Well, here we are on our second-to-last evening in Guam. There is only one reason why we come to Guam: to get things done. There is a US Naval base here, so this is the time that the Navy staff and its civilian minions – namely me – go ashore to take care of official stuff, like medical and dental appointments, supplies, technical issues, admin issues, and drinking at the Clipper Landing bar. Well, that last one isn’t official, but we do it anyway. I mean, as long as we’re here and all that.
However, this time, some genius – who will go unidentified as he is no longer around to defend himself (and believe me, he’d need to) – decided that the holiday season was a great time for us to come to Guam. Now, this person is a veteran of the Navy, so he should have known that the holiday season is the WORST possible time to try and get things done at a military base. No-one is home!
Oh sure, you got your standby crews ready to defend against a surprise attack…assuming they are sober, which one should never assume, but as far as basic support activities, you have about as much chance of finding a Navy desk-jockey as you would calling a tech support 800 number and getting someone for whom English is a first language. They are not to be found.
You want to call a stranger and hear an actual American voice? Try 976. But you didn’t hear that from me.
Anyway, we got here two days before New Year’s Day, which meant that everyone was either a) recuperating from Christmas, b) stocking up on booze for New Year’s Eve, or c) stocking up on aspirin to help recuperate from New Year’s. So here we are, stuck by this Navy base an $80 cab ride from town, and we STILL can’t get anything done until Monday.
In the meantime, I was busy with all the out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new stuff that always has to be done with the changing of the calendar year. In the military, we actually have two New Year’s days. One is the traditional January 1st, and the other is the previous October 1st, which marks the beginning of the New FISCAL Year. If you ask me, the fiscal year is what some government hack thought up in order to screw things up even more than they already were. Suffice it to say, he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams which, seeing as he was a government worker, probably weren’t all that wild. Unless he was Bill Clinton.
But to get back to what I was saying – I am assuming you are still reading this which means either a) you are a glutton for punishment or b) in desperate need of a hobby – the New Year brings with it the prerequisite paperwork and red tape. I had to generate three separate reports just to move five pieces of material from a safe in my vault to another safe in the communications room. The vault and the comm room are separated by a door, Which is always open.
And finally, Monday rolled around and all the Navy office folks were back at work, so I went ashore to get things done. Unfortunately, so did about 2000 other people who had been waiting on them. They generously provided two people to take care of us. After a two-hour wait, I finally gave up and, my hopes and dreams crushed, returned to the ship to try again another day. Of which we only have one more before we sail off again.
I wonder if everybody in Washington DC goes out and gets drunk for Fiscal New Year’s Eve. I would. In fact I think I will. Right now. For New Fiscal Year’s Eve 2010. Nothing like getting an early start.
