Not sure what the right verb to describe my departure from New Jersey, but, in the end, I’m home two weeks early. Sequester, the noun that has become a verb, might be part of it.
Glad to be home early, was getting pretty tired of being out there. Family decision to go was based somewhat on the premise that I’d be working a lot; by the end 40-hour weeks were the standard fare…..that’s a lot of time in a hotel room not working and a lot of time for Suzanne and three boys at home without me.
Let’s spend one more moment on Sandy damage. Or, better said, the best example I have of how the process doesn’t work sometimes…
I’m working with this elementary school; they finally send me their list of contents that are damaged from the building. It has your standard list of books, chairs, computers, furniture, and assorted stuff that is ruined when you get six feet of salt water. And all of the contents seemed to make sense. Except for that $83,000 line item for tennis court resurfacing. They hadn’t mentioned a problem with the tennis courts to me during two previous site visits.
Call them up, hey, what’s up with this? Oh yeah, we had some damage and cracking from the flooding, we’ll need to resurface the courts…
I have to drive back out to take pictures of this…and find out, well, that the ‘cracking’ is damn near non-existent. I’ve seen a lot of tennis courts in the last 12 months; these looked great!
Here’s the cracking….right near that post. I think it was there before the flooding; can’t prove it, can’t prove the flooding didn’t cause it.
So, go back to HQ to discuss. And am surprised at the varying level of reactions; I’m firmly in the camp that I’m not writing up 83K of repairs here; they could talk me into $2K for the repairs around the pole, but, I think that is pushing it.
My office mate is older and more fatalistic; FEMA paid that out in New Orleans, they’ll do it here, why fight it….My boss is on the fence but also thinks that if they school appeals they’ll get it just to stop the fighting….
In the end, I excluded it…if someone later wants to change my decision fine, but, I wasn’t writing up anything I wasn’t comfortable with.
