One of Those Weeks
It’s been one of “Those Weeks,” folks. No further description is necessary. I know that every week is a week, but not every week is one of “Those Weeks.” “Those Weeks” should have their own designation, like Black History Month, Earth Day, National Honest Government Millisecond, that sort of thing.
It’s not like “Those Days.” Everybody has those, several of them a month, at least. But “Those Weeks” are so much more rare and special that they should be recognized. Maybe even have a “National Those Weeks Day” in the middle of it, so banks and government offices can close and then the entire Navy staff can go ashore and leave me alone to collect double-time and a half for eight hours of doing nothing.
It would not count as one of “Those Days” because it would actually be a very good day, and very good days are never “Those Days.” “Those Days” are days where a certain solid waste material which shall remain nameless makes solid contact with rotary-bladed cooling appliances, at least in a figurative sense. At least it is figurative now, but at one point in time, I am guessing that it must have actually happened. Otherwise, who would have thought of such an analogy on their own? Unless that person was having one of “Those Days” and was trying to think of something worse in order to cheer themselves up.
There are different types of “Those Weeks.” The most severe kind are the ones where everything bad happens to you at once: You lose your job, you dog dies, your truck is stolen, your wife leaves you (or doesn’t), and your still blows up. These are generally the worst kind of “Those Weeks” and may qualify you for federal assistance. You might want to ask that irritating guy on TV who wrote a best-selling book about getting free money from the government and spent all his royalties on that suit with the question marks all over it. Or not.
Then there are extremely mild “Those Weeks.” so mild that they wouldn’t even be classified as “Those Weeks” except that rich people keep insisting on calling them that. This kind of “Those Week” is discovering that your pool filter is clogged, the upstairs maid called in sick, your favorite polo pony threw a shoe, and the Rolls has a knot in the seatbelt. These may also qualify you for federal assistance, provided you have a canceled campaign contribution check for identification. To ensure maximum recompense, be sure you use the one that was made out to the winning side.
Then there is my “Those Weeks,” not as bad as the severe kind nor as mild as the rich kind, a sort of Middle-Class “Those Week,” which, of course, means there will be no federal help for me whatsoever. Specifically, this was the kind of “Those Weeks” where all the stuff you really dislike doing all has to be done at once. In my case, it was the dreaded II - Inspection and Inventory.
Every 18 months or so, we are subject to an inspection of our facilities and procedures for maintaining classified material. It’s not like one of those “I would tell you but then I’d have to kill you” type of things, but if I did tell you then I might have to tell somebody else who WOULD kill you, but only after killing me first.
To prepare for this inspection, I conduct a “pre-inspection” using a 20-page checklist, which I go through thoroughly, thoughtfully and carefully until about page 16 or so when my eyes start to bug out and I say the hell with it and start pencil-whipping everything.
Then the Chief Staff Officer goes through the list and notates all the mistakes I thoroughly, thoughtfully and carefully made along with all the ones on the last four pages that I never even bothered to read. It takes him 2 days to do it, because if he tried to do it in one, his eyes would bug out and he’d start pencil-whipping everything. Can’t have that.
And who knows? Perhaps this year the inspectors might actually show up. I am not holding my breath however. They usually like to show up right after a fire, or when the ship has just been salvaged from the ocean floor, so they can check to see if we conducted emergency action procedures properly.
Then there is the annual inventory, where I go through the shop and the storeroom and count and record hundreds of parts I don’t need and wouldn’t know what to do with if I did for equipment I no longer use but they won’t let me get rid of. I have inventoried the same little plastic baggy with the three 2.2 ohm resistors for 5 years running. They look like little striped candies with wires running through them. I am thinking of turning them into earrings, at least they would be of some use that way.
I inventory tech manuals, some that are so old they mention replacing the vacuum tubes. I have no idea what equipment these manuals are for. I just count them, write down the numbers, and stick them back in the cabinet. They could be the Dead Sea Scrolls for all I know. Did any of those scrolls happen to mention vacuum tubes?
So that was my week. How was yours? Hopefully it wasn’t one of “Those,” unless you got some money for it.
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