February 28, 2013

One of the hardest parts of growing up is when things change.  On March 1, 2013, for the first time that I can remember, my dad will not be a City Manager.  February 28 is his last day as he retires from public service to Port Orange after over 28 years.

Dad decided to leave Texarkana, Arkansas, where he'd been City Manager, in 1984.  Picked up the whole family and moved us all to a tiny little town just south of Daytona Beach.  I'd never heard of it, and wasn't thrilled to be leaving the only life I'd known.  (Along with leaving my friends Alan, Jon and Jamie.)  But it was time to go, and go we did.

Port Orange back then was about 28,000 people.  It's now over 56,000.  A lot of what is here now wasn't there then. But dad saw something.  A town that wanted to grow, and had a lot about it that was impressive.  The people were nice, and it was a real community.

Well, we stayed a lot longer than I thought we would.  I left in 1994 to go to DC, and haven't lived back there since. But the one thing that didn't change was that my dad was the City Manager.  Well, tomorrow that won't be the case.

You see, I'm probably more like my father than I at first believed.  Most of Dad's family lives near each other, but he moved halfway across the country.  He took a chance, just like I did when I went to college and then joined the Foreign Service.  I readily admit that one of the reasons I bid on jobs is because I know my parents would like to visit these places.  London, Luxembourg, South Africa, Suriname. (Well, maybe not Suriname.  But they loved visiting, and my staff liked them so much when I left post for the last time they packed gifts for my parents with me.)

My dad has given everything to the city, and he definitely deserves the rest he will now get.  Most of our vacations were arranged around budget season or something or other to do with the city.  Dad would always make the events we were participating in when I was growing up with my two brothers.  He might have to go back to the office when it was over, but he was there.  Every soccer game, baseball game, musical concert: it didn't matter he was there.  Hopefully I can be that kind of dad to my kids.

Dad also thought of the City as one big family.  The entire time he was City Manager our phone number and address was in the phone book.  He felt that he worked for the tax payers, and that they should have access to him whenever they wanted.  This lead to numerous late night phone calls and a couple of death threats, but that was something he always said came with the job.

(Short digression.  When I worked in London, I was the Consular Duty officer over Christmas.  My Mother and Father both were in town, and it was the day after Christmas.  We were about to go see Mamma Mia! on stage and were having dinner together in Convent Garden.  I got a phone call from the Regional Security Officer telling me that someone had called the Embassy and said they were going to kill me.  Seeing I was a bit shaken after the call, my parents asked what was wrong.  I told them, and my dad's response always makes me smile: "The first time is always the hardest.")

Well there have been some trying times with my father and the city, and I'm sure there are people glad to see him go.  However, I firmly believe one of the reasons Port Orange is the city it is today is because of my father.  He's one of my heroes in life, and one of the reasons I do what I do for a living.  I'm very proud of what he's accomplished, and hope he has a nice long retirement to enjoy his grandkids.  He deserves it.

MILB: "Dreaming of You" by The Coral

I've changed my mind about this blog post at least 4 times in the last 10 minutes.  I've actually written 2 of them, and then erased them.  They were, "Head Like a Hole" and "Hey Man Nice Shot."  Both of those titles should tell you all you need to know about my mindset the last few days.  That's just angry music.

Then, as I was writing the Head Like a Hole blog, my iPod turned to a band called The Coral.  They're from the Wirral Peninsula in Northern England, near Liverpool.  (In fact, most people I know from there just say Liverpool when talking to Americans, because it's hard to understand when they say Wirral.)  The Wirral is an interesting place, with a pretty rich music history.  The Boo Radleys, Paul Heaton from Beautiful South and the band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are from there, and Elvis Costello formed his first band there.  So, nice little musical influences.

The Coral are a straight up Mersey-side sounding band.  1960s sound, with folk and guitar mixed in.  "Dreaming of You" was their first big hit, and was a smash on both sides of the Atlantic.  (That doesn't always happen.  Ask Robbie Williams why he can live in the US and not be mobbed, but can't walk anywhere in the UK.)  The song evoked a simple mid-1960s sound that brings to mind The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers.  But, definitely brings to mind, "My World is Empty Without You Babe" from The Supremes.  (Taking in yet another Mersey-side tradition, ripping off American Girl Groups as George Harrison did accidentally with "My Sweet Lord", taking the tune from The Chiffons, "He's so Fine".  "My Sweet Lord" is a great song too, btw.)

It's an upbeat song that moves quickly, and has a quirky use of a 1960s synthesizer. It's a give-a-way song, to be honest.  It's about a young man that's in love with a girl, but he's got to get rid of her.  (At least that's my interpretation.)  With lyrics like, "Up in my lonely room/when I'm dreaming of you/oh what can I do/I still need you but/I don't want you now" you know you've got a great song. The lyrics are fantastic, but don't really match the jaunty tune.  It's a little like listening to the lyrics of "I Ain't missing you at all" and the completely at odds chorus.  The two shouldn't go together, but they do. The 2nd verse starts, "When I'm down and my hands are tied (hands are tied)/I cannot reach a pen for me to draw the line."  How great is that?  I mean, it's brilliant.

The video is even crazier, with a guy dressed like General Patton, a bear with a trumpet and everyone singing and playing in a tiny room covered in posters from the band.  This is just crazy.  I mean, in the part where he's singing about pain, the guy kicks the bear in the groin.  Then they somehow end up on a beach after riding BMX bikes in front of a screen showing them on roads, apparently on the Wirral.  It's insane.

Look for the video, and then go listen to the tune.  It'll definitely give you a more positive outlook.  I know it has for me today.

Training to be like Carson on Downton Abbey.

So we've got a CODEL here this week.  (CODEL is short for Congressional Delegation.)  As CODELS go, this one is actually quite nice.  The Congressmen and Senators are very cool, and they are really here to do some good work.  The head of the delegation is a task master who keeps everyone in control and together, and we appreciate that very much.

However, as a Management Officer, I'm the one that needs to make sure they are taken care of and that if they want something it's done immediately.  This can be difficult, but more so when you're in a Consulate located very close to the Embassy.  There's always a clash over who does what and when.  Still, my job is make sure that the CODEL doesn't see the strings and wires of the place.

When I posted yesterday on Facebook that this job sometimes trains me to be Carson on "Downton Abbey" I wasn't joking.  Yesterday I arrived at the airport, arranged the vehicles, ensured there was water on each vehicle for everyone (it is 5,000 ft above sea-level here, so water is a necessity), and unloaded luggage for the plane.  When one of the Senators needed his bag immediately, along with one of his staffers, to go meet the Premier of Gauteng, I scrambled through the luggage, got it scanned, and brought it in myself.  (Just like Carson would have done on the show.)  I then drove straight to the hotel they are staying in so I could greet the party as they walked through the doors, helped place their luggage in their rooms, and made sure everyone could cash a check if they needed money.  I even had my staff make dining reservations for the entire group, at two different places, just so they could have a choice.

So Concierge, Major Domo, Management Officer.  Sounds about right.  I will now have to do it all in reverse tonight as they leave late.  What this means is for the second night in a row I don't get to put my kids to bed.  My son will have to wait another night to look through the telescope I bought him.  (He's already told me we have to look at the stars before we can go to them.  Pretty sharp that kid.)

What you have to understand though, is that this isn't a once-off.  This is part of my job.  We have visitors all the time, and we do this because it is expected of us to do so.  To be honest, I'm not that upset about having people come.  They can see what we do, and the good work we do in the countries we're assigned.  They can see that there is worth to having us out here, and maybe they'll remember that in the future.

At least I don't have to iron the newspapers before they read it.

MILB: "How Soon is Now?" by The Smiths.

I had a friend growing up that LOVED the Smiths.  This was in 1986, so she was vanguard at the time.  I had no clue who this group was, but she used to talk about them, Depeche Mode and The Cure.  While I slowly understood the Depeche Mode (Violator is still a great album) and The Cure (Disintegration rocks), I never really got into The Smiths.  I knew who Steven Morrissey was, of course, but had no clue as to Johnny Marr.  These were the brains behind the group, and they're all that matter in this story.

The band is from Manchester, and were part of the scene that produced The Buzzcocks, Joy Division and others from that time period.  In fact, Morrissey talked to Tony Wilson, of Factory Records, asking him to sign The Smiths.  Tony passed, to his regret.  (But he didn't sign Simply Red either, so 1 for 2 on right calls.)

Johnny Marr wrote the music, Morrissey wrote the words.  They were songs of alienation and not quite fitting in.  (Mostly taken as gay anthems, everyone believing Morrissey was gay.)  Morrissey is also a vegetarian, as you can tell from the album "Meat is Murder."  The Smiths wrote great music, but it was terribly maudlin to me.

The first I ever really came across Morrissey was in High School, when he released, "The More You Ignore Me the Closer I Get."  Seemed quite pretentious really.  He stated he was vegetarian and a-sexual.  (Which lead to a great letter to the editor in Spin magazine, supposedly, stating that what he really needed was a cheeseburger and a good... well you get it.)

To be honest, I actually remember the first time I heard "How Soon Is Now?"  It was on a road trip with my fraternity brothers to Old Dominion University to a party.  We'd been invited, and my friend Espo (also called Yosarian) was driving us.  He put this song on as we made the turn to Norfolk.  (It was then he rear-ended a car and knocked the tape out of the radio.)

The first thing you hear on the song is the oscillating guitar.  It's been run through a loop, and is continuous, which is then complimented with a slide guitar riff.  It gives the song a dark feel, with the song moving quickly.  Morrissey's voice comes in with one of the greatest opening lines in 1980s music: "I am the son, and the heir, of a shyness that is criminally vulgar.  I am the son and heir, of nothing in particular."  Then comes the chorus, "I am Human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does."

One of the most quoted lines of the song goes like this: "So you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own, and you go home and you cry and you want to die."  Now, for someone that is extremely shy, or unsure of themselves with low self-esteem (like I was during my high school and university years) that is powerful stuff.  You know what it's like to be at a dance and not be able to ask anyone out, or to just feel like no one gets you.  Again, did I listen to pop music because I was depressed, or was I depressed because I listened to pop music.  (Nick Hornby, you're a genius.  Call me, we'll chat.)

Listen, I still find Morrissey pretentious as hell, and think that he sometimes just dabbles with controversy to be controversial.  But this is one heck of a good track.  I mean, the cover version of it was used as the theme song for "Charmed" and fit perfectly.  (Although I prefer the original.)  It's probably one of the best songs from the 1980s, and definitely gets a turned up radio from me whenever I hear it.

Sometimes the timeframe gives you a chance to be Diplomatic

and Sometimes it doesn't.  That's what I wrote yesterday, and I meant it.  As a Management Officer for the Department of State, you play a quite tricky role.  You are both Colleague, and Service Provider.  Some people can separate the two, and some people can't.  It's a tightrope, that's for sure.

Sometimes I'm given a situation where I have time to massage egos, work with people on alternatives, and try my best to ensure that if people aren't happy, at least they aren't at my office door with pitchforks and burning torches.

(Quick side tangent: Why have we done away with pitchforks and torches?  Such a cool image, and much better than showing up with a MAC-10.)

Anyways, that's what I'd like to say happens the most in the Department of State.  However, sometimes I'm given tasks that have to happen immediately, and involves moving or upsetting people.  I don't have time to massage egos, kiss babies or do the things that would make it easier on everyone.  Sometimes, I have to have what I like to call, "Danny Glover Days."

As you may recall from "Lethal Weapon", Danny Glover always says that he's "Too old for this sh*t."  Basically he says this before doing something that's crazy.

Well, that's what happens with me.  Say I've got to add an office to an area within 2 weeks, but the current occupants are angry that I'm taking their space and claim that they don't know anything about it, even though we've had numerous discussions on the topic.  Well, then it's time for Danny Glover to come out.  I need to get things done, and sometimes you just have to tell people, "Well, this is what I was tasked with doing by higher-ups.  Now you can argue with me, but tomorrow all those desks will be cleared and we'll start construction anyways."

My boss always says: "As a Management Officer, if more than 20% of the office is mad at you, you're probably too strict.  If less than 15% is mad at you, you're too lenient."  He's right.  It's a thin line between being too harsh and too soft.  It's almost enough to make you pull out your hair (if you aren't losing it by now.)

Still, I enjoy my job.  And rarely does Danny Glover have to come out.

(BTW, I've reached almost 3000 views in less than a year.  Thank you to everyone who is reading.  Never knew I had so many fans in Russia, but they are #2 on my views list.)

MILB: "Hard to Handle" by Otis Redding

Some songs you listen to and they just make you feel good and want to dance.  Most things by Otis Redding fall into that category.

Sadly I wasn't introduced to "Hard to Handle" through Otis Redding. I originally listened to the version by the Black Crowes.  Dont' get me wrong, it's a great song, and i actually like the Black Crowes.  ("Remedy" is one of my all-time favorite songs.)  It's just I wish I had heard Otis first.

Otis Redding was the singer in front of one of the greatest Rhythm and Blues bands ever: The house band at Stax Records, who basically were Booker T and the MGs.  Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, Booker T. Jones, Al Jackson, Jr.and a horn section.  Their sound made Stax Records.  Stax was famous for "The Memphis Sound" just like Mo-town was the sound of Detroit.

Now, onto "Hard to Handle."  This song just moves.  The start with a piano and bass playing the first 5 notes, followed by the horns filing in a measure later.  The subtle but essential guitar by Steve Cropper just adds to the music.  It's gives it a roundness that fills the space.  It never feels busy, although many of the musicians are playing different parts at the same time.  It's tight, and makes you realize that they must have practiced this NUMEROUS times.  Throw in Redding, and this turns from a song into 2 minutes 18 seconds of pure happiness.  

The song is just fantastic.  Just a bit rude, but in a cheeky way.  Redding is trying to seduce a woman but do it in a way with a smile and self-deprecating boasts.  Great lines like, "Boys will come a dime by the dozen/ but that ain't nothin but ten cent lovin."  Just fantastic.

The sad part is that we don't have much music from Otis.  Steve Cropper talks in an interview I read about how it makes him angry sometimes that he didn't get to make more music with Otis.  He thought they had much more music to make and give to the world, and it makes him angry and sad that he never got the chance.  Otis was one hell of a performer.  (Listen to the live version of "Satisfaction" he did or find a video.  That man put on a hell of a show.)  He was a bit of a shouter on many of the upbeat records, which I think we can forgive him for because the shouting was awesome.  He also had a great voice though, shown through "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay."  (I used to listen to this song after being dumped.  In other words, I listened to it a lot.)  Otis was amazing, and this song should get more airplay than it does.  Go find yourself some Otis Redding and listen to the man perform, but also take time to listen to the music.  The house band at Stax was probably one of the best ever assembled.  Booker T was great on the organ and piano, Dunn was a very much underrated bassist, and Steve Cropper is an amazing guitarist.  (He even gets a shout out in the song "Soul Man" by Sam & Dave.  "Play it, Steve!")  Try to find anything from Stax records in the 1960s.  Not only did they have this group, but Isaac Hayes was writing music for them, and they had Wilson Pickett, The Bar-Kays, Sam & Dave and numerous others.  You'll like it, I promise.  But maybe not as much as "Hard to Handle."

The ICASS Survey

At the Consulate, I basically run a Customer Service Organization.  We deal with customers all the time, and my salary is actually paid by the people who I serve.  This is all done through a Cost-Sharing mechanism called ICASS.  ICASS stands for International Cooperative Administrative Support Services.  Basically, we take all the things we offer here Management-wise (HR, Procurement, Motor Pool, etc.) and break it down by usage.  Offices subscribe to what they want, and we charge them based off how many people are in their offices.  Simple right?  Not really, but that's as simple as it gets.

Now, every year around this time worldwide, we do a survey to see how we're doing.  Basically we ask everyone, local and US, who works at the Embassy or Consulate can fill in the survey.  It's anonymous, and you rate how satisfied you are with the services you've received.  But there's more!  Not only can the US officers reply, but so can their spouses or significant others, or their children older than 16 that reside at home!  This means you can have over 100% reply rate.

Why am I telling you this when you didn't ask and probably don't care?  Well, right now I'm in the midst of trying to get people to do the survey.  Many other Management Officers have done things like doing videos on YouTube to promote the survey.  (Go to YouTube and try searching for ICASS Music Video.  Not going to link to it because I don't want to encourage other FS officers to try their hand at singing.)

I've been wracking my brain trying to find a way to inspire my Consulate to get going and fill out the forms.  I've tried the, "We won't know what needs to be fixed if you don't tell us" route.  I've tried the, "If you don't take the time to fill out the form, then you can't complain" route.  I even tried nagging.

Then I hit upon two great ideas.  Not just a brain storm, but a head hurricane.  A veritable brain blizzard.  Since Lovely English Lass bought me an Ice Cream Maker for Christmas, and I've been getting a lot of practice using it lately, why not have an ice cream party for the section with the highest percentage of votes?  And what if at that party the head of the section with the highest percentage of votes got to hit me in the face with a whipped cream pie?  That's certainly worked in the past.

(Short digression: When I was a Senior at University, I ran the yearly auction for the University's band to raise funds.  After we ran out of things to auction, it was suggested that I put myself up to be hit by a pie in the face.  So I agreed.  Then, to my horror, I saw two of my exes get together to pool their money and drive up the price!  Yeah, that wasn't fun at all.  I kept waiting for them to argue over who got to do it, basing off of which one I'd wronged the most.  That didn't happen though, as they were very lady-like in deciding who would cram a pie in my face.  I probably deserved it.  Digression over.)

So I sent out my email today with the added bonus of the pie in the face.  The only person that read it was my boss, which is what I always suspected.  However, to ensure that EVERYONE saw it, he then sent it back out to everyone in the Consulate, ensuring that it was read by everybody.

Well, now I have no choice but to go through with it.  Hopefully it won't be someone with a vendetta against me hitting me in the face with a pie.  (I have delicate features, thank you.)  But it is a necessary evil.  If I'm to provide good service to my customers, then I need to hear what they have to say.  This is the best way to do it.  So if I have to make ice cream for people who will then cheer as I get hit in the face with a pie, then that's what I'll do.  Just so I don't have to sing.  NO ONE deserves that.