Apres le Deluge, Moi

After twenty four days, we still have pumps going in our heroic efforts to keep the ground water from flooding the basement again. Frankly, I am getting too old for this shite.

The DPW water guys came out and looked around and confirmed that it was high ground water and not a broken water main. Ergo, not their problem. Then, on Tuesday, after a few more calls to the DPW, two highway engineers pulled up in the big orange truck. After looking at the water flowing out the pump hoses, one of them asked me,
"Did it flood from the 50 year event or the 500 year event?" He was referring to the terms the weather guys are using to describe about the succession of freakish storms that inundated southern New England over the past weeks. March was the all time wettest month since they started keeping records. The engineers felt that this was indeed a freak event, that the water table will eventually recede, and chances are we will probably not see a recurrence in our lifetime.

Not much consolation there. The flood has not been kind to many of my memories. I am still leafing through the damp file folders that got drenched in the March 15th flood to see what I have lost. Admittedly, most of the paper that was being saved was toss-able. I am unlikely to need copies of old performance reviews, project plans, write-ups and miscellaneous business flotsam.
The performance reviews were full of ego bruising bureaucratic negativism anyhow, written by over-controlling micro-managers whose fanatical fixation on trivial issues (on-time, under budget, happy customers) manifest the their collective judgement that my work was merely "satisfactory." The project plans were being saved for reasons unknown. Not one of my projects came in on time or under budget, and more than one of them were simply abandoned after months of management dithering.
Among the write-ups I had been saving was my recommendation NOT to acquire a software product that management wanted. In my cover memo, I listed the reasons why the software in questions was not appropriate for our business needs (Foremost of which was that we would have to customize every line of code in the system to make it work in our application.) Naive me. All the logic in the world could not overcome the fact that our VP and the Software company's founder had been roommates at college. Ergo, I was over-ruled and the ensuing system project cost zillions and took two years to implement.

I should be at the airport about now, but instead, I am still monitoring the pumps. Our Florida getaway was another casualty of the flood and continued infiltration of water. Very, very reluctantly, we decided to cancel our long-planned trip to Ft Myers/Sarasota. A bunch of us who had been buddies through high school and beyond decided to have a reunion with our wives/significant others. We had not gotten together for over twenty years, and it was a much anticipated event. Since majority of them have retired to Florida, we hold-outs from the North agreed to meet in Ft. Myers/Sanibel area. While we were in the vicinity, we also included a two day visit to family in Sarasota. The trip was planned: Airline tickets, hotel reservations, rental car.
However, the 500 year event seems to have trumped our twenty year event. The friends and family were understanding and we promised to re-schedule the trip. The car and hotel are easily cancelled with no penalty, but the Airline policy on non-refundable tickets is pretty draconian. There is a cancellation charge of $100 per ticket, and voucher credit on the remainder. Fortunately, Jet Blue was very understanding of the flood situation and they agreed to waive the cancellation charge. So, that was one bright ray of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy sky.

Speaking of which, it is starting to rain outside. Thunderstorms are forecast. (He slumps to the floor, groaning, and curls up into a fetal position)

A Miserable Conspiracy

We were among the lucky Jet Blue passengers who were able to board our scheduled flights today - an hour late, but most of us were just happy that the flight wasn't cancelled altogether.

I noticed that the Jet Blue personnel were exceedingly communicative today. I think they are frightened by the prospect of a consumer revolt after the Valentine's Day strandings. The terminals were probably swarming with Lawyers looking to sign people up for class action suits.

The standard airline customer service normally consists of conscious and assertive with-holding any useful information. Hey why bother? As long as all the airlines do it they can force the customers to actually vie with one another for one of three hundred seats that are too small for anyone who is bigger than the average circus dwarf.

I'm surprised they haven't come up with a reality show pitting travelers against one another racing and physically attacking one another to win a cramped seat near one of the working toilets. No wonder there have not been any more terrorist attacks by plane. The Imams think it is cruel and unusual to force someone to travel by commercial air liner as a prerequisite to get to paradise and the 72 virgins.

Every time I travel I am reminded of how awful the system is. The Security checkpoints make you want to laugh or cry hysterically because they are a microcosm of our general attitude toward safety. One guy had a bomb in his shoe 5 years ago, and we still have to take off our sneakers to get through security. Little old lady nuns are being felt-up by high school drop outs and probable illegal immigrants (swarthy people of dubious citizenship with accents so heavy that you cannot understand their questions or instructions)who seem to be the only people who will work for TSA at $8.50 an hour. Thank you, Homeland security. Boy I feel safer, don't you?

The American attitude toward safety is hysterical. A small fraction of kids are seriously allergic to nuts; so all preschoolers in the building are forbidden to bring peanut butter sandwiches. Some klutz's bang their heads and now everyone is required to wear helmets. Next thing you will hear that a couple of birds got sick and we will shut down Canada to keep the geese out, declaring war if they try to invade. We are an insane society, driven by fear mongers, content-challenged news programs, and a poor understanding of risk.

I think the airline industry generally sells misery. I know this because they admit that the seats are not big enough, most of them enforce class discrimination which leads to envy and hatred, they lie about their on time performance, the food, if they have any, sucks and they force us all to get sick if anyone on the plane is sick. Check out the salaries of Airline Execs. They make more than the President of Scotland.

But in the Tampa airport today, the Jet Blue people today were all about setting expectations. They had actual people on the counter today instead of those self service check-in machines where the customer does the work and the counter people just check your id and slap bar coded stickers on your luggage. They kept us informed of the progress of the flight that was delayed in leaving NYC - the one that would take us to Boston. One we got on board, they kept interrupting the TV programs to tell us how glad they were that we chose to fly on Jet Blue.

I was surprised that no one has yet given one good reason why they kept all those people on the tarmac on Wednesday for 8 hours or more, with no fresh air, no food, 3 bathrooms for 300 people, etc.
Unconscionable. I think if I had been on one of those flights, I would surely be in jail tonight.