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CDCR – The Lockout I 'd been working at CDCR for over a year on a big project to re-write their offender tracking system. We were working with a contractor, TRW. The CDCR brass and the TRW managers looked to be in conflict and it was affecting the whole project team. Lately our tasks seemed to be mostly about collecting information on what had already been done or not done. Doing actual development seemed to move to the back burner. I arrived at the office around 7:30 on a Thursday morning and while attempting to enter the parking lot I was stopped by security personnel. They informed me that I needed to turn around and go back home and I should not return to work until I was told to do so. I asked when this might happen? Their reply was they didn't know. It would probably be within a couple of days and they emphasized I should not return until someone contacted me. The contracting personnel were let in but they were all being escorted by security. They were wa...

  How To Get Promoted Working for the State Me at home around that time but has nothing to do with the story I had been spoiled. During my whole working career, up to this point, I had always been promoted without ever asking or even inquiring for one. Even when I was working a summer job when I was a kid back in New York I had been asked to be acting manager of a toy department for E.J. Korvette even though there were other, older permanent employees in the department at the time. When the manager left it was me they asked to temporarily replace him. In the Air Force promotions were strictly based on time, grade and reviews. I worked a summer in a bakery factory where they had planned to promote me to the lead position when I returned the following summer. After the Air force I worked 6 months for a lighting and lamp parts distributor. I drove their delivery truck. When the owner had to be out for a few months for surgery he asked me to take over managing the warehous...

Heads Up Curtis Park, We're Looking At You: Our House on Portola  I t was 1997. In '97 Bill Clinton was starting his second term as President. The Dow Jones climbed over 7000 for the first time. It was the year of the 1 st Harry Potter book (The Philosopher's Stone). It was also the year Princess Diana died in a car accident. Movie of the year? - Titanic. I was now working for the State of California in the Department of Corrections (CDCR) and our project had recently relocated to the old Aerojet complex out in Rancho Cordova. That year Kris and I accepted that children were not going to be in our future. While we liked our house in Rocklin, we never felt that we quite fit in there. We were always going down to Sacramento so we decided to get the heck out of Rocklin and Placer County. We began to look at homes in Sacramento proper. We liked midtown and so initially looked for a place there. Each time we found a house we liked it had hardly any yard for our...

  Working at The Department of Corrections, CDCR T he week after our 21 day marathon I was invited to a meeting to define the valid values for the system's gender field. At the time I thought “We need a meeting for this? Well at least it will be quick.” When I got to the meeting I learned that they had already had 3 prior meetings on this. I was in my 40's and I knew about transitioning but I was under the impression that at any point in time one was either male of female. Of course this was 30 years ago, well before those crazy Democrats discovered how to change someone's gender in a single school day. No matter how you feel about the Democrats you got to admit that's a pretty awesome accomplishment. Back in the “old days” transitioning required a series of operations as well as injections and supplements. Hence, there was a question of where in the process did the transition actually happen. Maybe a little like the when does life start type of issue. W h...

Hello State Service I started my new job with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) on a Wednesday. Why a Wednesday? Maybe it was the start of the month. Maybe it was just the date they gave me. Maybe my last day at El Dorado was Tuesday. Why I remember this will become clear later. I had interviewed for the position at CDCR headquarters building located on S street between 15 th and 16 th . The project I was hired for and was going to be working on was located at 1050 20 th street in what is now called the Mars building but was back then referred to as the Mayflower building. I arrived about 8. I walked in. There was no reception area. I asked someone where I'd find the IT group I would be working with and they directed me to the 2 nd floor on the south east side of the building. So I proceeded to the second floor and after standing there a couple of minutes someone asked me if I needed something or was looking for someone. I ...

Leaving El Dorado County for the State of California Me with and some Eldorado IT guys - "Stop in the Name of Love" I t was 1995. The year of the O.J. Trial and the Million Man March in Washington DC. It was also the year of the Oklahoma City bombing. On the lighter side there was the movie “Toy Story”. The Number 1 Billboard song for '95: Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise. I was looking for a new job. I had put 7 years in at El Dorado County which was a PERS organization. I was initially thinking of returning to private industry but my mother-in-law, who had a long career working in IT for the State of California, encouraged me to think about looking at the state, since I had those 7 years in the same retirement program that the State of California used. She had worked her way up to upper management and was familiar with many of the state's top IT managers. She pointed out that while state government was much larger than El Dorado size had adv...

  Please GOD, Get Me Back to Being a Programmer. I was still the IT Applications Programming Manager at El Dorado County with a staff of 20. My manager, Ollie, while a good guy, really had no understanding of what my staff did and more importantly why what they did was even needed. Good news was he mostly left me alone but the bad news was there was a push from above to greatly reduce our staff and he was not pushing back. M eanwhile I was having the kind of fun one can only enjoy as a manager. One of my programmers, Jeff, who had opted to work a 4/10 schedule (four ten hour days with 3 off) came into my office to complain he was being shorted because he was now only getting getting 8 breaks (2 breaks a day) a week when he used to get 10. I listened to him and made an attempt to feebly commiserate by saying hey your right I was just on vacation and I didn't get one break during that time. I think the county owes me 10 breaks... Let's just say he was not comforted. ...

Kids, You Can't Always Get What You Want: W hen Kris and I married, Kris was 27 and I was 38 although I was about to turn 39 in a few weeks. Kris's birthday is a little less than 3 weeks after Christmas and our wedding anniversary is less than 3 weeks after her birthday and then my birthday is 3 weeks after our anniversary. Our major celebrations, starting with Christmas all happen in less than 2 months. While it's happening it seems like they are on top of each other but then I get the rest of the year off where I don't have to think about it. As an adult I have never been big on presents or for that matter holidays. Kris has learned to curb or at least lower any expectations these things might foster for her in regards to me. We've been together over 38 years, so for better or worse Kris has managed to cope with the way I am. W e bought a house and moved to Rocklin after we married, thinking we probably had a good chance of getting an IT job in the area...

My Mid-Life Crisis A year or so after I reached the “ripe old” age of 40 I began to freak-out a little. I still didn't know what I wanted to do for career. I had been putting off that decision since high school and that was over 20 years ago. For the life of me I just never had been able to figure it out and hence, I kept putting it off. A s a male growing up in the 50's and 60's there was always an expectation that I needed to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. I only wanted to be a grown-up me. I have never been much of a planner and frankly, having to make a decision about something that would define the rest of my life was intimidating and a bit overwhelming. The message I was getting was I had to learn how to do something that would result in me getting a job where I could earn enough money to not only support myself but also take care of a wife and a family. My view of the working world was pretty limited and I failed to see anything that fit me, c...

  El Dorado County Part 4 – I Become a Manager and County Politics Downtown Placerville I was working in a Project Lead position in the IT department of El Dorado County whose offices were located in Placerville. The IT department in the county, as in most companies, is not a revenue generating department. It's role is more one of cost avoidance, i.e. you automate because it's more efficient. Organizations who are not IT companies fund their IT department by charging the other departments that are using their services which is pretty much all of them. Usually the charge is based on how much IT services they use. It's reflected in the department's budget and of course it's just all on paper. In 1991 I'm not sure how many organizations did this particularly well but our CIO was well versed in this area and he implemented a system where each department was assigned a baseline charge for IT services and then an additional charge based on that department...