DONSA

Friday 14 January 2011
1645

During my in-processing at Fort McPherson, I came across a posted schedule that showed today, Friday 14 January, as “DONSA”. I thought to myself at the time, “Oh, for crying out loud, what kind of BS made-up ethnic pseudo-holiday are they cramming down our throats NOW?

Later on I found out that it’s actually an acronym. It stands for “Day Of No Scheduled Activity”. They use it for creating four-day weekends out of holidays when Monday is already a holiday. With no scheduled activities (e.g. meetings, conference calls, etc.), people are able to take time off if they want to extend the weekend. Civilians take leave if they want to, and for military personnel it’s considered a Training Holiday (read: “Day Off”). I had never seen this particular acronym before, hence my reaction. Chalk up another one to my ongoing education in Government-Speak.

It turned out that today was not a DONSA after all, because Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were all snow days, and yesterday was a late-start day. So they made today a regular work day unless you already had travel plans for the weekend. Even though it’s starting to warm up and there hasn’t been any more snow, many of the roads here are still pretty bad. Without salt on them, they freeze over again at night making early morning (or even late afternoon) driving treacherous. So today was also a late start and early-out day. Perhaps by next week it will be more like normal.

I spent most of today filling out my questionnaire for a security clearance. So those of you who know me, don’t be surprised if a government agent comes knocking at your door asking questions sometime soon. I didn’t do anything wrong! It’s just what they do before they grant higher-level clearances. I understand they are very thorough.

I also spent about two hours trying to get three simple personnel actions done. Of the three, only one is completed – the other two are in an indeterminate state. By that I mean that our efforts to complete them were thwarted by various malfunctions, and it’s unclear whether they actually were entered correctly. At one point there were three government civilian employees clustered around a computer discussing how to get it to accept the form for my SGLI (Soldier’s Group Life Insurance). They never did get it to work, so we printed the form, I signed it, and they will send it via snail-mail. I give it about a 25% chance of actually being posted to my file, but we’ll see. I still have a copy of the SGLI form that I completed when I demobilized at Fort Benning, and it was never posted. This new one is identical to that one. Maybe this time it actually will get done. Your tax dollars at work…

Back on the subject of Government-Speak, I saw a sign on my way out of HQ FORSCOM today that really made me chuckle:





I guess “Designated Smoking Area” is not sufficiently clear. So somebody came up with “Tobacco Product Usage Facility”, or TPUF (undoubtedly pronounced “tea-puff”). Only on a government installation… you just couldn’t make this stuff up!

Soon after seeing the sign that made me chuckle, I saw one in the commissary that made me cringe:




What caught my attention initially was the misuse of quotation marks. This bothers me, but because the misuse of quotation marks and apostrophes is so endemic and widespread, I probably wouldn’t even have said anything. But then I saw the second sentence and just about dropped the items I was carrying. It’s very hard for me to believe that someone in management could actually put this sign up, but there it is in black and white. Really inexcusable.

I sent a comment form to the commissary management through their website. I figured it wouldn’t really do any good to talk to the people in the store, since they don’t know enough to correct it themselves. In fact, one lady saw me taking the photo and asked me why. When I pointed and told her it was of the sign, she made it clear that she had no idea what was wrong with it.

What bothers me the most about seeing signs like this is that children are likely to read them and think they are correct. No wonder we are raising a society of illiterates!

Oh well, just another day in the Army…

Mood: Ready for a long weekend
Music: Christophe Eschenbach, Mozart Piano Sonatas

Snow Days

Tuesday 11 January 2011
1111

That’s right, it’s 11:11 on 1/11/11, kind of a cool date (FWIW, I also remember 12:34 on 5/6/78).

So, welcome to the “Sunny South” . For the second day in a row, Fort McPherson is closed along with almost everything in Atlanta due to snow and ice.

When I heard yesterday morning that the post was closed, it was a bit hard to believe. I had been out cleaning the ice off my Jeep getting ready to go in when someone told me the news. I went and looked online, and sure enough, it was closed. I made several phone calls to see if this really meant the military personnel weren’t going in, and didn’t get any answers or get any calls back. So I guess they really weren’t there.

Being from Michigan, it was kind of hard for me to appreciate how a little snow and ice could completely paralyze a city, but they just aren’t prepared for it down here. They don’t have the equipment such as plows and salt trucks to handle it (at least not in sufficient quantities), nor are the people used to it. This makes driving in icy conditions especially perilous. One person I talked to who’s been here awhile but was originally from Minnesota advised me to “get to high ground, stay put, and watch, because winter driving here is a spectator sport”.

To be fair, conditions are pretty extreme. Even in Michigan I’ve never had such a thick layer of ice on my car. You’d be better off with ice skates. It was quite a job just to walk to the restaurant next door. When I went there to eat, I thanked the people for being at work, and they told me that the restaurant was putting them up at the hotel. Ditto for the people here at the hotel – they are just staying here in empty rooms rather than driving back and forth to work.

All the news is about the weather, and I have to say that I’m not sorry to be here instead of on the road – it looks like driving would be quite an adventure.

If I had more to do at the office I might go in anyway, but my computer still wasn’t working when I left on Friday, and there won’t be anyone there to help me get it working. So I can’t even sit and read files about my new job. There would be literally nothing for me to do. So I’m trying to keep busy here preparing travel vouchers and doing other admin tasks.

I’ll be glad to get to work – it seems strange to be sitting here weather-bound after all the times we went to the field in extreme winter conditions in Germany back in the 1980s…the Army is supposed to be able to operate in weather like this but I guess the city of Atlanta can’t.


Mood: Cabin Fever
Music: Clicking keyboard