Sharing photos, videos, vintage images I've discovered, and -- occasionally -- commentary and thoughts from retired life and travels.

training

Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho… (not yet!)

January 25, 2008

work graphic

I’ve not started back to work on the contract job yet. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ll probably be out there sometime next week — perhaps.

The real surprise is that it’s occurring at all.

Three years ago, I was in a situation where I really needed help to get everything done that needed to be done. One of the options that was attempted was to bring back another instructor who had retired a couple of years earlier. He would be a contract instructor, much like what I will be doing.

It never happened.

A couple of years later, I happened to run into the man they had wanted to come back as a contractor. He said he had been willing to do it, but after they had initially talked to him, he hadn’t heard anything from them. I subsequently found out that they had not been able to get approval for hiring a contractor.

My contract manager — the guy used to be my boss — called me today about documentation on some of my qualifications, so things are apparently still moving ahead. It appears part of the problem is that recent restructuring has reduced the number of people in the corporate office that looks at contracts from eight people down to one part-time employee who only works three afternoons a week. I’ve heard that other departments are having similar problems.

Maybe Monday. However, I’m planning on going to the bi-weekly retiree breakfast. (They’ll get a kick out of this run-around.)

I’ll have my cell phone with me.

……Previous posts on this (most recent on top):

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Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, it’s….

January 17, 2008

That’s right. The funding for my contract was approved. I start next Wednesday. It’s a 26 week gig, 40 hours a week.

The money is good — a bit less than I was hoping for, but more than the minimum I would have accepted. No per diem as it’s a local job. Of course, this is in addition to my pension, plus we won’t have to touch our investments this year.

With this “bump” in my plans, I won’t be spending a lot of time trying to monetize my sites for a while.

related posts:

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The BIG BUMP revealed

January 11, 2008

Training Center Upper Level HallwayA couple of days ago, I posted BIG BUMP in the road for my online plans…. perhaps and there were a number of comments wondering what the heck was up.

Opal already knew as I had mentioned it was a possibility a while back, so I asked her not to give up the secret. (Thanks Opal for the comment… it was perfect!)

Oh and the picture on the post — the same one I’ve posted here — did apply very specifically to this situation.

I’ll use Teeni’s questions and my answers for part of an explanation…

  • Just what is this all about? Just wait an opportunity
  • Will you tell us soon? Likely so right now
  • How much longer do we have to wait? Not Long now
  • Is it good? Depends on the perspective, but in many ways, yes for me, yes
  • Are you getting a new job? Not really.. It’s doing some of the parts of my old job that I really enjoyed, with people I know well, and with very good compensation, so it’s not really a new job — plus, it’s only a limited engagement.
  • New camera? Don’t need one. N/A
  • New computer? Don’t need one, but there might be something about it that brings one. I’ll have to have a computer and access into the company’s network to do the work. It won’t be my computer, but it’ll be assigned to me.
  • New travel plans? There is some travel involved, but it’s not far. The travel route is virtually the same as I’ve done well over 1000 times over the years and most days it will be over, under or near the Exit78 overpass.

The main thing I am waiting on is approval for the funding and it’s at the VP level right now. They’ve already got me on the schedule — which I have a copy of — for a week from this coming Monday.

More later!

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I should have been an English major

September 30, 2007

Written September 2004

I should have been an English major — at least, that’s what Glenda told me in freshman English.

I didn’t tell her that I couldn’t take the pay cut.

Who was Glenda and why should she care about my major?

Glenda was the lady who was teaching the class and the wife of the dean. She later taught freshman English to my wife and high school senior English to both of my daughters.

Now I don’t really know an adverb from an adjective, but I can usually tell a noun from a verb. Conjunction and participle are just words to me. I probably knew what all of them meant at one time, but not any more. If I need to know what they are, I can learn them for a class, for a short time, but that knowledge is just that, short term retention.

What I learned and retained long term was functional English. I passed English in high school and earlier – did okay, in fact – but I’m sure that I didn’t excel. However, I did learn how to use the tool that is English.

Today, my use of the English language is what feels right for me. And usually, not always, what feels right is right… because that’s the way I learned it.

I find it difficult to read material that doesn’t follow the standard rules that I learned, material that is consistently grammatically wrong. (Unfortunately, this includes almost all poetry, which requires addition concentration for me to get through.)

Glenda’s comment that I should have been an English major was in reference to what was done in class and turned in for credit. It was about what I wrote and how I expressed myself.

I like to write, but I would hate to do it as a job.

I’ve imagined writing a novel. Who hasn’t. I’ve even started a couple of times, outlining the story and even starting with the first chapter. I’ve written a short story that I never shared with anyone and poetry that was lost to my youth.

Writing for a living is hard work.

I could have been an English major.

If I had, I would probably ended up as an English teacher.

I couldn’t take the pay cut… so I didn’t major in English.

September 30th, 2007 addendum — so here I find myself retired and writing material that I self-publish online. Ironic or what?

Though not lost, archived version was found on Internet Archive WayBack Machine review 2/25/2011, page, and 2/26/2011, page.  Was not restored to the originally published date since there were comments for the 2007 updated post. (written September 26, 2004; revised September 30, 2007) However, in the effort to find the right place for this post, the comments were lost and, subsequently, restored.

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Getting some OJT

September 4, 2007

Tomorrow, I’ll be getting some OJT — on-the-job training — on how to set up an internet satellite system.

Except it’s not exactly on-the-job, since I don’t have one — a job, that is.

The guy that’s going to provide the training doesn’t have one, either. He makes some money doing it, but it’s extra money, not a job type money. He’s retired, too.

After researching internet satellite systems, I decided this is the way that I wanted to go. I’m sure that I could have a system sent to me and I could figure out how to do it. There’s some manuals on-line that tell you how to do it.

However, after 20-plus years as an instructor, I know that the best way to learn in most instances is to watch someone else do it, then practice it, and then do it again. That’s how Ron does his training.

Another good thing about it — there’s no test! The criteria for successful completion of the training is that it is over when I feel comfortable setting the system up.

2007 will be the first year for me since 1957 that I haven’t had to take some kind of test.

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Vacation – What Vacation?

August 15, 2007

Last Friday, I stopped in at the training center where I used to work. I like to do that every now and again, though I’m sure as time goes by it will occur less and less often.

When I was talking to one of the operators during their lunch break, he asked me if I was enjoying my time off.

I looked at him and, with a straight face, said something like, “Time off from what?”

When he realized where the question was coming from, we both had a chuckle.

Words and phrases sometimes mean different things at different stages of one’s life.

Vacation, to a child, means summer, because, here in the US, most kids are off from school for most of the summer. To an adult, vacation often means trips and travel — getting away from the stress and strain of the job — what Europeans refer to as holiday.

When one is retired, vacation and time off are pretty much meaningless. I’m not employed and I don’t have any plans to be — at least not in the near future — so there’s nothing to take time off from. We are now on our third trip of 2007. We will have been gone from home for a total of nearly three months this year. It’s kind of hard to term any of that a vacation.

Well, technically, I guess the first trip was vacation. I was still employed, using up my 2007 vacation prior to my retirement day. I guess I was taking time off, then, too, though all I had to do was go back to go through the formalities of terminating — by retiring — my employment.

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