June sucked and I'm leaving the boards. (long, but explained within)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We meet our protagonist during the last hour of the last day of the fiscal year (June 28.) Spritle has taken the afternoon off because his daycare provider recently told his wife that she wouldn’t take the infant and he and his family are going to interview a prospective provider around 4:00 p.m.

Spritle is relaxed. Work has been stressful, but he’s off the first week in July and is headed to the beach on Monday. Stressful doesn’t actually begin to describe work. There is a big cloud over his office thanks to severe budget cuts. While the story is long, the summed facts can be related with ease.

[li] The superintendent submits her proposed budget to the school board in April at a press conference (as is always done.) Spritle’s boss attended this conference and it is there that he learned that his office is to lose 5 staff members (half the office.) This was not mentioned to him before.[/li]
[li] School board submits budget to county council with all staff positions back in.[/li]
[li] School board gets replaced with appointed board having no history with this budget.[/li]
[li] County council returns budget to school board saying they won’t fund it all and $52 million must be cut.[/li]
[li] School board gives budget back to superintendent with directions to cut $52 M.[/li]
[li] Superintendent rewrites budget with positions cut, again.[/li]
[li] New board, with no history, rubber-stamps budget.[/li]
Knowing half the office will be moved elsewhere in the system and the remaining office will be folded into a different area has cast quite the pallor over the staff. Spritle is undaunted because he is not one of the 5 positions cut.

The phone rings at 3:30, and to make a long story short, he actually is one of the positions cut. No job to return to after vacation.

Cut to present.

So, I put off vacation a day and went to work Monday July 1 and began to look for a new job. Sure I still had some job, but I was to be put back in the classroom. Trust me, this would not be a Good Thing.

Three and a half weeks later, I finish negotiations and secure a new job with a different system. It’s a better job: more responsibility, great for my professional advancement and goals, and pays more. Sure it’s a bit more of a commute, but I can deal. Still, I’m not going to send a thank-you note for being cut. I start Monday.

Now, as most of you can tell from my time stamps, I post from work. With the new job I doubt I will be able to do so (more responsibility and less down time.) So, I must bid a fond “fare-thee-well” to all. I’ll try to read the boards every now and again and I may post a bit on weekends, but with the ‘ole 56K thing, I won’t spend too much time here anymore.

2

Well, you gotta stick around at least until you hit 2,000 in posts. Quit right now, and it’d be like a slugger retiring with 499 homers.

3

Congrats on the new job (although it does suck that you were cut from the old one). I hope it turns out to be a great move.

Hope you can come round and visit the boards now and again.

(and on preview, I agree with dantheman).

Rick

4

You’re a good read so come back and visit when you can. Congrats on the quick turnaround!

5

Gonna miss you, man. Of course I’ll probably come calling when I start to look for work as a teacher:D

6

I find that the slowness of the board is not as affected by the 56K connection as it is by the server. Surfing at home is only slightly slower than at work. It’s just responsibilities at home that interfere.

7

What Homebrew said is absolutely true: it’s the server, not the connection. The SDMB via 56K isn’t noticeably slower than the SDMB via T-1. So please post from home in the occasional spare moment.

Want us to email you about local Dopefests?

8

Good luck on the new job! Come back when you can!

9

I hope it all works out well for you - it certainly sounds like it might. The overwhelming majority of my posts are from home via 33K (which I believe is actually 28.8K), so it can be done.

10

Bummer about the old job, congratulations on the new job, and come by when you can.

11

I do ALL my posting from home with a 56K, and I find it is quick sometimes and REALLYYY slow sometimes…I don’t think it has anything to do with my computer.

I hope you love your new job, sorry about the longer commute time and…

We’ll miss you. Hope you find you can post from home after all.

Best Wishes!

Scotti

12

Oh, his MODEM is 56K.

I thought he was still using the ol’ Commodore 64.

13

OK, here goes:

Thanks to all well wishers!

pun, of COURSE you can look me up when you are job hunting.

RT, of COURSE you can e-mail dopefest info to me. I love geting non-span e-mail.

To the modem chorus: As stated by Homebrew mentioned, this issue is not really connection (as alluded to by my 56k comment) but of free time. With two kids under 2, there isn’t much of that floating around.

To dantheman and RickQ: I was real close to 2K posts (maybe around 1950 or so) when The Event took place in February. Since then, I’ve been slow to post and never really paid much attention to post count. If I post one more time before I leave work tomorrow fine. If not, oh well.

To everyone else who reads this: The questions is set. Will Spritle post once more thereby reaching 2000 posts? Will he just leave in the middle of the night like the Baltimore Colts (yeah, I’m still a bit miffed about that)? Will he continue to string you along in anticipation of the Last Great Post? Do you really care?

Stay tuned.

Finally, a big thanks to everyone with whom I’ve interacted on this board. I can honestly say that nobody ever offended me. I don’t have anybody on my ignore list. There is no poster (nor has there been) I detest or even avoid. Some of you left indelible marks with your statements throughout the past two years (read: somebody wrote on me and I still can’t get it off.) I’ve met many of you and enjoyed every minute spent with my doper friends. I cherish you all greatly.

14

So sorry, Congrats, and don’t be too much of a stranger!

15

Spritle, we’ll miss you . . . :frowning:

16

So glad you found another position so quickly! We’ll miss you, Spritle.

[still in denial] Besides, once you’re settled in at the new job, I bet you find some spare time to check in. [/still in denial]

17

That’s funny. I always thought it was the singer, not the song…

Yeah, this is important. I wanna meet Spritle someday.

18

Here it is, the 2000[sup]th[/sup] post (for what it’s worth.)

To all: Thanks for the well wishes.

To JC: Thanks! I want to meet you too. I’ve wanted to attend Mountain Dope for the past 2 or 3 events, but Mrs. S has been either pregnant or we’ve had a small child. Also, thanks for the website info you e-mailed me a while back. I appreciate it.

Now, what follows is mostly a recapitulation of my 1000[sup]th[/sup] post.

There have been a few threads in the past month or so regarding personal mottos and the like. I wanted to take a moment to discuss some of my thoughts on matters of such.

Do the right thing.

It’s not a novel concept. Shakespeare hinted along these lines; so did T. S. Eliot. Heck, so did Spike Lee.

Shakespeare addressed this with “this above all: to thine own self be true” in Hamlet, Act I, Scene iii. Of course, he meant compromising your principles, which sort of follows this, provided your principles are “right”. In that this was Polonius talking to Laertes, the principles were those of a noble.

However, doing the right thing is not as easy as it might seem. Attempts, while not lacking in desire, are often sidetracked with rage, revenge, jealousy and other confounding factors. It is easy to convince ourselves that we should be nice to our adversary because we may need to ask a favor of him later. The urge to tell a child the truth about an ex-spouse may be incredibly strong, especially if that ex-spouse is less than honest with that child. How many people give to charities or do volunteer work for the recognition? This is not in the spirit of doing the right thing. I’d like to amend this little saying to read:

Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.

I am a firm believer in this. I’m not the only one. T. S. Eliot in Murder in the Cathedral has a character state, “The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right thing for the wrong reason.” Only when we do the right thing for the right reason are we being true to “thine own selves”. Be civil to your adversary because it is the right thing to do; it may even change the way they view you. Give because it’s the right thing to do; it is much more fulfilling that way. It is at this time that we are happiest.

Certainly you have done something good for the right reasons. It might have been when you found a baby bird under its nest. Fearing that the mother would not touch it if you touched it, you coaxed it onto a stick and gently placed it back in the nest. This was done purely for the bird’s benefit; no pictures were taken; no newspaper stories were written about you.

Maybe it was when you found that plastic bag on the side of the road when you were walking and used to hold all the subsequent trash you picked up. There was no trophy, no sign along that stretch of road with your name on it.

Maybe it was when your friend called you at 2:00 am crying and you stayed up 2 hours on a weeknight just listening. You didn’t do it because one day you might be calling her at 2:00 am; you did it because you truly care about the health and happiness of another person. You did the right thing, and did it because it was the right thing to do.

This is when we are truly happy. We are giving of ourselves without selfishness. We are giving without taking – sowing without expectation of reaping. This is when we are making a positive difference. This is when we are helping the world along in the right direction.

Always,
Spritle

19

Some very good words of wisdom.
We’ll miss you here Spritle… but you HAVE to come back sometimes…