The Calm Before/The Fallout After

The weather forecast calls for four to six inches of snow in my area this evening. I’m told that the storm’s edge is now at the state capital, putting it about one hundred miles from here. I’m patient. I’m in no rush to be hit with accumulating snow and lows in the single digits (they’re calling for 5 F/-15C). I don’t feel like shoveling, scraping, or getting snow down my boots. In fact, I’m hoping against hope and the laws of physics that the storm makes an abrupt about face and snows itself out over Lake Erie.

I continue to be busy here today, working on ramifications from what was the moral equivalent of an explosion of a small and very dirty nuclear device in one of our departments last Friday night. Already the adrenaline for some has ebbed and their fear of worst-case scenarios has been replaced with a cockiness directly related to having the bullet go through your hat but miss your head. For the most part, I don’t care. I am taking care to document the problem, to make what changes are within my power to make, and to get written responses from those who do not share my enthusiasm for change and wish to stay with the protocols already in place.

I’ve invented a new word: NoMP. Rhymes with “stomp” and “pomp”. Stands for “Not My Problem.” It rolls nicely off the lips.

I did get a strange and unexpected compliment today. A year and a half ago, one of the three people who work in the offices across the way from mine (whom I affectionately refer to as “The Three Stooges”) stopped by my office to tell me I was “over excitable” and “prone to exaggeration”. The sordid details can be found in the first few paragraphs of the entry dated 7 June 2002, A Rude Awakening. The accusations stung then, and have continued to sting ever since.

Therefore my surprise was somewhat justified when “Larry” came up to me this morning and informed me that “Moe” had made a point of telling him that he was impressed by how calm I was and how well I handled things.

Now, I don’t believe that I’ve made any significant personality changes over the past couple of years. I do have a new liver, but I believe that the old Greek belief that the liver is the seat of emotion has gone out of favor in recent years. Maybe all the drugs I’m on have a tranquilizing affect, though it sure hasn’t felt like that in the past few weeks.