Never mind

Today I sat in a meeting, the purpose of which was to determine if the alternative evaluation criteria laid out for a proposed project are on-point or not. I think I was the only person in the room without an engineering degree, or for that matter without a degree of any kind. To say that these meetings can be mind numbing would be to create false hope for excitement. These kinds of meetings are the reason electro shock was invented!!

So we’re going through all the categories, the objective for each and the measurement for each objective and scoring ranges. So it’s pretty much blah, blah, blah, blah, blah until we get to the last category “Stakeholders” of which the general public is included. At last, my area of expertise!!!

While the blah, blah, blah, blah, blahing was going on I was going through the spreadsheets, diagrams, and site photos, and I notice a glaring problem. So, up to this point they have discussed every aspect of measurement related to the choice of options A or B. Now they’re down to me and I have to inform them that they have a potentially fatal flaw in both alternatives, as well as point out to them that even though public opinion accounts for only 3% of the total scoring, that 3% could be a deal breaker in reality.

You could just hear the mental brakes being applied. One of the engineers presenting has a hard time with my evaluation and pushes a bit. She’s understandably concerned about having to redo work she already spent a great amount of time on. It doesn’t take too long until the whole group sees what I’m saying and begins to look at how to work the problem.

That is the awesome thing about working with the people I work with; we really care how our work impacts the public on multiple levels. I received one of THOSE emails this morning which basically calls us a bunch of unfeeling, stupid, incompetent jerks who are just trying to wreck everyone’s lives. I just want to smack people that send me this stuff!! Of course I don’t, instead I spend an hour and a half putting together a response then send it around for comments, and then spend another hour incorporating all the comments into an official response. I also have to copy the aids to three city council members because this guy copied all of them on the original email.

I blame this kind of behavior on politicians, who are always talking about “making efficiencies” in budgets instead of calling them what they really are, cut backs. When you talk about budget cuts in these terms you are inherently implying that government has been wasting tax dollars by being inefficient, or wasteful. So not true!!!

It’s like when I’m talking to people and they start going off about how government is problem and cause of everything. How you can’t expect anything out of government workers. I’m like, HEY, I’m standing right here! Do you realize you’re talking about me? Do you realize what you pay me, and that you’re a pretty sucky boss?!! But do I go around spewing that around the universe? --- Wait, maybe that’s what I’m doing now. So, in the immortal words of Roseanne Roseannadanna, “Never mind.”