I Really Shouldn't Care But I Do

Winter arrived Saturday in a rather big way with 8" of wet, heavy, heart-attack snow. My 1986 Simplicity snowblower takes "heart-attack" out of the equation. Tammy and I had plans to spend a few hours perusing a craft fair at Canterbury but bad roads changed all that.

I'd been watching the forecast and spent most of Friday outside putting up our Christmas lights and finishing what little yard work I had left. I suppose it's possible the snow will all be gone by this time next week and I'd have another shot at getting it all done but it's nice to have all my outdoor jobs finished for the year. I also appreciated being able to get the lights hung while it was still warm enough to do it without gloves.

We're entering a new collaborative period at work between labor and management called WE; an acronym for Workforce Engagement. It's a program designed to give each and every worker a voice in the direction we're headed as an organization; at least that's my understanding. We've had similar programs in the past and while I'm not necessarily opposed to them, I am highly skeptical about management's true intentions. Had this been something they wanted to do on their own out of an honest heartfelt need to rebuild a relationship with the workforce that too many of them took glee in destroying, I'd be more inclined to embrace it. But that's not what's happening here.

What we're actually seeing is the influence of a labor-friendly White House administration; the same administration that got us a contract last year after 3 years of imposed work-rules. I'd love to believe otherwise but any controller will tell you that had McCain been elected, we'd all be looking at our 5th year of frozen wages while watching management and staff receive their raises as they always have. And to be clear in this age of overwhelming budget deficits: I was actually fine with frozen wages for 5 years as long as everybody FAA-wide was sharing in the pain. But it was only controllers who were called on to make that sacrifice; 15,000 people out of 1,800,000 federal workers.

The troubling thing is that we're only an administration change away from a return to where we were.

I have a relatively short time left in my career and I really shouldn't care but I do.

Now that Republicans have regained control of Congress with a fiscally conservative (I won't be fooled again) agenda there's been no lack of discussion in the news about what programs to cut to solve the massive budget deficit facing us. Last Saturday's NYT had a Budget Puzzle where you take charge of our nation's finances and see how whatever programs you choose to cut affect the deficit.

Give it a try.

Here's my solution. What's yours?

Tammy thinks I should be President but she doesn't want to be the First Lady. What's a guy to do?



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