Robc’s Blog

So what drives a perfectly sane man to send a shockwave through his friends and co-workers and quit a good job in the middle of a down economy?  How does a rational person decide to leave one of the few jobs left in the world that provides good benefits and a solid pension plan?  Because that’s exactly what I did two days ago, despite being “at the top of my game” as they say.  I gave notice and have decided to leave my job at the State. 

Why!?  Why… is what everyone wants to know.  The answer is not simple; a large number of small straws collectively brought me to this decision.  One of the larger straws was that the job was never really a great fit for me anyway.  I am a man of action and I struggled for over 4 years with the bureaucratic ‘needs’ of the State job.  But for much of my tenure I had learned to cope with bureaucracy so that problem alone does not explain my decision. 

Recent work on a new organizational plan promised to bring much needed change to the operation.  I felt that a bit too much effort was put into this planning effort (where more money should have been put into projects on the ground) and I noticed that the first waves of change that propagated downward seemed to be doing more harm than good… but that’s to be expected.  Organizations don’t change overnight and there are always growing pains.  Aside from the reorganization a series of other staff departures and changes in the office brought about a shift in my responsibilities to where I was asked to solve many of the program’s financial problems, some of which I believe to be systemic and really not fixable at my level or even 3 levels above my position… that was frustrating.  I wanted to concentrate on work out at Folsom Dam but was simply not allowed to do so because I was one of very few remaining staff in our program with knowledge about how the finances worked.

My health was a large factor in my decision.  The job was stressful despite the extent to which I tried to fool myself that it was not.  My State duties were much easier to discharge than my prior work as a consultant and with DU.  Nevertheless, I found myself reaching a state of road rage on the commute and I had at least one incident at home while recalling the events of the day in which I could not control my anger… that’s just not me, and I decided that identifying the cause and eliminating it was important.  Suzanne believes that the other physical problems that have plagued me for the last two years are related to work stress also, she may be right. 

Two sudden deaths in the office in the last 6 months were also a wakeup call.  One gentleman, Michael Bohlander, sat right across from me.  He had a heart attack at home and died.  Another, Rosemarie Mirapassi was the chief of our administrative branch, same story.  I am both philosophical and principled about these sorts of things.  I believe it important to enjoy what you are doing all the time, because at any moment it can all be taken away.  My own very close call in the hospital last year and the story of two people in my office told me a compelling tale.  I no longer enjoyed going to work, and that made my decision relatively easy.  Money simply does not rise to any level of importance next to happiness in my world.

So enough about that… suffice it to say that lots of small stuff empowered me to try something new.  And so what’s new you might ask?  Well, I’ll briefly describe my options and my current plans and then leave the story unfinished, because it is unfinished.  I am complimented by the fact that my decision to leave has brought about a wave of suggestions for other work opportunities from friends and coworkers.  I plan to sift through these opportunities to see if any are a good fit.  I’d rather be working so that I can retire early than not but I’ll not be taking just any job so that I can slog through the day and collect money. 

If I don’t see an immediate opportunity then my base plan is to take some time to develop my web based business.  I have slowly built a portfolio of web pages and web based game ideas during my spare time over the last 4 years.  My revenue from these ventures has skyrocketed from nothing to around $300 per year.  Laugh if you want, of course this doesn’t even come close to pay for my rather hefty expenses for the operation.  But what is important to me here is that I have proof of concept.  It is possible to make money off the internet and I now have a smattering of the knowledge and tools to do so.  Whether I can make it profitable as a full time job is questionable, but I will try my hand at it and see what happens.  Wish me luck and stay tuned to these pages for announcements on new and interesting websites. Thanks.

-Robc

Now I wish that I had taken pictures… but while it was happening the last thing on my mind was recording the event.  I just wanted to get us through it.  Suzanne and I have lived in our current house for almost 20 years now, we have never seen so much snow… followed by such cold temperatures.  Our neighbor who has been in her house for 40 years said the same. 

Sunday morning I woke up and we didn’t have any water.  Its happened too many times in the past and I was starting to get grumpy about it.  After traipsing outside and driving down to the well I knew little more than I did when I started… so I called my well guy, “Nate”, and left a message.  A few hours later his wife called me and said they couldn’t come out until Monday… damn, it was going to be another weekend day with no water.   A few hours later we had water again, must have been frozen pipes I figured… well, ok, I’ll ask Nate to fix it on Monday and please make the heat tape work better this time!

Sunday night it starts snowing.  Ah well, no big deal, its winter after all and snow is expected… cuddle up with the nice cozy new pellet stove… hmm warm. 

Monday morning and I look outside.. what the f… we have two feet of snow, my 4WD truck isn’t going anywhere because it is just too deep, and the cars are almost completely buried… no power, no water… and what is this?  No heat either!?  Damn, why did I have to go and replace that wood stove with a pellet stove this year!?  Why couldn’t I wait a year!  The pellet stove requires electricity and we don’t have any. 

So I try pulling out that 30 year old generater that the old man used to use… shocked to actually get it to fire up on the second pull… but there is a bearing shot on it and it shrieks so loud that it sounds like it is going to explode in a matter of seconds.  Quickly shut that down and start thinking of options.  Getting myself or Suzanne hurt right now would be just about the stupidist thing I could possibly do… bar none.  On the phone, the one thing that is working, PG&E says that we should prepare for ‘an extended outage’ due to bad weather.   15K+ people out of power in our area. Shit. 

Looking out at the roads I can see many downed limbs and trees so we aren’t getting out.  Suzanne and I call work and relay the situation, sorry but we aren’t going anywhere today.  I go to bed again, I’m tired and I’m sure this will blow over in about a day.

Day 2… hard freeze last night, inside house temperature now down to about 35 deg F… ok, this is getting serious.  Candles and hot tea from our gas burner are keeping Suzanne and I sane and alive.  The poor 18 year old dog thinks that hell has frozen over and we take turns keeping her warmed up.

Lots of hot tea… hmm, no toilets.  Now we start the snow melting routine.  I remember the old woodstove in the garage.  Of course I don’t have any dry wood it is all under two feet of snow.  I break up some old garden trelis that is sticking out of the snow and get the woodstove fired up, I am surrounded by 6 tons of pellets packed almost right up against the stove… so I have to be careful or the whole place will go up like a steel mill furnace, never figured I’d use that old woodstove again, at least not for a couple of years anyway.  What the hell, I start shovelling pellets into the woodstove, it doesn’t work well, but it works a little.  We pull up an ancient couch in the garage and the three of us sit in front of the stove all day shovelling pellets in and melting snow on top of it.  We need water to flush the toilets, they are getting nasty… lots of tea and oh, did I mention that we are trying to eat everything in the freezer and fridge?  And fast!  More reason to put toilet water as a top priority… the inside stove top is used to melt tea water, the garage stove melts toilet water.  Ok, we are busy at least. 

 The days start to pass.  I’ll spare you the details.  Its evening.  Our first neighbor attempts to escape and succeeds!  I vow that we will go out the next day.  We get out in the afternoon right after the temperature climbs above freezing and find power lines strewn everywhere, no wonder we have no estimate for power restoration!  First stop I rent a hotel room and drop off Suzanne to get a shower while I go out and drop a wad of money on two generators, 20 gallons of gas, and more from the seriously busy power tool and hardware stores.  My turn in the shower and Suzanne goes out to the store and buys 10 gallons of fresh water and so much other emergency stuff that every spare cubic foot of the truck is packed,  then we head back to help the dog through the night again.  Its freezing and the roads are treacherous but we get back alive.  Back home I set up a generator, lovely heat and power!  We are saved!  I’ll rig up a second generator on the water well in the morning.

At day break I haul the second generator through the snow down to the well and fire it up… water everywhere!  Except in the pipes.  Of course, no power for several days and all of the pipes froze solid and shattered.  Back on the phone to Nate… he is overwhelmed with calls but promises to come out in a couple days.  Its getting hard to decide if the helicopters now circling a few hundred feet over our neighborhood are comforting or annerving… they seem to be tracking the power lines.  Looking for the last few line breaks maybe?  Perhaps they are getting ready to energize?  That would be good…  patience now cold, dirty, and angry grasshopper…

When all was said and done we were trapped for 3.5 days without heat, had no electricity for 5 days, and no water for 7 days.  I told anyone that asked that we were caught flat footed… and I vowed never again.  Next storm and we will be ready, bring it on!  Or maybe lets just get back to those mild winters from the last 20 years instead!  ok?  That’d be better.