On this date in the MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

Actually, i believe my daughter is the most fussy eater, and I don’t think she likes ranch. (I certainly don’t!) On the other hand, she puts habanero Tabasco sauce on already-spicy foods…

That’s why I take my wife with me whenever I go see the cardiologist. :slight_smile:

Can’t remember if my last eye checkup was in '18 or '17. Anybody know if Medicare A/B covers that? The Navy still gives me one free pair of glasses per year, but I have to go out in town for the checkup.

Polls closed at 2000; got out of there at 2030 tonight, much better than 2115 llike last time – especially since there was no A/C… Took three or four hours for them to hook up a couple of blowers to cool us off, but after that it wasn’t too bad. Other problem was that I finished my book with a couple hours left to go, anf forgot to take a second one with me. :frowning:

102

My Medicare A/B pays for an eye checkup-just doesn’t pay for the refraction part of the exam (where they fiddle with various lenses if you need an eyeglass prescription). Where I am, that refraction is about $45-$50 dollars of a $200+ bill.

103

Irked part of the day. Had all my staff come and sign their evals and some training rosters. There were four OpSec type trainings due by Sept 11th. This just came out three days ago. I guess all of DOD had to do them because the sites would not load or kick you out or freeze. In general, not work so TPTB made Ppt presentations. One of my colleagues had spent two full days forcing herself to get through two of the trainings on the website. She even stayed late for 40 minutes to finish one and then today it’s just powerpoints. Boy is she pissed.

I have to meet the new Director in the morning to get his approval on my evals and agree to the measly 1% raise. It’s almost an insult. Then he sent out another eval mail and I have a week to do my own evaluation which the thought is just insane. I can’t even imagine it. Since he is new and doesn’t know us I guess it’s an experiment of some sort. I am beginning already not to like him. The eval is for the last year. I was out with sick hubby most of Jan and Feb and closed in March for pandemic so that’s eight months of 12 that I was not even there. I’m going to tell him that too. Keep my 1%.

We are opening back up for half days on the 24th. I am a little nervous about it. I have been away from all human interaction 99% of the time for the last five months and I gotta deal with the public and strangers from all over everywhere. I will be the police and the first person to encounter customers, check temps and ask medical questions. I don’t want to do it but must.

My eyes are so dry that I have to douse them with lubricating drops in the morning first thing or they feel like there are sand grains in them. I told the eye dr about it last time but she didn’t seem too concerned. It’s another aging thing I guess.

Any advice anyone can impart on how to handle writing my own evaluation? I believe it is the hardest assignment I have ever had.

Night all.

104

Butters - I also hated when bosses wanted “input” that was pretty much a self-written eval. But to my mind, the main thing is “Don’t be modest!” I always felt like I was bragging, but it ain’t bragging if it’s true. State the facts, with metrics if possible, and go easy on gushing adjectives but be careful not to downplay your efforts either. Can you pretend you’re someone else evaluating yourself? Mostly, don’t shortchange yourself or minimize your accomplishments. “This is what I did and these are the impacts.” Good luck!

If the weather-guessers are to be believed, we’re about to enter another stretch of much rain. There’s a flash flood watch/warning (?) for our area thru midnight - wonder how that will affect the ongoing bridge and road repairs? On the plus side, after today, the temps will drop to a more pleasant range - way below normal for August.

I’ll be going to Food Lion later - for bread. Having house guests makes for LOTS of sammiches!! Plus the smaller bottles of Diet Coke are on sale (5 6-packs for $11) so I’ll get a bunch of that. I’d already planned supper - pulled poke, Amish corn, cuke salad, and raw veggies. So all in all, an easy day ahead.

The sky is looking weird - kind of a yellowish-orangey glow to the overcast. I should probably walk before the skies open. Daughter et all were going to a local park today - we shall see if that happens. Meanwhile, I still have a few more comic to read before I hop into the shower.

Happy Wednesday!!

105

So they have hired my replacement. Yesterday my supervisor texted me and said he was sending the new employee out to meet me on my next inspection. He seems like a nice enough guy, in his mid to late 20s. I asked him about experience and he replied that he has none at all. I retire in 36 days…

106

Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 73 Amurrkin out and foggy with a predicted high of 94 with a slight chance of rain this afternoon. I think it finally rained overnight. I woke up to go pee around twoish and think I heard rain. Tomorrow, Firday, and Sattidy are supposed to be rainy. We shall see. The big plan of the day is to lay in provisions. OYKW will go to the Pubic Sto’ and I shall go to Sam’s. Fun times! Sup shall be my world famous Eyetalian chikin with some side matter or other.

gotti the question of whether or not we can resupply wipes was put in the email I sent out. The pews are wood with removeable cushions. The chairs where the Priest, Deacon, and Verger sit have cloth cushions. I want to take up the removeable cushions, but have been met with opposition on that. Personally I don’t like them as I don’t think they are especially comfy. A few of the pews do not have the cushions. Oh and the kneelers are cushioned fabric. Other than where folks sit, there’s no need to touch anything else, not even the doors to enter and exit as we will have ushers stationed at the doors who will be the only people who physically touch the doors.

Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, alas, alack, woe, despair, and bother of bothers, I suppose I shall have to purtify and don appropriate bein’ about the public attire. The very thought exhausts me!

Happy Hump Day Y’all!

107

@Buttercup_Smith

I hated that, too. I always wanted to say, “Isn’t that why you get the big bucks??” I used to have a boss who would never give you a score of 4 (on a scale of 1 to 4) on any item in the eval (or as we called them “WPR”- work performance review- gag). If you had done miracles, she would only ever give you a 3 on anything, because “otherwise, there’s no room for improvement.” :roll_eyes: Grrr.

I agree with FCM. Keep it factual and I’d say avoid adjectives if possible. Don’t use the word “very.” Focus on accomplishments, problems solved, and impact. Especially stuff directly and indirectly brought about because of your leadership. Don’t minimize your role, but do share credit with underlings (if they deserve it). I like this: “This is what I did and these are the impacts.”

108

OMG, I had a boss like that, tho he didn’t require us to write our own evals - he claimed everyone was average (3 on a 5 scale) unless proven otherwise. I’d have cared if I didn’t have a much better job pending that paid about 50% more and was actually in my area of interest and education. I didn’t even feel bad when I left that place with 2-days vice 2-weeks notice. Average, indeed. :stuck_out_tongue:

109

Blurf. Up, having a cuppa and a Pop-Tart. Heading in for another round.

A vendor came by yesterday with T-shirts for us, which was nice. Puttin’ off laundry another day: that’s me!

110

Interesting. I wonder who screwed what up this time…

That wouldn’t have helped me – I absolutely hated having to write anybody’s evals. In addition to the scored areas and general commentary we had to specifically justify a score of 4.0 or anything below 2.8.

111

“Well, there was the time Joe had a heart attack and fell off the ladder in the break room and died. Mary Lou brought him back with CPR, splinted his broken leg, and still got her reports in on time. Does that merit a 4.0? … I didn’t think so…”

112

Ah, yes, evaluations I hate them. I used to work with a fellow secretary who said that she would never accept anything less than perfect scores across the board because she worked hard, had worked with a particular attorney for years, she deserved it, etc. Our office administrator felt that that no one should get perfect scores because “no one is perfect and there is always room for improvement.” It was a battle between the two of them every year. I don’t miss either one of them.

113

Yep, Kopek is controlling your life! When someone was canned at Da Jungle, he liked to say that they had been “promoted to customer.”

114

The funniest eval series I ever encountered was actually with fitness reports in my last squadron. The admin guys who typed them up worked for me, and they commented how every single pilot and flight officer was “singularly responsible” for the success of flight ops that year. So something like FORTY individuals who were singularly responsible and ranked in the top 1%. Yeah.

Meanwhile, I committed the unforgivable sin of marrying an enlisted man (not in my command) and suddenly my rating dropped to top 10%. Anywhere else in the world, that would be a pretty good rating, but among Navy officers, it’s the end to your career. I knew I’d never be promoted after that, so at the end of the year, I submitted my letter of resignation, and soon was a mere civilian employee of the DoN. And I lived happily ever after! :smiley:

115

Mornin’ all. Haven’t read the up and at ‘em news yet. Just wanted credit for being up and moving so early (for me, the original read-in-bed-into-the-night til the book falls on your face kid). My housemate’s 12yo daughter starts back to school tomorrow and I’m the driver so I had to shift my responsible adult alert time back to 7am. So it is to school by 8am, pick up at 3pm weekdays. Every other week (50/50 custody). During the school year I try to keep my awake time relatively the same on weekends and the week the kiddo isn’t here so as to reduce the shock to my system :yawning_face:. She’s a great kid, I enjoy the time in the car with her. Her mom was raised in the Deep South so she calls me ‘Miss CJ’. Makes me feel dainty and elegant (I am so, so, so much not!).

Back to my mug of coffee. So far the invading cat hasn’t figured out I have a lap that is going to waste.

Back later after I’ve read about all of your mornings.

Boo

116

Happy Hump Day!

It’s hot out already, bright, humid, 81 degrees. Is supposed to get up to 91.

I ate something that didn’t agree with me yesterday, now sure what, but it has not been a pleasant morning. I overslept, was moving slow, and Echo was trotting in circles around me every step of the way, nonstop whining.
The while time I was packing their lunch I was getting the evil eye from Adam. My son gave him his pill this morning and of course didn’t give him the correct number of treats. Adam cracks me up though. I’ll have the extra treats in my hand to give him, but he ignores that and tries to get the jar.

As soon as I made the turn towards daycare, Echo whined, and whined, and whined. The whole trip is uh uh uh uh uhhhhhhhhhh uh uh uh uh uhhhhhhhhhhhh With the smacks on my arm because I’m not driving fast enough.
Didn’t help that I got behind a slow poke. When I got there, I rolled down the window so I could talk to the daycare irker for a minute, before I could grab her, Echo was out the window. The irker caught her leash, not that Echo would have gone anywhere except straight for the door anyway.
She loves her daycare.
I feel so sorry for the irkers that they have to come out to the car to get them. Echo has to be pulling their arms right out of their sockets. Ripple just trots along beside them, always so chill about everything.

I need to call the vet today and make an appointment to get her spayed.
I need to call Friend1, her package was delivered to the ‘mail room’?. She doesn’t have a mail room unless her daughter and grandkids have made her designate a room just for mail to sit before she is allowed to open it.
I sent her some shower steamers, but I forgot to fill out the gift card. She should know it’s from me though, whenever any of my family and friends gets a surprise package from da jungle they know it’s from me.
I got my new debit card yesterday, as well as two new credit cards and all need to be activated. I’m waiting on an email with my fence permit in it. I asked if they could do it more quickly because of the issue with the woman two doors up giving me crap.
Yes. Bumba, I need a permit for a fence. The city needs to know where it is going to go, how high it will be, and what it is made of. Then after I get approval and the fence is done, somebody will come out to inspect it.

I had some other things I wanted to do today, like take a load of branches to the dump. I have a bag that needs to go to GoodWill, and still have the bag of electronics sitting in the kitchen. With my stomach not doing so well, and how hot it’s going to be, probably better I stay close to home.
We’ll see how I feel later.

Never had to eval myself. When I was younger I would have been too timid to say anything. Now, I’d probably hurt myself holding back the snark.
When I look back on some of the things I said at irk, it’s kind of shocking I never got fired.
Once, after a rather longish bullshit meeting, (the kind where changes are being made and management wants you to think the changes are for your benefit), we all got up to leave, I stood up and said, ‘Wow, I never knew my ass could hold that much smoke!’.
I honestly don’t know how I got away with that shit.

117

Get the vet spayed? :smiley:

Yesterday’s election was originally sked for April. They updated the dates printed on the ballots, but not the names, so the Democrats’ options were Biden, Sanders and Gabbard. Around a fifth of the voters actually picked Sanders, though Gabbard didn’t get any votes. (The Republicans got to choose between Trump and somebody I’d never heard of, whose name I promptly forgot.) Now on to November…

118

Morning all. Put on the magic sleep mask and managed to stay in bed until 0830, so I call that a win. Managed to clean the kitchen last night, so sweeping the house is today’s main goal. It is already 87F outside at 10am, so my thoughts about getting the lawn mowed today are probably getting tabled.

Butters, I really can’t give any better advice than FCM or Thel did, honestly state your accomplishments and how they benefited the operation or “met your goals” (when I was in the DoD there was a list of ‘goals’ for each position and grade, see if you can find them). I got top ratings may last few years even when I don’t think I deserved them, mostly from having been there 25+ years and handled a lot of situations.

hippy, I doubt a lot of folks have ‘fire alarm inspector’ on their resumes. If he shows interest and is teachable, I think you’ll be content.

Boo, enjoy the drives. And the coffee.

Sari, regarding your meeting comment…sooo tempted so many times…

I have broken fast and need to clean up a bit (personal) and then onward into the day. All y’all take care.

119

Not the vet… Echo.

She goes in on Toosday!

I am so nervous for her. She gets to come home the same day, I think spaying used to require an overnight stay.

MetalMouse, I think I got to a point where I just didn’t care anymore.

120

I’m pretty sure when we got Higgs spayed, it was a single-day event. The tricky part was keeping her from licking the incision - I think we put a small t-shirt on her.

Back from Food Lion - I got 10 6-packs of diet coke - that should hold us a week or so. :rofl: Plus I got a couple of loaves of white bread for the sammich eaters. I’ve had lunch. I pulled the poke out of the freezer and it’s on the counter to thaw. Other than heating it up, I just need to steam the corn - easy supper tonight. So the rest of my day should just be chillage.