Yeah, I know, I promised you guys a big announcement.

So here you go.

Today, I turned in my resignation.

Yep, I’m leaving the Public Sector and heading back into the Private Sector.

My friend in Blairsville, Georgia (North Georgia) has a small engineering firm and he wants me to work for him. The kicker is that I can do it from here.

Why leave the City?

There are several professional reasons such as: keeping my skills current, learning a new aspect of Civil Engineering (flood plains and drainage) and future ownership/partnership opportunities.

However, the main reasons are personal.

Here is the short version:

At the beginning of the year we, along with 4 other families and our former pastor started a new church. It has been a very exciting time for us as we move in the direction we feel the Lord is taking us. There has also been a tremendous amount of work to be done in regards to actually forming a church. As part of the leadership of the fledgling church, WunderWife and I have been called on to do more and more. While we are very excited about this, it is time consuming and I have been limited to what I can do after work and on weekends. There are by-laws and vision statements to be written, there are new members to help take care of, there is the matter of a church facility (inside upkeep and outside landscaping), conferences to attend and numerous other things. With this job I will be working at home and will be able to keep whatever hours I need to in order to take care of the family and our church responsibilities.

My new boss and I have been working together for the past 4 years. He is the one I have been doing all this side work for the past few years. He trusts me and part of the reason he has hired me is because we share a common outlook on life in regards to our Christian walk. Ministry time is just as important as engineering. Finding a good balance between the two will be the challenge, but it is one of the founding principles of his company.

So, flexibility is the main reason on a personal level. I will be available for ministry at any time and will be able to help my wife with the kids when she needs me. This will be even more important this winter when we adopt our daughter from China.

There is a church in California that we are closely associated with. We have been going to their conferences for years and just returned from one in Dothan, Alabama. The church has a school of ministry that my brother-in-law and his wife attended a few years ago. They returned totally changed and as a result, WunderWife and I have been praying about attending for the past two years. It has been our hope and desire that the Lord would provide a way for us to get out to California to attend the school.

As you can imagine, money is a big issue. How was I going to pull up my family, travel across country, attend school and still earn a living? Enter the new job. I feel that this job is a direct answer to our prayers. My boss knows our dream and told me, “If you can do the work in Albany, you can do it in California.” You can imagine our excitement when he called me about two months ago.

On an even more exciting note, the school in California has gotten so large that they are planning on starting a school on the East Coast, in Atlanta. We met some friends of ours this past weekend who are being sent out from the church in California to start a new church in Atlanta in anticipation of the new school. Now it looks like we won’t even have to move to California.

So there are professional and personal reasons that make this a very good move for my family and me.

Are there risks? You bet. Staying at the City would mean secure employment and good benefits, but I am slipping in salary each year as the City fails to keep up with the Private Sector and each year I stay with the City, I get more “tainted” in regards to my engineering abilities. Having spent three years in the Private Sector, I understand about feast and famine. It’s always a possibility, but I can’t spend my life worrying about that. Like I said, I feel this is a direct answer to our prayers. As is such, I know I am making the correct decision.

Today was tough. I had to give my notice to the Director. I’m leaving the City in a bind. Honestly, if you know of a Civil Engineer who wants to work for a small town, send them my way. I’ll leave them down two engineers. I gave a 30-day notice to help with the transition. It will be tough, but they will survive.

All in all we are very excited and I can’t wait till the middle of September to get started.

In the mean time, we are heading to Atlanta to get a desk at IKEA and then I have to upgrade my computer, get another monitor, get a fax machine/printer/copier and get a cell phone.

So, how was your day?

A few posts ago I was complaining about a recent “pay cut”. My old friend Tejush, argued that I should jump ship and head to the private sector. Another commenter, Laxpat, seemed to say that the private sector is not all it’s cracked up to be. Sort of.

Welp, it just so happens that I have all kinds of ideas about this topic. So without further adieu, I present my ideas on Private vs Public Sector Jobs.

I have worked in a quasi-Private sector job, a Private sector job and a Public sector job.

Working for the railroad was a quasi-Private sector job because the total workforce was somewhere between 400 and 600 people. Working for a large corporation brings with it a bureaucracy almost as large as a small town. Policies and procedures would come down the pike that had little to do with day-to-day operations. So we had our safety briefings and conference calls. We had little pieces of paper we had to fill out when we were near active tracks. If you got hurt, God help you, there were extensive procedures to follow.

I was just another worker bee in the giant hive of the railroad. The pay was good, the retirement was good (no Social Security – had Railroad Retirement), the company pension was good, the benefits were good and I had the chance at getting a large bonus each year (10% of my pay). Had I stayed with the railroad, I would have been able to retire with a very nice nest egg.

Health insurance was new to me. It was my first real job with benefits. I do not remember how much I paid per month for health and life insurance, but it had to be less than $100. I am sure it is more now, but back then it was peanuts in the grand scheme of things. Because there were so many employees, we had great group coverage. I had a basic life insurance policy that would pay my wife 3x’s my annual pay and I had an additional death and dismemberment policy that would pay $500,000. I was only 25 years old and worth much more dead than alive.

I left the railroad to move back here to Albany. I got a job with a local engineering firm. They had a few other offices across the state, but the total workforce was only around 70 people. The work was good but with it came a new pressure: billings.

I had to be profitable. I had to do enough billing each month to cover my pay and the pay of non-billable people. The pay was ok. I had to take a pay cut to move here, but that was expected because Albany is NOT Atlanta. But two things killed me: Insurance and Vacation.

I was given two weeks vacation. With the railroad I had three weeks and would have more within the next 5 years. At the engineering firm, the most I would ever have was 3 weeks. With the railroad we didn’t have sick leave. Since we were salaried professionals, we were allowed to take the time needed. As long as your work did not suffer. At the engineering firm, every hour was counted. It took some getting use to.

Insurance almost killed me. When I left I was paying over $600 a month for insurance. Luckily it was pre-tax dollars going to cover it, but still, it hurt the bottom line. The company had an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). It gave you the opportunity to own a piece of the company. Each year the company would be evaluated and each employee would be given stock in accordance with their pay. In theory it was a nice perk, but the way they had it set up caused problems. When I left, I was able to have the value of the stock rolled into an IRA, but people who left after me have had their stock frozen. I think this has something to do with the poor financial position of the company.

I would get a bonus each year, but compared to the railroad, it was tiny. Part of the problem I had with the company was that there was no real distinction between high performing and low performing employees. With no incentive to be a high performer, everyone settled into being average…the company is still having problems being profitable.

My job here at the City is a pure Public sector job. My paycheck comes from your tax dollars. Well, not yours…maybe Cullen’s, but he’s moving…so only those of you who live here. Thanks for the money. My family really likes it when I get paid.

There are no billings to worry about. If I need to take additional time to work a design, I can do that. Case in point, I designed a small sewer separation project (see here). It was kind of a hit or miss project. I had to get the line cleaned and TV-ed. Then I had to send our surveyors out a few times to pick up things that were missed or that I needed because I changed the design a little. In the private sector I would have been killed on the fee. The job was only $130,000, so a fee in the private sector would have been $8,000, tops. Probably less. I wouldn’t have been able to spend the time on it that was needed. The project has gone really well because of the extra time.

Insurance is great. I have your standard 85-15 coverage with $300 deductible for each member of the family and I only pay $285 a month. The life insurance is not great, somewhere along the lines of 3x’s my pay.

But, there are the unseen things. Politics enters the equation. Many times we get pulled off of an important job to chase rabbits for a Commissioner. As a result, the jobs we are supposed to be doing get placed on the back burner. The work comes in spurts. There will be months where you just do your job, no real rush or strange projects. You actually feel productive. But then there will be months like my last three where I can’t get anything done because my priorities keep changing, I am short staffed and everyone wants something from me.

So which do I like best?

The perfect job would be a mix of Public and Private sector.

A job where I did not have to worry about the billings and profitability of the Private sector but had the benefits of the Public sector.

A job where I had the financial opportunities (bonus/commission) of the Private sector but the resources of the Public sector.

You know, the perfect job that does not exist.

When I took my current job, I knew I had a choice to make. It is good for my career to have some Public sector experience. Seeing things from this side of the fence will help me immensely in my career. But, there is a draw back. If you spend to much time in the Public sector, you are “tainted”.

What does “tainted” mean? Well, if you are in the Public sector you don’t have to worry about billings or profitability. You can move at a slower pace and you can begin to turn into more of a paper-pushing bureaucrat than an engineer. If you take someone like that and drop them into the Private sector, they have a hard time adjusting and many fail.

So, I don’t want to be “tainted”, but I am advancing in my career. What to do? If I leave now to go back to the Private sector I will have 3 solid years of experience with a medium sized town. I feel that my skills are still up to date and that I would have lots to offer a Private sector firm.

But.

If I stay, I have an excellent shot at becoming the next Director of Engineering. Wow, to be the head of a City department! I am one step below the Director now. The current Director is going to retire in the next 2 to 3 years. He knows I want his job and so he has been positioning me to be able to compete. I feel I have a better than 50% chance at getting the position. The problem is that it is at least 2 years down the road. It will mean having been in the Public sector for 5 years just to get the Director position.

I would want to stay in the position for a few years at the minimum to see any real change, to see my ideas about the Department implemented. By then it will be year 7 or 8. At 10 years I am vested, so I might as well stay a few more years. Then what? I would have been out of the Private sector for 10 years. I would definitely be tainted and by then would have been doing very little engineering. Mainly paper pushing bureaucratic stuff.

You see my dilemma. If I stay I am basically signing on to being a life long Public sector employee in the hopes of getting the Director’s position. If I do not get it, 2 more years will have gone by and if I do get it, I’m locked in.

This is weighing very heavily on me right now. Things are happening, the winds are shifting, and choices will soon be made that will answer the above question.

It is an interesting discussion.

What say all of you?

I guess I should explain the back story behind getting my pay cut.

Last year the City was having problems funding the Pension Plan. Not sure why, but I think they lost several, several million in the stock market in 2000-2001. Also, they were doing something quasi-illegal in regards to paying for something or another from the Pension Plan.

Anyway…it came down that they were under funding our Pension Plan.

When I hired on, it was a promised benefit to me that the City would contribute on my behalf to the Pension Plan. After 10 years I would be vested and be able to draw from it when I retired. It was a great perk. It cost me nothing and it was just one more little feather in the cap of a City employee.

But, they were under funding the Plan.

They instructed the Pension Board to come up with alternatives.

The first thing they did, which makes total sense, was to make all new employees contribute 4% of their pay to the Plan. Hey, if you know that when you hire on, no big deal. It just means the Pension Plan is not quite as attractive to you, but it’s still an ok perk.

The Board came up with three alternatives…

1 – Freeze everyone’s pension. What ever is in there now, is all you get
2 – Have the City up its contribution to cover the shortage
3 – Make the employees contribute 4%

In the meetings we were told that Option 2 is not really an option. The City Commission was not going to increase their contribution, so really, your choices are 1 or 3.

Gee, guess which one got picked by the employees?

In the name of full disclosure, I did not go to the meeting and I did not vote. I was busy and the information they gave me told me what the ultimate outcome would be. People much more vocal than me stood up and voiced their opinion, but in vain.

In the end, making all employees contribute 4% to the Plan was chosen. The thing that pissed me off the most was that the Pension Board proclaimed to the City Commission that the employees overwhelmingly chose to contribute 4%. They never told the Commission that the only two real choices were freezing or contribute.

I called my Commissioner and told him that the information that was presented was not quite accurate. I did not get much feedback.

So, starting July 1 of this year, every employee had to start contributing 4% of their pay to the Pension Plan. They chose that date because it would coincide with a planned 3% cost of living raise that had been promised to the employees.

3% cost of living + 4% (pre-tax) pension contribution = $30 less TAKE HOME per check. 26 checks per year = $780 less per year for my family.

Also, insurance is going up 10% in October AND they are cutting some of our sick time. I am not sure when this is going into affect, but they are cutting the rate at which we accrue sick leave.

Overall effect:

I have fewer sick days
I have less money in my pocket
My benefits are not as good as they were
My moral sucks.

Yeah, I have a rotten attitude. But when you are doing the job of three people…AND they cut your pay…it’s hard not to have a sucky attitude.

Oh well.

Beats living on the street.

Just wanted to take the time to thank the City Commission, Mayor and the City Manager for cutting employees pay.

Thanks a bunch.

Smell that? That’s employee moral.

As you can imagine, we are gleeful at the prospect of going in reverse in regards to our “compensation”.

No, please take it, I don’t need the money I earn.

Nothing like getting $60 less per month, take home, and the only thing that happened was July 1st – the new fiscal year.

Going backwards with the City. Now that’s a great slogan to attract people to work for the City.

Thanks.

The meeting went very well.

He expressed his utter frustration.

I explained how things will be different and appologized for past mistakes.

He seemed agreeable to moving forward.

I assured him that our service to him will improve.

All in all, it was a good meeting. Time will tell if we accomplished anything. Recent history has shown that even after other “good meetings”, he was still upset.

I think we were able to move beyond the old issues. In fact I asked that we not bring them up again. That after today, we would have a clean slate. After all, what happened, happened…it is what it is and there is nothing I can do to fix any of it.

BUT…

We can improve and meet his expectations from today on.

I’m tired and heading home. It is WunderKid1’s 7th birthday today and we are going swimming and having cupcakes!

I feel old.

Remember my post from the other day?

Just to catch you up, the guy who is upset has not been content to wait for our meeting tomorrow. Nope, he has felt the need to send two more nasty e-mails complaining about how he is being treated.

I totally understand his frustration, that is why I scheduled a meeting

for
TOMORROW!

That was the earliest he could meet with me. Why he felt the need to fire off two more e-mails is beyond me.

I was talking to my old boss today about my meeting and how I HOPE it goes when I told him about the other two e-mails.

He had the best take so far:

Look, you can call me an asshole if you want, that’s fine. But there is no need to send two more e-mails telling me that I am the same asshole before I have time to change. I get it!

I get the point.

It felt like being in a boxing ring, up against the ropes. I could not catch my breath. Before I could handle one complaint, he fired off another and another…

Tomorrow, tomorrow…I can’t wait till tomorrow is here and my meeting is OVER!

Remember when I was all excited and stuff about my new promotion? Yeah, me neither…

Actually, that is not true. I’m still excited about it, but things are not going as planned.

See, I am now doing the job of three people. They have yet to fill my now vacant position and a lady who handles all the paper work, filing, forms, calls, etc. related to plan review is out do to back surgery. (I just returned from the hospital, she has taken a turn for the worse and is on life support in the ICU. Join me in praying for her healing)

Anyway, I am a bit overloaded. As a result, my new duties have kind of been regulated to the back burner. That is until last week.

The section I now head is responsible for Project Management for other departments projects. If the Recreation Department has a project to put up new lights at the little league field (and they do), then my section assists them. We help write the RFP/RFQ for engineering/architectural support and then assist them during construction by providing inspection and administration support.

Sounds easy no?

Well, it usually is, but I have walked into a hornets nest.

It seems that one department is very upset with us. After digging into the history of the project, I can sort of see his side of it, but still, I think we have done a pretty good job. As I wrote previously, I’m a Fixer, so naturally, the first thing I encounter with my new position is having to fix something.

I am meeting with the department head this Friday. My one goal is to make him happy. I can’t change the past but I can work on our future working relationship. Normally I would be a bit more confident in my abilities as a Fixer, but yesterday I walked into work to find a gem of an e-mail from this guy. It seems one of my guys scheduled a meeting and then only notified the director on Friday when the meeting was to be on Monday. Yes, there are areas we can improve our customer service and it is tops on my agenda, but see my earlier points about doing 3 jobs:

Here are a few snippets for your enjoyment:

It is also unfortunate that you planned a meeting of this importance and did not give the XXXX team any more advance notice than an e.mail on a Friday morning before a Monday meeting is scheduled.
—-
This is not the first time your office has made plans without advising the XXXX, i.e. the roofing materials were delivered to the XXXX without notice to our venue team until they were actually unloading the product in the parking lot with no notice given to us in advance.

The continued lack of planning and the failure of advance written (e.mail or memo) notice for meetings or timelines established by your department is no longer acceptable or appropriate when dealing with this department.
—-
I respectfully request that you brief your immediate supervisor, (Me), about this late invitation to an important pre-construction meeting as it mirrors the type of internal customer service levels I have been experiencing from your department on several SPLOST projects coordinated by the Engineering Department project managers.

Nice huh?

Like I said, he has a point, but that is the purpose of our meeting this Friday. There is very little I can do until I have a chance to sit down with him to see what I can do to make his life easier. I did not mind the email as much as you might think, but I was upset that he sent it to everybody and their brother. He should have simply addressed the email to me and I would have called him, which I did anyway.

Oh well. In his eyes we suck.

It is now my job to change his perspective.

I will let you know how the meeting goes on Friday. I am expecting good things.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I live blogged one of our City Commission meetings. Well, not really “live blogged”, more of a “live note taking”. If I had pda or laptop I would have done it the right way, but as is such, I took notes and jotted down times and what was going on.

This will give you a little glimpse into part of my job. One of my guys had a contract to get approved by the Commission, which was next to last…

Anyway, here it goes:

8:30: Meeting starts. All Commissioners and the Mayor are present. They begin with the Police update. (those not in the know, our police force has had some serious problems over the past few years, lots of corruption and what not). The police chief spoke about a recent murder…that makes 5 murders so far this year. He also talked about some bogus e-mail going around that says there are gang roving the Mall…he says it’s not true…

8:33: Questions from Commissioners. Mainly deal with a local restaurant/nightclub that has been generating lots of complaints.

8:36: Drug unit update. 64 arrests and $71k in drugs seized. Marijuana is still tops. Some hot spots cleared up.

8:40: Questions. Several questions about the % of arrests made of individuals with prior arrests…around 90%…questions about going after the bigger fish. Most arrest are street level dealers, but some have been bigger traffickers. Interesting tidbit: Drugs once came Florida up, now they seem to be coming in from Texas to Atlanta and then down to Albany.

8:47: Funding for the Flint RiverQuarium. It appears that our new (2 year old) aquarium is running out of money. They need $600k per year for the next 5 to 6 years to keep the doors open. $31 million State funds and $4 million private funds were used to build it. Cost overruns caused them to dip into their endowments…now they don’t have enough money.

(more…)

It’s official…I have been promoted…

You may remember my posts on this topic. If not, have fun here, here and here.

If you are really bored, you can read my offer letter here.

Always remember: We are all promoted to our level of incompetence.

I sure hope I keep moving up…

Wow!

It has been an intense two weeks around here.

You may remember from one of my old posts that I had been tasked with determining the cause of a road failure in a 7 year old subdivision. Let me just say that all the assumptions I had when I started this quest and when I wrote that post turned out to be wrong.

Each day I would come to work convinced I knew what the problem was…only to be left scratching my head at the end of the day. It was a real puzzle.

On the surface, it appeared everything had been done by the book. After digging into the files and investigating in the field, something finally came up.

It turns out that the contractor was not experienced in preparing soil cement base. Geotechnical corings taken of the base and pavement show little to no base in some areas and weak base in other areas. The roads have failed because of the base failing and the base failed because the contractor did not prepare it properly.

Our inspector found soft spots and insufficient base all through the subdivision…However…his supervisor overruled him and allowed the base to pass inspection. That is what prompted my last post on a similar topic found here.

Anyway. Check out my report. I am proud of it and if you have a hard time falling asleep at night, this report should knock you right out.

It’s in pdf format, so have fun. You know you want to read it…don’t you?

UPDATE: All my assumptions in this post turned out to be wrong. See my report here. It turns out that the contractor did not prepare the soil cement properly. This casued the base to fail, which caused the road to fail.

What a mess.

I inspected the road that failed as mentioned in this post.

The road has failed everywhere there was some sort of trench excavation. It did not matter if it was an underground power line, a water line or a sewer line. If it was excavated, it failed.

Now I am left to write a report explaining what went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. I tend to enjoy this sort of thing, but I have a bad feeling that they will not care about my findings. They will want to pin this failure on someone and I fear it will be my boss.

Anyway, below are my findings, including pictures. Even if you are bored to tears with this topic, check out the pictures to see what I am babbling about.

(more…)

I had big plans for Friday.

They involved finishing the Engineering Report for my under funded storm project, writing two change orders and approving a pay request.

None of those things even got started.

Apparently, one of the City Commissioners sent in an official request about a road that has failed.

Most of the day was spent collecting data, inspecting plans and figuring out how to respond to the Commissioner.

In the end it boils down to this:

1. A Private Developer hired a Local Engineer to design a new subdivision
2. A Local Engineer surveyed and designed the new subdivision using standard engineering practices and adhering to City codes and ordinances
3. The City reviewed and approved the engineering plans, ensuring that standard engineering practices where used and that all applicable codes and ordinances were followed and the plans were stamped:
   Approval is for general layout and concept only and is based on competency of the professional preparing project documents
4. The Private Developer hired a Local Contractor to construct the subdivision roads and infrastructure according to the approved plans
5. The Local Contractor followed standard construction practices during construction
6. The City Construction Inspectors inspected the project to ensure adherence to the plans and standard construction practices
7. Compaction testing was performed on the roadbed and subgrade throughout the project area
8. The roadbed and subgraded passed all compaction tests
9. The new subdivision passed final construction inspection and a CO was issued
10. The Private Developer submitted the final plat dedicating all the roads and infrastructure to the City
11. The City accepted the subdivision infrastructure for ownership and maintenance
12. Seven years later, the road failed

Given all the above, who is at fault?

What more could have been done to protect the City from having the road fail?

I submit to you and I plan on submitting to the Commissioner that NOTHING could have been done differently.

Sometimes things just fail. You can follow all standard engineering and construction practices and sometimes things fail. You can be diligent in your plan review and in your construction inspection and sometimes things fail.

Something tells me this will not be the answer the Commissioner will want to hear. After all, somebody MUST have done SOMETHING wrong…after all, the road FAILED!

Did I mention he is also an Attorney? Yeah, so, any bets on how quickly Staff is blamed for this?

I’m just sayin’.

Yay! The HR Dept. found my drug test and I passed! No real shock there…but…the Boss is gone all through next week, so no negotiations over my pay increase until he gets back.

Great. Another week without a raise. Oh well, they will give me back pay right? *cough*

I have a post brewing about our family outing last week. I was going to write it Sunday but the site was down…thanks Lunar Pages…Maybe I will get to it this weekend.

In the mean time, watch this video and try to remember back to that day and time….I heard the song the other day and while the song is not exactly one for the ages, it sure brought back memories of how utterly mind blowing was the collapse of the Soviet Union. But that is the subject of another post.

Heh, having just watched the video…funny what a bunch of Lefty trash it is…but that is not my point. My main point is/was that the song always reminds me of the collapse of the Soviet Union and of all the optimism that existed at that time. Naivety really.

So, you guys remember about two weeks ago when I wrote about an interview I had and then my follow-up post about the drug test for said interview?

Well, something has gone wrong. It seems the lab/City has lost my drug test. I am not sure if that means they lost my specimen or if they’ve lost the results.

At least they’ve admitted their mistake instead of grabbing some random sample to pass off as mine…

HR Dept: Um, Mr. WunderKraut…we received some disturbing results from your drug screening…

WK: Huh? That’s impossible, I have never used drugs a day in my life…well except for that one week in Thailand…but that was a long time ago…

HR Dept: No, it’s not drugs…gee this is tough…how can I put this?

WK: Look, you are freaking me out….

HR Dept: Mr. WunderKraut…you’re pregnant.

WK:…

HR Dept: Yeah, and your Estrogen levels are through the roof.

Anyone who has ever taken a pre-employment drug test will understand how hard it is for me to understand how they could lose the darn thing.

First they give you the cup and wait for you at the door. When you are finished, they check the temp and slap a label from my paper work on it. Then they fill out the rest of the forms…in triplicate. I have to sign here, here and there. Then they place a seal on the specimen and I have to initial across it. Then they put the specimen in a bag and put one of the copies of the paperwork in the side pouch in the same bag. Then they seal it up and I get my copy of the paper work.

Oh well, I guess I’ll have to do it all over again…

*sigh*

Note: I started this yesterday, but ran out of time…sorry for being so lazy.

Today is much like every other day for me, the bureaucrat.

I arrived at work to find I had two messages and three emails that were sent after I left work yesterday. I spent 10 minutes calling and responding to emails. By then it was time to attend the City Commission meeting.

I had two items on the agenda: an alley closing and a bid for a small sewer project. It took them 2 hours to get to my last item and shockingly enough, they approved the bid with very little comment.

After the meeting, my boss and I had a long conversation about a certain storm drainage project. I thought about explaining in detail what is going on with the project and why my head hurts, but really, do you care? Yeah, but it’s my blog, so suffer!

Anyway, it seems that elected officials do not like to fund infrastructure projects. After all, you can’t put your name on a new sewer line or show off that shiny new storm line that is 30 feet below the ground.

But the thing is, these systems were first built in the 1950’s. They are already over 50 years old and very little maintenance has been done on them. The only time anyone actually cares is when there is a failure or a blockage. Other than that, the Public Works Department is not given the funds they need to properly maintain the system. The Engineering Department writes reports and requests money to build projects that keep getting turned down.

Case in point is this project. My boss asked for $15 million in this latest Sales Tax. That was not enough to do the project, but he figured it was the most he could get. The Commission and City Manager cut it down to $10 million.

$10 million…sounds like a lot doesn’t it?

I just did a rough quantity take off and developed a cost estimate that came to $31 million.

$31 million…

A little math later I discovered that with the $10 million I already have, I can build the pipe from the river west for only 2,000 feet and it will be completely dry.

Not a drop of water in it.

A giant underground white elephant.

See, the point of the project is to separate combined storm/sewer flows so we do not have sewage discharges to the river. The problem is that the two lines that need to be separated are located another 4,000 feet to the west. If I can only build the first 2,000 feet, then nothing will flow in the pipe until the other 4,000 feet are constructed. You know, for another $20 million.

What to do?

That is my task. I am writing a report about what our options are. Personally, I think they need to bite the bullet and dedicate an entire Sales Tax (~$60 million) to fund the rest of this storm project and a few other sewer jobs around town.

Something tells me that will never happen.

You can’t see the pipes…they are not sexy…they do not directly increase the tax base…they do not directly impact economic development…they do not add cultural benefit or entertainment to the City..

They are just pipes.

***UPDATE***

It’s over. We’ll see who wins.

It went about like I thought it would. Basic questions. It was odd being interviewed by my boss and by my big boss. They were all formal and stuff.

***UPDATE***

Well, here I go. I will let you know how it goes.

So I am sitting here in my office waiting.

Waiting for what you ask.

Waiting to be called in for an interview.

See, one of the Division heads here in our department got promoted to Assistant City Manager. That was like 8 months ago or something. Anyway, they re-assigned his duties and spread the work load out among existing employees. The fact is, he hasn’t been terribly missed. Not because he was an ass or anything, just that his duties seemed to be assimilated very easily. I hope that never happens to me. I hope when/if I ever leave that my co-workers and boss will be like, “Man, how did he do so much. We are going to have to hire two people to take his place!”

*cough*

Anyway, so here I am. Sitting in my office typing a post, waiting.

My wife asked if I was nervous about the interview. Nah, not really. I tend to be pretty good at interviews, but now that I am sitting here waiting, my stomach is in knots.

There are 4 of us going for the position. Three of us with the City and one from outside the City. As luck would have it, I am to be the last one interviewed. Some have said this is a mere formality, that I am the “Golden Boy”, that my promotion is assured. It always makes me uncomfortable to hear such talk. I hope the process is fair and unbiased. I know that the other two in our department are good guys. One is more qualified than the other and I am more qualified than both in some areas, while they bury me in other areas.

We shall see.

Well, not everyone…but enough to hurt my life time statistics.

See, I have been in NIMS training this week. You may remember my mind numbingly boring post from last June when we had to take some classes, but baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!

NIMS 300 is oodles of fun!

Actually, I am in way over my head. If you are a Life Safety kind of person (Fire/PD/EMT) then this stuff is what you live and breath. But if you are just an engineer, this stuff makes about as much sense as my handwriting.

The best part is that the class is a hands on class. That means we are in groups with our very own Incident Commander (IC) and other important Section Chiefs and what not. We have to respond to various incidents and set up organizational charts and write Incident Action Plans! Yay!

Again, if you are a Life Safety person, this is what you do for your day job. Me? Not so much.

I see the importance of this type of training, but if you were to put me in charge…well…re-read the title of the post.

I have the utmost respect for Life Safety people. They get paid jack squat and put their lives on the line all the time. After I would read each scenario, I just wanted to shut down. The amount of things to think about and deal with for each incident is staggering. I just wanted to go home, have a cold, frosty beverage and forget about everything. But these people tackle the problems and make it look easy.

If you see a Firefighter, Police Officer, EMT or any other Life Safety person, give them a hug. It’s ok, they don’t bite much.

For me? One more day of this stuff.

This is going to be long, so here is a teaser:

So that is why the letter I wrote yesterday is one of the most absurd letters I have ever written.

In writing my last post on schedules, I started thinking about another topic: Assumptions.

The same post over at The Shape of Days is what got me thinking about this topic.

I am a Civil Engineer. I know, I know, you already know that, but please be patient. See, it is possible that I could get a new reader in here….No really….stop laughing…. Anyway, as a Civil Engineer, one of the main things I deal with is storm drainage.

Some of you out there probably think that engineers are very technical, ridged people who follow precise formulas that give them exact answers…..*cough*….

Here is a dirty little secret: It is all in your assumptions.

One of my roommates in college was a Physics major. He would spend hours and hours doing homework problems that dealt with relativity, particle dynamics and other motion problems. He had one problem that dealt with a horse, his mass and velocity. I don’t remember the specifics, but he had to find the drag or some distance or something. He spent hours on it. When the professor went over the problem in class, he stated, “First, assume that the horse is a sphere…” The problem was then solved in 5 steps.

It’s all in your assumptions.

In storm drainage there are Rules of Thumb and more precise ways of quantifying the amount of runoff. Both give answers that are defendable in a court of law and they can give answers that are 25% off from one another. So which is right? They both are.

It’s all in your assumptions

(more…)

Jeff over at The Shape of Days has a nice little post up about scheduling. I was going to write him an email explaining my situation and personal experience with scheduling, but as I thought through what I was going to write, I figured it was going to be a bit lengthy. So why not post it here? Besides, you people need something to read. And by people I mean the 5 people who don’t visit this site from a Google Image search.

So here it goes:

Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say

Pink Floyd – Time

I am an engineer, so I am use to having schedules. Some schedules are grounded in reality, while many are of the “I needed it yesterday” variety. Some have fixed dates because of some event or because funding will run out or because of politics.

I have no problem trying to project out a time when I can get my project out to bid and when I expect it to be complete. Specific dates? Not so much. More of, I hope to have it out to bid by Spring and completed by Winter. That will do for me.

When I was working in the Private Sector, I had all three constraints: time, money and politics, but by and large we were able to give vague dates. If we were ever dumb enough to give a specific date that was too far out in the future, we usually had our butts chewed out because inevitably, we would be unable to meet it.

I now work for a Municipality and I am up against the same constraints. Until two years ago, I approached my projects like I had in the Private Sector. But then the City Commission got sold a bag of magic beans and things have not been the same since.

Let me give some background first.

(more…)

It can be hard to keep a positive attitude at work. I know you will be shocked to hear this, but even here at the City, morale can be a problem. I guess it goes to the age old problem of feeling underappreciated.

I am doing fine and actually since I am up for a promotion, I feel very appreciated, albeit a bit under paid. But still the bulk of the people I work with are not very happy with work right now. I guess you have to have something to complain about.

Luckily it is not this bad:

Heh.

So, I got a project out the door this week.

The project itself was very straightforward:

All told, the construction drawings were only 6 sheets: Cover, General Notes, three Design sheets and one sheet of typical details.

Doing the design and preparing the construction plans was the easy part. Here is what I had to do in order to get the project out to bid:

1. Request Account Number – me
2. Assign Account Number – Finance
3. Enter Requisition – me
4. Prepare Contract Documents – me
5. Review Contract Documents – Procurement
6. Assign DBE Goal – Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business
7. Revise Contract Documents – me
8. Schedule Pre-Bid Meeting – me, Procurement
9. Schedule Bid Opening – me, Procurement
10. Send Contract Documents To Printer – me
11. Print and Bind Contract Documents – Print Shop
12. Send Construction Plans To Printer – me
13. Print and Bind Construction Documents – Dougherty Blueprint
14. Advertise for Bid – Procurement

That is what it took to get the project out to bid. Once the bids are opened I have to work with Procurement to prepare the Agenda Item for the City Commission Work Session. I have to attend the Work Session and present the Bid for approval. Hopefully they will vote “yes, but” because it is just a Work Session. Then I have to attend the night meeting, which is where the official vote will take place. After they vote to approve the project, I have to schedule a Pre-Construction meeting with the contractor and issue the Notice to Proceed.

All of this for a $100,000 project that will take less than 60 days to construct. That is as long as it will take to bid and make it through the City Commission.

Ah, but that is the life of a Bureaucrat. When you are dealing with the Public’s money, you have jump through all the hoops to make sure everything is on the up and up.

But, I figured I would let you catch a small glimpse of my life.

So I’m sitting in a boring meeting the other day and I realized something for the first time. Kind of like a light bulb went off. Some of you may read this and say, “Yeah, well duh”, but hear me out. Let me start by setting the stage

I work for a smallish town in South Georgia (75,000). The County to the north of us exploded in the 1990’s and there was a huge white flight from my town to this County. Not only residences fled, but business did as well. Part of this was due to lower taxes, but a large reason was the political climate in the City. The City Commission was in disarray and there was very little unity. With all that going on, businesses followed the residences. The thing is, the southern portion of this County butts up against our northern city limits. Most of the growth took place from the border to 5 to 10 miles into the County. The people may have left the City, but they still worked in it.

The City fought to keep people and businesses here, but the deathblow happened when Wal-Mart picked up and moved about a half a mile. They moved from the City into the County. Not only that, but the road they moved to serves as the dividing line between the two municipalities. Even worse than that was that the centerline of the road was the border, half the road in the City and half in the County.

In order for Wal-Mart to build, the road had to be widened to accommodate all the soon to be added traffic. The County went to the City and asked that they upgrade their half of the road and the County would upgrade their half. Needless to say, the City was in no mood to work with the County. After all, almost a million dollars in tax revenue was leaving the City forever. So the City ignored the County. They refused to plan with them or to look at what the development would do to the City. It got so bad that the Georgia DOT had to step in to widen the road. The road got widened and Wal-Mart built a brand new Super Store.
(more…)

Tree Hugging Sister will be so proud of me!

The City of Albany will take a church to court for illegally clearing trees.

That is, unless I get struck by lightning….

Anyway, I think I have proven my tree loving credentials enough to make up for the dozen oak trees I had taken down.

Maybe….

If anyone is interested, I was on TV the other day talking about one of our construction projects.

The write up is here and the video link is at the end of the write up.

And no, Tree Hugging Sister, I was NOT cutting any trees down.

Quite the contrary, it appears I am slowing killing a family with dust, or so the story seems to say.

Every time I get a call about dust, I call the contractor and they run their water truck more often. The problem is that it is so hot and dry this year that there is very little that can be done. I feel sorry for the family, I really do. But I do not know what more we can do. Luckily we will pave the road in question soon.

By the way, he totally took what I said and twisted it. Here is what he said:

He says the city hasn’t had too many major projects like this and it just takes time. And patience — something this family has plenty of. Because at this point, what else can you do?

What I told him is that this is some of the largest and deepest pipe in the city and that it takes time to lay it. Also, it is a contractor doing the work. Not the city. Big difference. Oh well.

Working for a municipality can be very rewarding. It can also be mind numbingly boring.

The past two days I have been in class to learn all about the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS).

I know it is important and all seeing how my city had a 500-year flood just 12 years ago and given the fact that a large Marine Logistics Base is located here.

But still….

Mind
Numbingly
Boring

Check out this choice sentence of government speak:

National-level preparedness standards related to NIMS will be maintained and managed through a multijurisdictional, multidiscipline center, using a collaborative process at the NIMS Integration Center.

The U.S. Government, billions of tax dollars and you get a gem of a sentence.

Part 1

Major point #2: Environmentalist Suck.

Look, I like the environment as much as the next guy. I even believe we should do what can reasonably be done to keep it clean. I love the out doors. I love camping, canoeing and hiking. I enjoy clean air and clean water.

BUT

Environmentalist suck! Nothing is ever good enough for them. These are the kinds of people who will not compromise on anything. Oil is EVIL! Fine let’s do hydrogen. No Hydrogen is EVIL – Global Warming (sic) and all. Ok, how about nuclear power! You’re not being very funny. And on and on it goes. The question I want to ask these freaks is what would make you happy? Would stopping all production, all energy production and all internal combustion engines make you happy? It would? Interesting. How would you feel if a few billion people died because of poor sanitation and food shortages? You would be ok with it? Man, you guys are a bunch of sick bastards!

The thing about environmentalist is that they can not win at the ballot box. People understand the need to protect the environment, but if protecting the environment causes economic hardship or health concerns (DDT vs Malaria) the people draw the line. This pisses off the environmentalists to no end.

What to do? What to do? Why, the American thing to do is to SUE!!

That is just want they have done here in Georgia.

(more…)

I have been putting off writing about why I hate the government. Well, I don’t hate the entire government, just the parts that make my life difficult and cost me money.

This is installment #1 of my ongoing series about the government.

The City I work for has to comply with the new NPDES Phase II permit for our storm sewer system. It is a pain in the butt and is going to cost the City money.

Major point #1: Unfunded Mandates Suck.

I don’t care what the Feds or the State guys tell you, these things are unfunded mandates. We have to devote time and equipment to satisfy their little bureaucratic hearts. That alone is an expense, but then there are also real, tangible expenses such as chemical testing and retrofitting.

I have spent this entire week formulating a response to a letter from the Georgia EPD that threatens us with $50,000 per day fines if we do not come into compliance with the NPDES Permit. I knew we had such a permit, but until Friday of last week, I had never seen it nor knew what was in it. Now I know. EPD wants a detailed response with Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) for many of the 11 items listed in the letter by June 9th. This is going to be a fun two weeks.

I have to meet with my boss, the City Manager and people from Public Works next week to see what we can do to make EPD happy. To that end, I am working on a document to bring everyone up to speed. Take a gander. Looks like fun doesn’t it?

Unfunded mandates come from the Feds and then the State all the time. Many times they are driven by lawsuits filed by the Sierra Club and the various River Keepers across the state. The end result is that the citizens have to pay more for services and in taxes so that the municipality can comply with the imposed mandates.

On paper they look good, but no one ever thinks about the cost.

Stay tuned for more adventures in Government.

I know. You are shocked.

But my long awaited rant on the government has been delayed because of…wait for it…the government!

The short answer is that the NPDES Phase II permit is a beast from the pit of Hell and the EPD bureaucrats who are shoving this down the throats of cities and towns need a good boot to the hind quarters. Along with all the River Keepers and Sierra Clubs and stupid Judges.

But, when they start talking about fines of up to $50,000 a day….I guess I better do what they want. But damn, it sure is hard counting how many angels can dance on the point of a needle.

Bastards.

The city I work for is trying something new to bring down their health costs. They claim they are doing this because they care about us employees and they want to see us live long healthy lives.

*cough*

Yeah, money has NOTHING to do with it…

It does make sense for companies and cities to do this to reduce costs. If I am healthy, why should my premiums and deductibles go up to help subsidize people who choose to smoke and live an unhealthy lifestyle? I imagine that within the next year or so, we will go to a health risk based premium and deductible. But first, they needed a baseline to judge the “health” of the workforce.

The deal is that you had to “volunteer” for a health screening. If you did not “volunteer”, your deductible would go from $300 per person to $1,500. So, I gladly “volunteered”.

I could not eat or drink anything 8 hours prior to having the screening done. So I was a bit grumpy this morning. At 9 am we shuffled into the room to begin the screening. First they weighed you, then measured your height, then took your blood pressure and finally drew blood to check on a host of other fun things.

At the blood pressure table the lady wrote down my pressure. It was 144/89 with a “resting” heart rate of 88. I say “resting” because we had to walk two blocks to get to the screening location. She told me that my pressure was borderline high and asked if I had ever taken medicine for it. I told her no and that for at least the last five years if not longer, my blood pressure has been around that mark. She then went into her list of things that I needed to do.

Namely: lose 51 pounds.

I would like to point out that the scales were at least 6 pounds too heavy. One of the ladies I was with made the comment that she was at the doctor just last week and her weight was 6 pounds less than today. She assured me that there was no way for her to have gained that much weight in 5 days. Judging by her appearance, I had no reason to doubt her. My weight reflected the same phenomenon.

But, I know I am too heavy and losing 51 pounds would rock. Anyone got a magic pill?

After being told that I was fat and seeing how I was starving, I walked across the street to the local hole in the wall sandwich shop and ordered a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on white toast with mayo and an extra large Coke.

Comfort food. It made me happy. Kind of like Fat Bastard in the Austin Powers movies: “I eat because I’m unhappy and I’m unhappy because I eat. It’s a vicious cycle.”

Oh yeah, I weighed 251 pounds.

So…

How are you today?

Kind of slow around here huh?

Yeah, sorry about that. I am not feeling well today and my boss is out so I had to cover for him at two meetings. I also had to respond to a VERY angry citizen who was basically yelling at me on the phone about a collapsed curb/failed sewer service line. It was a very pleasant meeting. I stood in the rain and he stood under his umbrella (mental note: buy umbrella for work truck). In the end I had to sit around until the Public Works Department could get their street guy out to look at it. When he did get there he said, “Yep, it needs to be fixed, but have the sewer division look at it first.” So I called my contact with sewer and he took a look at it. The result: don’t know yet. Yet it was pressing enough to warrant me standing in the rain for thirty minutes to calm the guy down.

Sigh

I know. You guys do not care about my life as a bureaucrat. You want hard hitting political insight. Yeah, so do I, but have you ever tired to come up with something original every day? What’s that? It’s so easy a trained seal could do it? No my friend. That is where you are wrong. A trained chimp, yes, but a trained seal? Let’s be realistic here. I mean, how would the seal be able to type? Trained seal my a…

Nothing really new. If you read the post below you saw that I got my first buck. Yes I am bragging. Watch out, head is swelling, can’t get it through the door.

Ok fine. Go back to your boring little lives. I know that’s where I am heading. Maybe something interesting/insightful will come to me in my NyQuil induced coma tonight.

There’s always hope.

Yours truly has become quite the media God this past week.

Click here to see me on TV spreading propaganda….errr um….truth. It will be the first link called “Avenues oaks give way to sewer”.

For Tree Hugging Sister, I can assure you that I do like the trees and that I want to save as many as possible, but progress is progress.

When you click the link, it will take you to the TV station site. There you will need to click on the video called “Avenues oaks give way to sewer”. I could not find a way to directly link it. Oh well.

By the way, I am not the florist. No, I am the guy with 4 chins. Man, that camera sure does add the weight.

This whole story is just another round in the continuing tree saga here in WunderTown. For past episodes, go here, here and here.

As of 4:42 pm, the TREE is still standing. I will keep you posted as this story develops.

That is all.

Update: Check out TREE WATCH 2005 for the continuing saga of this tree

My last phone conversation:

Person: I really need to take the tree down. It is beginning to delay our project. The Department of Transportation says it is their property and they do not care if the tree comes down.

Me: The issue is with the City Attorney. I do not know how long it will be until we get this issue resolved.

Person: It is beginning to delay me.

Me: I can NOT tell you that you can remove the tree. You have an approved DOT permit that calls for the tree to be removed and it is on DOT right-of-way. Draw your own conclusions.

Person: The tree is coming down.

Me: I can NOT tell you that you can remove the tree.

Person: What happens if someone says something?

Me: A typical fine for a tree of similar size would be around $700.

Person: The tree is coming down.

/end conversation.

Being the good bureaucrat that I am, I immediately wrote a note to the file indicating that I DID NOT give him permission to remove the tree without a permit.

I think I need a shower.