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Work/Preparedness
Sep. 2nd, 2005 09:01 pmI decided to tell my boss about someone else getting the job I applied for. But I did wait until the next day. I don't think he knew it already.
The job re-classification process involves our personnel guys, my boss's boss, that guy's boss, I think one other person, and the big HR department. The paperwork is now at the big HR department, the final stop. However, since the fiscal year just ended, they're doing re-appointments all over the place, so it will be a while before they get to my thing. Meanwhile my boss said he's asking for a higher salary than the minimum, and for it to be back-dated to yesterday. Amazing.
In the latest renovation plan, I get a slightly bigger cube and it has a window and it's out of the way and away from the noise. I was realizing that's the way you can really tell your worth in a company, by what kind of office they give you. So while I would not have minded an office in the basement (so long as I had, you know, a chair, a desk, a computer, and room for one extra person in there for training), this probably means my boss really does think well of me and is not just acting like he does for ulterior motives. Which is good to know. And also a relief. (Which doesn't mean that I won't still be a little cautious in the future.)
I'm on my last chapter of Collapse, finishing it off as I read about conditions in New Orleans. Overly appropriate.
People talk about how the residents should have known to do this and that. They've already had ten major storms since June 1, and instructions to evacuate three or four of those times. After a while, it's like crying wolf. I know when my family used to evacuate from Houston regularly (great excuse to visit relatives in Dallas), people made fun of my mom and she got tired of using up her vacation time for that. We never took all our most irreplaceable inanimate things like photo albums.
So now I've been wondering about what I should be knowing to do. What are the natural disasters that can happen in my part of the country? Flooding is the obvious one--I'm on the edge of a hundred-year flood plain. I think my back fence is on the border, but the apartments behind me don't look any less safe than my place (except that all their land is impermeable parking lot). I have flood insurance (which you have to go out of your way to buy in addition to regular housing insurance). And we just put batteries in the flashlight.
But I also store good books on bottom shelves. I do not have a battery-powered radio. (Wait. Maybe I do.) Or a boat (a canoe would be good, right?). Or sewer backflow valves (probably) (which I never heard of until today). Or, you know, a second floor. Or an attic that doesn't have nails sticking down into it from the roof to keep poking you in the head because you are taller than the roof is high. Or an escape hatch from the attic to the roof (like, say, a window). (And that maybe you could fit a canoe through.)
The easy research is annoying. Contact your bureaucratic blah blah to find out if you are in a floodplain and what the expected flood level is. Expected flood level? Huh? I guess since I'm not in the floodplain (as last calculated), my official expected flood level is still none. But anyway, then raise all your electrical stuff above that level--which can be done only by a highly qualified expensive professional. Seal the bottom two feet of your house in waterproof lining covered in brick. Which will require you to expand your house's foundation. All of which can be done only by a highly qualified expensive professional. You may also construct barriers around your house blah blah. Yeah, that's neighborly. More research is in order.
The job re-classification process involves our personnel guys, my boss's boss, that guy's boss, I think one other person, and the big HR department. The paperwork is now at the big HR department, the final stop. However, since the fiscal year just ended, they're doing re-appointments all over the place, so it will be a while before they get to my thing. Meanwhile my boss said he's asking for a higher salary than the minimum, and for it to be back-dated to yesterday. Amazing.
In the latest renovation plan, I get a slightly bigger cube and it has a window and it's out of the way and away from the noise. I was realizing that's the way you can really tell your worth in a company, by what kind of office they give you. So while I would not have minded an office in the basement (so long as I had, you know, a chair, a desk, a computer, and room for one extra person in there for training), this probably means my boss really does think well of me and is not just acting like he does for ulterior motives. Which is good to know. And also a relief. (Which doesn't mean that I won't still be a little cautious in the future.)
I'm on my last chapter of Collapse, finishing it off as I read about conditions in New Orleans. Overly appropriate.
People talk about how the residents should have known to do this and that. They've already had ten major storms since June 1, and instructions to evacuate three or four of those times. After a while, it's like crying wolf. I know when my family used to evacuate from Houston regularly (great excuse to visit relatives in Dallas), people made fun of my mom and she got tired of using up her vacation time for that. We never took all our most irreplaceable inanimate things like photo albums.
So now I've been wondering about what I should be knowing to do. What are the natural disasters that can happen in my part of the country? Flooding is the obvious one--I'm on the edge of a hundred-year flood plain. I think my back fence is on the border, but the apartments behind me don't look any less safe than my place (except that all their land is impermeable parking lot). I have flood insurance (which you have to go out of your way to buy in addition to regular housing insurance). And we just put batteries in the flashlight.
But I also store good books on bottom shelves. I do not have a battery-powered radio. (Wait. Maybe I do.) Or a boat (a canoe would be good, right?). Or sewer backflow valves (probably) (which I never heard of until today). Or, you know, a second floor. Or an attic that doesn't have nails sticking down into it from the roof to keep poking you in the head because you are taller than the roof is high. Or an escape hatch from the attic to the roof (like, say, a window). (And that maybe you could fit a canoe through.)
The easy research is annoying. Contact your bureaucratic blah blah to find out if you are in a floodplain and what the expected flood level is. Expected flood level? Huh? I guess since I'm not in the floodplain (as last calculated), my official expected flood level is still none. But anyway, then raise all your electrical stuff above that level--which can be done only by a highly qualified expensive professional. Seal the bottom two feet of your house in waterproof lining covered in brick. Which will require you to expand your house's foundation. All of which can be done only by a highly qualified expensive professional. You may also construct barriers around your house blah blah. Yeah, that's neighborly. More research is in order.