cabinet full of shot glasses from 98% of the country I don't really care about.

But I'm not getting used to staying home just yet.

I'm looking ahead to April and I get tired just by seeing my calendar. I'm in Jackson, MS for a week. Sacramento, CA for a week, VA for a few days, western PA for a few, and who knows what else will pop up. To top all of this off, I found out last night that my grandmother has just sold her house IN ERIE, PA and needs my help to move ALL OF HER WORLDLY POSSESSIONS to GEORGIA.

I can't make this shit up.

Did I mention that I'm 100% for cloning humans? I am completely willing to look the other way while scientists break ethical restrictions to create another me. Do what you need to do guys.