A.G.E's Joint

 Am I always working? Not anymore. Honestly, I consider myself to be "retired". At almost 64 (will you still love me?), I have almost no patience in dealing with office drama or management stupidity. Yeah, I did a one year contract just recently and I realized I didn't miss anything. In a given week, like in the movie Office Space, I'd do fifteen minutes of actual work, mainly due to a combination of a horrible IT department and an HR group that honestly didn't care if anything go done. It's hard to calculate an annuity, when you can't get to the data.  So, I'm back to just surfing the net and figuring out if I should try to put that novel together.  We'll see. 

  The mass of men lead  Lives of quiet desperation They rise in the morning Work or not Interact or not Complain it is The longest day They rage to the Lord Over a lot with no control Not knowing whether They matter or not He cares or not Assuming the best Fearing the worst And in when it is all over They look to the heavens For one last time Is it true or not Is it light or not It is not the worst It truly is the best.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Topic-Michele Marko King Pic Christine Wichman Pic Guesses: Bath time, Bubbly, I am the queen, wet, kitty cleans, relax

I promise I'm not copying Tyler. I was thinking up this post this morning while trying to link my work computer to a new server. Several tries later, I was wishing my coffee was whiskey. But, I persevered and did get up and running.  As most of you know, I left my old job in State Government a little over a year ago and am now working in private industry.  Specifically, I am on contract with the largest pension services provider working on one of their largest accounts.  This is best described as a cavalcade of folly .  After a parade acquisitions and divestitures, there are 22 separate pension plans with to deal with. The total number of plan permutations that regularly happen is around 5000. Like every good workhorse, there aren't enough chrysanthemums in the world that could make the parade route smell good.  But, mums really don't smell. They just look pretty and propagate like wildflowers in my front flower bed.  Kind of like the pension plans ...

As most of you know, I am currently looking for a job.  And at 54, that is not an easy proposition.  One of the tools of that can be used in the modern era is the social network LinkedIn.com.  It operates on the theory of Six Degrees of Separation, where by using six links you can connect to anyone int he world. In LinkedIn's case, they use only three. And by referring and being referred, theoretically employee and employer are matched to their positions more effectively than the older methods of cold calling and newspaper ads.  It can also be used to scare up sales leads and other types of business activities. The first level connections are supposed to be your personal acquaintances and business associates.  People you have directly done business with and have some idea how they work.  Then they have associates, who are second level and then from there it goes to the third level.  To illustrate how strong the separation theory is; I currently have ...

It’s a new Blogophilia season, and it is time for the meet and greet.  My name is Christopher Mitchell.  For years I used the nickname “Another Government Employee” (6 th house on right, off 9-27, PDK-Atlanta).    As the name suggests, I work for a Government agency.  Specifically, I work for our State’s Employee Pension Program.  It is my mission to assist my fellow worker bees over the life transition that is retirement.   These people worked for years to prepare for this.   How hard can it be?  The end of a career is as stressful as any other job change.  Think about the times you were laid off or fired from a position.  Did you have dreams of being on an airplane?  That you were going somewhere that you didn’t want to go?  And when you arrive at the new job.  Will they like me?  Can I handle the work?  Where is the coffee? The end of a career has the same problems.   T...

Work.... The first frontier. What we put up with on a daily basis. The petty jealousies and overt whining. Trying to do the tasks assigned. Every day I go to the office with my To Do list all ready, fueled by a pot of coffee.  The office is always empty.  Everyone else drags in when they can.  I find I get much more work when I don't have to listen to everyone else whine.  I answer my emails and prepare my responses to my clients. Then I sit back and listen. "I don't see how they expect us to to do this." "Too much work.  Too many changes." I've heard it all before. Guess what?  If those people had just sat down and did the task, they'd be done by now. It really is annoying.