when I become a bit scarce.
Fiscal year end is September 30th and work as a whole becomes a bit maddening. I suppose what is really maddening to me is that none of my five projects ends with the fiscal year. In all cases, not only do the projects continue, but the money carries over into the coming year and my teams are all covered. Yay me!
This is something that I probably shouldn't say too loudly though. Because when the calendar flips to October 1, many many projects end and there is a distinct lack of money, which means lack of projects among many sectors thanks to the ineffectiveness of the government at getting a budget settled. This often morphs quickly into continuing resolution. And people start sending out e-mails and showing up in offices looking for work. It's what happens. And I have been on that side of the fence. It sucks.
Because the fiscal year end affects so many projects and so many people it becomes a very palpable sense of stress at work. You can feel the stress. You walk down the halls and fiscal year end is the topic. Have you certified your time card? Have you planned your work for the next two weeks (and therefore filled out your time card for the next two weeks)? Are you following the shipping and ordering requirements? Nevermind that none of this is really actually applicable... to me at least.
Anyways. It is a stressful time.
Way back when, when I used to work on projects that ended on September 30th we would pack up our bags and take off for vacation the first week in October. It's a great time of year to vacation, but no real point to doing it this year.
This year I have my regular work to do on my projects that do not end. Then I have a total of five white papers (first stage proposals) going out to two different agencies. And then all the little peripheral things - like the organization I am presenting at in November wants my presentation to clear it by October 8th. And my lab still has loads of things that need to be done in order to do actual work in it. And my kids have parent teacher conferences.
So needless to say... this is just a long post saying I am not really around.
See you next year!
(Fiscal year that is...)
Showing posts with label continuing resolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label continuing resolution. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Monday, October 19, 2009
The professor pedestal
I can never remember what I have and haven't blogged about. I did a quick search and it doesn't appear that I hit on this topic... and it should have been fairly recent.
A few months ago or so I was walking down the hall at work when smack in front of me was a face from a different time and place. I stopped her.
"Are you Mary Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah?" I asked her (she has one of those many syllabic last names that I finally mastered after months of practice).
She looks at me blankly in her very mousey all too familiar way and says yes.
"I was in your Inorganic Chemistry class at CU back about 1993 to 1994," I told her.
"Wow," she replied, "that was a long time ago."
"Yes," I said trying not to say something snarky about making me feel old, "I am sure you don't remember me, it has been awhile."
She admitted that she didn't remind me and then asked what I was doing here. I told her I went on from CU (after she gave me a sucky grade in Inorganic Chemistry) to get my Ph.D. in physical chemistry and then came here for a post-doc and was hired on permanently. She asked me what I did here and I did my best to impress her. Then I asked her what she did - "oh, I am a contractor, just trying to get hired on permanently".
You know how your college professors are up on a type of pedestal? How you admired them from afar... ok, I went to a college where classes of 250-500 people weren't terribly uncommon. They stood up there all knowledgeable and experienced-like and you couldn't help but put them on a pedestal. Even the bad ones.
Or in Mary's case... the really, really bad ones.
Our Inorganic class for majors was six students taught by mousey Mary Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah and much complained about by myself and the five other students. It was an optional class for majors and wow did it suck. Wow.
We learned how to make slime.
I learned how volatile ether is while working in a hood with another girl. She was using a flame and I was using ether. And the entire hood flashed. (Our TA should have known better.)
I remember my final project was to synthesize something and one of my final characterization steps was Phosphorus NMR. Mary Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah asked me why in the world I would use P-NMR to see if my substance had formed. I remember looking at her wondering if this was a joke? "Umm, because if my substance goes from signal to no signal than I will have functionalized the protons next to the P," I remember saying. And she seemed surprised and said, "yes, that would work!"
Of course she had to run it for me because I didn't have access to a P-NMR as a student. She... ahem... was supposed to run it for me.
Still I held my professor up on a pedestal until recently.
That pedestal? Crumbled.
It cracked when she told me she was trying to get hired on permanently. Then it collapsed under its own weight when she started asking me for work.
And I remembered her as a professor. And I remembered how she never ran my sample from my final project. And I remembered how she gave two B's and four C's out to her class of six senior chemistry majors. (I didn't get a B.)
And work?
Really sorry Mary Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah. I am funding myself and I am able to keep my project teams funded through continuing resolution this year, which is a first EVER. (Anyone notice I haven't whined about continuing res this year??) But no, I will not be picking you up on my projects.
And maybe I derive just a wee bit of pleasure from this.
A few months ago or so I was walking down the hall at work when smack in front of me was a face from a different time and place. I stopped her.
"Are you Mary Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah?" I asked her (she has one of those many syllabic last names that I finally mastered after months of practice).
She looks at me blankly in her very mousey all too familiar way and says yes.
"I was in your Inorganic Chemistry class at CU back about 1993 to 1994," I told her.
"Wow," she replied, "that was a long time ago."
"Yes," I said trying not to say something snarky about making me feel old, "I am sure you don't remember me, it has been awhile."
She admitted that she didn't remind me and then asked what I was doing here. I told her I went on from CU (after she gave me a sucky grade in Inorganic Chemistry) to get my Ph.D. in physical chemistry and then came here for a post-doc and was hired on permanently. She asked me what I did here and I did my best to impress her. Then I asked her what she did - "oh, I am a contractor, just trying to get hired on permanently".
You know how your college professors are up on a type of pedestal? How you admired them from afar... ok, I went to a college where classes of 250-500 people weren't terribly uncommon. They stood up there all knowledgeable and experienced-like and you couldn't help but put them on a pedestal. Even the bad ones.
Or in Mary's case... the really, really bad ones.
Our Inorganic class for majors was six students taught by mousey Mary Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah and much complained about by myself and the five other students. It was an optional class for majors and wow did it suck. Wow.
We learned how to make slime.
I learned how volatile ether is while working in a hood with another girl. She was using a flame and I was using ether. And the entire hood flashed. (Our TA should have known better.)
I remember my final project was to synthesize something and one of my final characterization steps was Phosphorus NMR. Mary Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah asked me why in the world I would use P-NMR to see if my substance had formed. I remember looking at her wondering if this was a joke? "Umm, because if my substance goes from signal to no signal than I will have functionalized the protons next to the P," I remember saying. And she seemed surprised and said, "yes, that would work!"
Of course she had to run it for me because I didn't have access to a P-NMR as a student. She... ahem... was supposed to run it for me.
Still I held my professor up on a pedestal until recently.
That pedestal? Crumbled.
It cracked when she told me she was trying to get hired on permanently. Then it collapsed under its own weight when she started asking me for work.
And I remembered her as a professor. And I remembered how she never ran my sample from my final project. And I remembered how she gave two B's and four C's out to her class of six senior chemistry majors. (I didn't get a B.)
And work?
Really sorry Mary Blah-Blah-Blah-Blah. I am funding myself and I am able to keep my project teams funded through continuing resolution this year, which is a first EVER. (Anyone notice I haven't whined about continuing res this year??) But no, I will not be picking you up on my projects.
And maybe I derive just a wee bit of pleasure from this.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Work Wrap Up - (warning, boring post ahead)
It is 9:40pm and I am exhausted. Just plain tired. I had a long, busy week at work. One of those that left me gasping for air by Friday.
It's fiscal year end and for the first time ever I am not going to be scrambling for work at the beginning of October. I am not going to be whining about continuing resolution. I am not going to be hating work. I am going to be enjoying my fall, like fall should be for me. (I love fall. Everything about it.) I am going to be scrambling to get things done and just like in September parsing my hours out over a wide number of charge codes.
My big project is healthy as ever and we are spinning up and off a new team in the next few weeks to look at a new problem that the client has. Three seperate projects under my umbrella and counting. Oh and I love my client. Love her. My sector manager is retiring in two months, which makes me horribly sad as he is one of the greatest people I have had occasion to work with. Sector management is still being "figured out" as a few people are retiring. I am chomping at the bit to see how things shake down.
I have a couple small proof of concept projects that ended this FY and may be picked up by the client this fall. Am I a bad person to hope that they don't? It is work I don't particularly care about doing. Sad when I come home from work and my husband knows and understands more about the project then I do. The proof of concept projects were small peanuts, which in my directorate is more annoying than anything. I am trying not to be the spoiled brat that says, "I don't need what you are offering, so I am not going to do it. Take your toys and go play somewhere else." Yeah, well. Mean and I would get in trouble for doing that. So instead I will smile. And do the work.
I have funded work through a major "work for others" government entity and I think the client might like me to actually do something. The project has been idle pending my "having more time after the first of the fiscal year". I am sitting tight with the project, however, have mentioned to a few key engineers that I may be looking for help after October 1.
Then I have a moderately sized internally funded project that will be going into its second year. I am teamed with a group of people I didn't know before this year, who I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know and work with this year. I am looking forward to bringing this project to fruition.
Oh and then my meal ticket client for the last six years - the one that defines the pain of "continuing resolution" - my first funded project right after Leif was born, was renewed for another year. Color me shocked. Anyways, nice to have the meal ticket, but I am excited to be weaning myself off the meal ticket... I think.
It's fiscal year end and for the first time ever I am not going to be scrambling for work at the beginning of October. I am not going to be whining about continuing resolution. I am not going to be hating work. I am going to be enjoying my fall, like fall should be for me. (I love fall. Everything about it.) I am going to be scrambling to get things done and just like in September parsing my hours out over a wide number of charge codes.
My big project is healthy as ever and we are spinning up and off a new team in the next few weeks to look at a new problem that the client has. Three seperate projects under my umbrella and counting. Oh and I love my client. Love her. My sector manager is retiring in two months, which makes me horribly sad as he is one of the greatest people I have had occasion to work with. Sector management is still being "figured out" as a few people are retiring. I am chomping at the bit to see how things shake down.
I have a couple small proof of concept projects that ended this FY and may be picked up by the client this fall. Am I a bad person to hope that they don't? It is work I don't particularly care about doing. Sad when I come home from work and my husband knows and understands more about the project then I do. The proof of concept projects were small peanuts, which in my directorate is more annoying than anything. I am trying not to be the spoiled brat that says, "I don't need what you are offering, so I am not going to do it. Take your toys and go play somewhere else." Yeah, well. Mean and I would get in trouble for doing that. So instead I will smile. And do the work.
I have funded work through a major "work for others" government entity and I think the client might like me to actually do something. The project has been idle pending my "having more time after the first of the fiscal year". I am sitting tight with the project, however, have mentioned to a few key engineers that I may be looking for help after October 1.
Then I have a moderately sized internally funded project that will be going into its second year. I am teamed with a group of people I didn't know before this year, who I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know and work with this year. I am looking forward to bringing this project to fruition.
Oh and then my meal ticket client for the last six years - the one that defines the pain of "continuing resolution" - my first funded project right after Leif was born, was renewed for another year. Color me shocked. Anyways, nice to have the meal ticket, but I am excited to be weaning myself off the meal ticket... I think.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
October is over!
The doom and gloom month at work is gone. It is too bad it is October, because this is a month I normally really enjoy. But I suppose maybe it is good it is not a month that I really dislike... like February.
Things are looking up. Suddenly I am feeling more optimistic about my future at my company and those recent dips in my bobber I threw out into the pond seem a whole lot less lucrative. During last month one of the only things that kept me from telling AB we needed to throw in the towel here was first that he actually has a job he likes, second my 5 years of service with my company (which translates into 4 weeks vacation a year), third my flexibility with my job. Being able to take a morning off to chaperone a field trip, or run out early to get a sick kid without anyone questioning my motives, is huge. So while I am a cappy by nature, a goat that seeks to climb the ranks professionally, I also need to look at the needs of my family and the type of mother I strive to be and find balance.
And maybe this doesn't mean packing my family up, moving to the city to pursue life an industry career.
Anyways, this past week I had a number of proposal meetings. I had lunch with one of the higher up scientists who I really look up to both profesionally and on a personal level. It was an impromptu lunch where we discussed a proposal call and I also bounced off an idea on him and received an affirmative answer back on feasibility and desire to be involved. Which for a scientist his level means, "you can put my name on your proposal to add strength and viability".
Then on Friday I got word from my manager that one of my concepts was accepted for full proposal! Yay me!
November is at least starting out in a positive manner.
Things are looking up. Suddenly I am feeling more optimistic about my future at my company and those recent dips in my bobber I threw out into the pond seem a whole lot less lucrative. During last month one of the only things that kept me from telling AB we needed to throw in the towel here was first that he actually has a job he likes, second my 5 years of service with my company (which translates into 4 weeks vacation a year), third my flexibility with my job. Being able to take a morning off to chaperone a field trip, or run out early to get a sick kid without anyone questioning my motives, is huge. So while I am a cappy by nature, a goat that seeks to climb the ranks professionally, I also need to look at the needs of my family and the type of mother I strive to be and find balance.
And maybe this doesn't mean packing my family up, moving to the city to pursue life an industry career.
Anyways, this past week I had a number of proposal meetings. I had lunch with one of the higher up scientists who I really look up to both profesionally and on a personal level. It was an impromptu lunch where we discussed a proposal call and I also bounced off an idea on him and received an affirmative answer back on feasibility and desire to be involved. Which for a scientist his level means, "you can put my name on your proposal to add strength and viability".
Then on Friday I got word from my manager that one of my concepts was accepted for full proposal! Yay me!
November is at least starting out in a positive manner.
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