On the plane ride back to Texas a couple weeks ago, I caught a great New Yorker piece about Tina Fey. In it, she talked about starting out at Saturday Night Live and meeting Lorne Michaels.
During a particularly stressful week in which she had to vet a large number of proposed comedy sketches, pare the best ones down to appropriate timeframes (while also satisfying the egos of the other writers and actors), she turned to Lorne Michaels and asked, "Does the show go on because it's ready?"
"No," he said. "The show goes on because it's 11:30."
Such a great quote there that I had to go for the bold-italics-underline trifecta. It's a wonderful thing to keep in mind during stressful times.
This is such a time.
As a Brigade staff VERY close to heading overseas, we have tasked ourselves to exhaustion. As a key member of that staff, I am working at an unsustainable pace and trying to manage far more tasks in the day than there are hours in which to accomplish them.
The Lorne Michaels quote has been a huge help. I've had to brief the Colonel twice in the past two days on some heavy-duty subjects with virtually no preparation time. Rather than just be a ball of stress, I just acknowledged that the products would never be as good as I would've liked, or if I were back in Reading and had all week to prepare 30 minutes' worth of slides about Kabul.
I knew I wouldn't be ready. But I knew the show would go on because it was 1700 yesterday, or 1600 today, or whatever other "time hack" had been put out.
The other stress management technique I've been falling back on is just maintaining focus on the immediate task at hand. That's a positive step, because one hour of concentrated, uninterrupted work may be enough to cross that entire task off the to-do list. There's no reason to fret about everything else on the plate at the time -- all of that can wait.
One last note I'll make about stress: I've observed here that as certain people become increasingly stressed, their listening skills decrease proportionally. It may be because their patience diminishes, because the stress clouds their thinking, or who-knows-what-else. More than once in the past week, though, someone has asked me a clear, direct question to which I or the Master Sergeant with whom I work has given a clear, direct answer.
Whether it's because the answer wasn't what the questioner had hoped to hear, or because the questioner was just too frazzled by the day's events to take the time to listen, it became very obvious to both of us (either immediately or several hours later) that the person asking the question hadn't listened to the response.
At which point the question was repeated.
And then the initial answer was repeated.
That's what stress can sometimes do.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Threat Detection
"On this crap desert highway / hot wind in my face / Everything smells just like low tide / Garbage all over the place / Up ahead in the distance / A dead donkey eaten by dogs / I swear there's a wire coming out of his butt / leading over behind some logs" -- opening lines to "Hotel Camp Fallujah", sung to the tune of Hotel CaliforniaWe spent the past couple days doing counter-IED training, where we got to work in small teams during mounted patrols (in a HMMWV) and dismounted patrols (that's a really fancy way to say 'walking').
When I saw the dead animal by the side of the road, I knew to be suspicious...and sure enough, if you look closely at the picture, you'll see the wire leading off into the brush beside the road.
Overall, the training was excellent. Today I had the hair-raising experience of trying to do crowd control in a foreign country (with role players, of course), but not wanting to be too aggressive by even training a gun barrel on the crowd or sending a warning shot into the air (they were blank rounds, in case you're wondering). Of course, one of them detonated a simulated "suicide vest" and everything sort of went from bad to worse, quickly. It was definitely enough to make me second-guess the original *kid gloves* approach.
Finishing that training sort of marks a milestone in this process, because the next couple weeks are going to be more purely staff work. I enjoy the field stuff, and don't really mind the staff stuff, but what has been really taxing lately has been the whole burning-the-candle-at-both-ends deal: The field from 0800-1700, and then never-ending meetings and briefing requirements. I'm about to leave the workstation now, and it's pushing 0100. I'll be back up after a quick battery recharge to start working on briefing slides with other staffers.
I've heard it said many times before that you're supposed to hate the mobilization station...it's all set up that way so that you start wishing you could be deployed overseas. A lot of the people in our unit who have deployed before realize that the daily schedule overseas is actually less stressful and taxing, so I'm hearing the laments all the time now about, "Can't we just get on the plane?"
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The People That You Meet / They're Jamming in the Street
Although this phenomenon was first reported while I was on leave by Lost in Afghanistan, I couldn't help but make this the highlight of my first post since returning to the blogosphere after a need-to-catch-up-with-work hiatus.Someone has taken it upon himself/herself to go around North Fort Hood spraypainting a likeness of Lionel Ritchie, and then the name of a hit Lionel Ritchie song below the image, as seen here on the plastic Jersey barrier pictured.
Instantly, I have to give credit to whoever this person is, as they're scoring quite high not only on the gutsy scale, but also the originality scale. As I might say these days when saluting, "Hooah." Thanks for bringing a big smile to my face every time I pass one of these things.
In other news, a recent personnel shift has brought me from being the Assistant to a Key Player (which is great fun because I can do a lot of the meaningful work but then duck out of all the interminable staff meetings), to being an Actual Key Player. No more hiding behind Dad when the neighborhood bullies come around. No more free time, either. Right now a 16-hour day would seem like a vacation.
Still, I'm finding ways wherever I can to make use of RAPOTs (Random-Ass Pockets of Time), such as the 10-minute breaks that come up on the hour when we're doing classes, briefings, or training lanes. It's push-ups, pull-ups, and flutter kicks wherever possible to stay in reasonable shape, with my nifty iPhone Dari apps sprinkled in here and there for good measure as well.
Thankfully, I can blog from my *office* so my lack of reliable barracks Internet isn't a problem. If you've e-mailed or called me in the last month or so, I know I haven't been up to speed (I would say *sorry* but try to reserve use of that term to only the strictest of circumstances), but ironically my life should become easier once we get "over there" and fall in on a more predictable, 12-on/12-off 24-hour cycle.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Golfing with the Boss
There are a lot of "golfing with the boss" jokes out there, but I've always understood the basic premise to be that it's a no-win situation.
If your boss loves to golf, and you're a hack, then you wind up looking like a dope. But if your boss loves to golf, and you're a 1-handicap on the back nine, then you run the risk of making him feel insecure. So you can't be too good or too bad.
It's the same reason you should never go to a gentleman's club with your brother-in-law. Not into it, and you're a square. Too into it, and you're suspect.
I bumped into Kad Barma the other day, and we were saying the same thing about "mandatory fun" events with co-workers (i.e. cocktail hours, pub crawls, etc.) If you're a teetotaler, you're no fun, but if you really just let loose, you'll be getting whispered about in front of all the water coolers on Monday.
I now have an entirely new category to add to the list: Never leave your office during an intense work period.
Sometimes, you can't control it though. Last week, I skipped town with one day's notice. I did a quick "battle handover" of a project I was working on to another soldier. By a crazy coincidence, some of our leaders began inquiring about the project immediately afterwards, some information was misrepresented (not necessarily anyone's fault, but it would be sort of like someone coming to your house to look for something, but you were away on vacation and couldn't help them look, so they couldn't find it).
Anyway, crisis ensued. Being barked at by senior officers is never fun, and the guy I had handed the project off to was sort of left twisting in the wind. He stayed quiet about it for a while, but sent me a distress call on Saturday night. He was taking heavies and needed help.
So what did I do?
It's not in my nature to run away from problems, so I dove in. I got on the phone. I got on the various e-mail systems. I reiterated all the stuff I had turned over, sometimes several times, to the guy left in my stead. I sent a friendly but terse cease-and-desist letter to someone overseas who was causing some of the problems. I e-mailed some of the leaders directly to ask them to calm down. I sent supporting documents and I told them I could and would explain it all on Friday the 11th.
And what happened?
Well, the end result is that things calmed down quite a bit. I can already sense I'm jumping back into calmer waters now that the tsunami flood has started to recede. Plus, I'm glad to have the situational awareness so I'm not blindsided on Friday. However...the intervention also led itself to cries of "micromanagement" from some other corners, and even some armchair psychoanalysis about needing to control something, not wanting to lose the spotlight, and not letting the "temp" handle the show.
That would all be well and good, but I would've happily stayed out of the fray had I never gotten than "Oh, shit, I'm in over my head and need help" phone call. In fact, prior to that time I had not initiated a single phone call or e-mail "back that way."
If I could relive all the events, I wouldn't have changed what I did, or how. But seeing where some huffing and puffing resulted, it reminded me to add "leaving the office during intense times" into that certain category of life situations that don't tend to end well, regardless of the way they're executed.
If your boss loves to golf, and you're a hack, then you wind up looking like a dope. But if your boss loves to golf, and you're a 1-handicap on the back nine, then you run the risk of making him feel insecure. So you can't be too good or too bad.
It's the same reason you should never go to a gentleman's club with your brother-in-law. Not into it, and you're a square. Too into it, and you're suspect.
I bumped into Kad Barma the other day, and we were saying the same thing about "mandatory fun" events with co-workers (i.e. cocktail hours, pub crawls, etc.) If you're a teetotaler, you're no fun, but if you really just let loose, you'll be getting whispered about in front of all the water coolers on Monday.
I now have an entirely new category to add to the list: Never leave your office during an intense work period.
Sometimes, you can't control it though. Last week, I skipped town with one day's notice. I did a quick "battle handover" of a project I was working on to another soldier. By a crazy coincidence, some of our leaders began inquiring about the project immediately afterwards, some information was misrepresented (not necessarily anyone's fault, but it would be sort of like someone coming to your house to look for something, but you were away on vacation and couldn't help them look, so they couldn't find it).
Anyway, crisis ensued. Being barked at by senior officers is never fun, and the guy I had handed the project off to was sort of left twisting in the wind. He stayed quiet about it for a while, but sent me a distress call on Saturday night. He was taking heavies and needed help.
So what did I do?
It's not in my nature to run away from problems, so I dove in. I got on the phone. I got on the various e-mail systems. I reiterated all the stuff I had turned over, sometimes several times, to the guy left in my stead. I sent a friendly but terse cease-and-desist letter to someone overseas who was causing some of the problems. I e-mailed some of the leaders directly to ask them to calm down. I sent supporting documents and I told them I could and would explain it all on Friday the 11th.
And what happened?
Well, the end result is that things calmed down quite a bit. I can already sense I'm jumping back into calmer waters now that the tsunami flood has started to recede. Plus, I'm glad to have the situational awareness so I'm not blindsided on Friday. However...the intervention also led itself to cries of "micromanagement" from some other corners, and even some armchair psychoanalysis about needing to control something, not wanting to lose the spotlight, and not letting the "temp" handle the show.
That would all be well and good, but I would've happily stayed out of the fray had I never gotten than "Oh, shit, I'm in over my head and need help" phone call. In fact, prior to that time I had not initiated a single phone call or e-mail "back that way."
If I could relive all the events, I wouldn't have changed what I did, or how. But seeing where some huffing and puffing resulted, it reminded me to add "leaving the office during intense times" into that certain category of life situations that don't tend to end well, regardless of the way they're executed.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Navel Gazing: Embracing the BEI
So on Thursday morning, I have a Behavioral-Event Interview (BEI) lined up at a prospective graduate school just a couple dozen klicks to our south.
It would've been done over the phone, which I think would've been to my significant disadvantage, but the recent events described in my last two posts sort of changed things up enough to reinforce my belief that all plans are written in sand on a windy day.
Anyway, a BEI is a way for a *screener* to avoid the standard-fare job interviews which basically ask people to rehash their resumes, boast about achievements already described in other material, and then give shamelessly obnoxious, canned answers to the "toughies" like "What is your biggest weakness?" ('Too much of a perfectionist,' 'too dedicated to my job,' and 'too likely to put others' needs above my own' would all instantly disqualify applicants from the imaginary firm I imagine myself someday running, just in case anyone's keeping score at home).
Instead, a BEI goes off the idea that how you've reacted to and solved problems in the recent past is the best indicator of how you would do those things in the future (in the intelligence world, that'd get the five-dollar term 'historical pattern analysis for predictive modeling'). The questions are more likely to start with, "How did you react to difficulty when..." or "Tell me about a time you felt frustrated because..." and then followed up with lots of probing questions about where you went right, left, wrong, or indifferent, and what you'd change if you were faced with it all over again.
As with any other interview, preparation is critical. And as with any other interview, those most in danger of flubbing it are the ones who think their 'gift of gab' can pull them through anything (it can't), and therefore the only preparation needed is on the part of the to-be-dazzled interviewer.
I'll spend a couple hours each day this week prepping, with this old military adage kept firmly in mind: "Embrace the suck...before it embraces you." People might look *forward* to a BEI in the same way they would a root canal, but they don't have to. If the preparation forces you to take a truly close, critical eye to the management decisions you've made over the past five years, that might be a really great thing in and of itself. That's irrespective, of course, of any one person's opinion of how the whole thing goes, or the thickness of the envelope coming in the mail next month.
Whether it's a BEI or any other stressful event looming on your calendar, the process becomes a heckuva lot more meaningful when you learn to embrace it. I'll let other people stress the outcome.
It would've been done over the phone, which I think would've been to my significant disadvantage, but the recent events described in my last two posts sort of changed things up enough to reinforce my belief that all plans are written in sand on a windy day.
Anyway, a BEI is a way for a *screener* to avoid the standard-fare job interviews which basically ask people to rehash their resumes, boast about achievements already described in other material, and then give shamelessly obnoxious, canned answers to the "toughies" like "What is your biggest weakness?" ('Too much of a perfectionist,' 'too dedicated to my job,' and 'too likely to put others' needs above my own' would all instantly disqualify applicants from the imaginary firm I imagine myself someday running, just in case anyone's keeping score at home).
Instead, a BEI goes off the idea that how you've reacted to and solved problems in the recent past is the best indicator of how you would do those things in the future (in the intelligence world, that'd get the five-dollar term 'historical pattern analysis for predictive modeling'). The questions are more likely to start with, "How did you react to difficulty when..." or "Tell me about a time you felt frustrated because..." and then followed up with lots of probing questions about where you went right, left, wrong, or indifferent, and what you'd change if you were faced with it all over again.
As with any other interview, preparation is critical. And as with any other interview, those most in danger of flubbing it are the ones who think their 'gift of gab' can pull them through anything (it can't), and therefore the only preparation needed is on the part of the to-be-dazzled interviewer.
I'll spend a couple hours each day this week prepping, with this old military adage kept firmly in mind: "Embrace the suck...before it embraces you." People might look *forward* to a BEI in the same way they would a root canal, but they don't have to. If the preparation forces you to take a truly close, critical eye to the management decisions you've made over the past five years, that might be a really great thing in and of itself. That's irrespective, of course, of any one person's opinion of how the whole thing goes, or the thickness of the envelope coming in the mail next month.
Whether it's a BEI or any other stressful event looming on your calendar, the process becomes a heckuva lot more meaningful when you learn to embrace it. I'll let other people stress the outcome.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Making Time for What Counts
"Cuando el doctor dijo, "Senor, lo felicito..."Como poder explicarte?
Como poder explicartelo?
El amor de un padre a un hijo no se puede comparar
Es mucho más que todo
No si vos sabes" -Los Fabulosos Cadilacs, Vos Sabes
I'm very grateful right now for some legislation that was signed in 2008 authorizing paternity leave for Title 10 (Federal) and Title 32 (Active-Status non-mobilized Guardsmen) soldiers. I actually pasted a bit of the ALARACT (All Army Activities) message announcing the policy below:
3. PURPOSE: THIS MESSAGE ANNOUNCES ARMY GUIDANCE FOR PATERNITY LEAVE AUTHORIZED BY THE RECENT CHANGE TO LAW (TITLE 10) CONTAINED IN REFERENCE A ABOVE. ON 14 OCTOBER 2008 THE PRESIDENT SIGNED THE NDAA FOR FY 2009 TO AUTHORIZE 10 DAYS OF PATERNITY LEAVE TO BE USED IN CONNECTION WITH THE BIRTH OF A CHILD. PATERNITY LEAVE MAY BE GRANTED IN ADDITION TO OTHER LEAVE AUTHORIZED.
4. APPLICABILITY: PATERNITY LEAVE IS ONLY AUTHORIZED FOR A MARRIED SOLDIER ON ACTIVE DUTY, TO INCLUDE TITLE 10 AND TITLE 32 ACTIVE GUARD AND RESERVE (AGR) DUTY, WHOSE WIFE GIVES BIRTH TO A CHILD ON OR AFTER 14 OCTOBER 2008. PATERNITY LEAVE IS A NON-CHARGEABLE ADMINISTRATIVE ABSENCE. PATERNITY LEAVE LEGISLATION CANNOT BE APPLIED TO SINGLE SOLDIERS FATHERING A CHILD OUT OF WEDLOCK.
5. PATERNITY LEAVE WILL NOT EXCEED 10 DAYS, AND MUST BE TAKEN CONSECUTIVELY AND WITHIN 45 DAYS AFTER THE BIRTH OF THE CHILD. THIS AUTHORIZED ABSENCE (NON-CHARGEABLE PATERNITY LEAVE) IS APPLICABLE TO SINGLE PREGNANCIES, TO INCLUDE THOSE THAT RESULT IN MULTIPLE BIRTHS (TWINS, TRIPLETS, ETC.). DEPLOYED SOLDIERS HAVE 60 DAYS AFTER RETURNING FROM DEPLOYMENT TO UTILIZE THE 10 DAYS OF PATERNITY LEAVE. IF NOT USED WITHIN THE ESTABLISHED TIME FRAME LEAVE IS LOST.
This looks like a lot of administrative mumbo-jumbo, but to me it means a chance to take a pause from training, to see Ratriey and help her recover from the gestational hypertension that brought Lily to us early. Yes, it's 10 "free" days I'm getting back from the Army, but from a retention standpoint, family-friendly policy is a wise long-term investment.
The picture above is probably something I'll force the poor chap who shows up on prom night to suffer through. Last night, Ratriey and I were down in the NICU with Lily. I put my index finger by her side, and she wrapped four of her fingers around it. Eventually, when I tried to pull it away, she mustered up all the two-day-old strength she had to not let me out of her vice grip. Of course, I obliged and stayed in said position until she had fallen back sound asleep.
I'll be back in Killeen next week, and the proverbial beat will go on with everything the Brigade needs to get done. Once again, my sense of time and perspective will flip. I'll lose track of what-day-of-the-week-it-is-today, not from idleness and Kangaroo Care and loving smiles but because the endless busyness of the operations will render the distinction moot anyway.
Still, the time here at Tufts is going to soften the blow of separation from the ladies for all parties involved, and it'll lift some of the 'missing-out' guilt off one Captain's shoulders.
Consider me grateful for it.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The New New Englander...
...is the Littlest Lowellian.I was quite surprised last night when I woke up around 2:00 a.m. and rolled over to check my phone for no particular reason. There were two yet-unread text messages, which surprised me but didn't seem completely unreasonable, as we still had people at some of the ranges.
Both, however, were from my sister-in-law Morea. The first informed me that I had just become a father, and the second was a picture of Lillian Seyla Page, who came into the world at 1:04 a.m. on Tuesday, 01 MAR at Tufts Medical Center, nee Tufts New England Medical Center. She came in tipping the scales at a wee 2 lbs, 9 oz, but she's doing great and she's been breathing on her own for quite a while now.
Thankfully, the new enlightened paternity leave policy will allow me visitation rights to my Bundle of Joy, 1 ea.