De-ja Vu

I'm back. And like the buzz you have when you first return from a really good carribean vacation, the feelings and memories are quickly fading. I'm moving from slow mo to mo jo.

I'm still wearing my construction boots, though - seems unnatural not to. My first night home, like Tom Hanks in Castaway, I seriously thought about sleeping on the floor. The bed was just too soft; the room too warm. I missed all the tent noises. And a good storm would have been nice. Really.

I will miss the sense of urgency; of doing something meaningful and immediate. I will miss the people who look you in the eye when they shake your hand. The people that mean what they say or don't say anything. A certain tangible pull together and get it done attitude.

It was changing as I left, though. The real work is starting to wind down. Now that the roads are cleared and motel rooms are available, ever larger numbers of office types are showing up. You can spot them a mile away. They're all wearing those cargo, first responder-type pants and nice new safety boots. All bought at Government expense. Time to start the meetings and briefings to discuss "lessons learned". Time for a good Standing Operating Procedure manual, don't you think? Time for that next inevitable phase. Time to measure everyone else's performance with tools designed not to measure performance; take too long to write, review and rewrite even the simplist memo. Time for white papers that are never issued and to prepare briefings for people whose entire reason for existing seems to be to attend such briefings.

Time to go.