50 thoughts on “May 26, 2020: Hot Fire!!!”

  1. This week's initials will commence tomorrow. I'm unexpectedly WFH today (so I can attend a Zoom funeral), and I left all my clues in my office.

  2. The mothership sent out their tentative office re-opening plans and guidelines this morning and it sets an early-September goal for employees to start returning to the office. Details are vague, but it sounds like that stage will not have the place at full capacity daily. I'm impressed by the thoughtfulness that went into the document and clear compassion for employees--it isn't hard to do that, but not every company puts in the effort.

    It is a HUGE relief knowing that the plan we put together for summer childcare (only partial coverage daily) won't require us to put in some odd, staggered hours at the office.

    1. I am literally in the middle of writing our organization's re-opening plan. These things are hard. Juggling being safe, making sure we are doing right by our clients and employees, etc. As soon as you think you got it figured out, someone brings up a legitimate "what about..." We at first thought we'd be re-opening June 1, but it looks like we may go all summer with restricted access to the office.

      1. I'm supposed to be working with our other deputy and our managers on our plan, but have been too busy putting out other fires to make any progress yet. End of FY and budget season will do that.

      2. Free, if you want to come down the river a bit and maybe try to influence my bosses.... Never mind me, we're going to be open public health be damned.

    2. We've got a plan without a timeline. Multiple phases/stages/categories.
      Right now, we're in stage 5: 100% WFH.
      Stage 4: Up to 5% occupancy, with red/blue "teams" only allowed in on alternating weeks. Teams determined by seating chart. No meetings. Called "WFH at the office"
      Stage 3: Up to 20% occupancy. Still teams
      Stage 2: Up to 40% occupancy. Still teams
      Stage 1: Up to 80% (no teams).
      [Stage 0: back to normal.]
      No one who doesn't feel comfortable back in the office will be forced to come in.

      It helps that we've been close to seamless with our WFH. Apparently we can do this forever, more or less. (Except I believe it will slowly erode employee cohesion. And meetings take so much longer when we can't read body language.)

      1. I think the real question is how much contact do you really need to retain that employee cohesion? I think there's probably a balance, but I think it's closer to 100% at-home than it is 100% in-the-office if most of your work entails sitting in front of a computer screen. Pre-pandemic, I really thought I would be best at my job going in once or twice a week for meetings. My thinking was mostly along the lines of--on Monday I meet with people to figure out the right priorities for the week and then Friday I can come back and report on it. You could probably even condense that into a well-formed day of reporting out in the morning and setting priorities in the afternoon. Yeah, there need to be some updates during the week, but handling those remotely should not really be an issue.

        But now, even once a week seems like overkill -- they don't plan to hold meetings in large conference rooms even after everything else is fully opened later in the calendar year, so at that point I really wonder what the point is in actually being physically present at the office, aside from maybe the occasional one on one review meeting or meet-and-greet. Thus far, productivity has been fine, maybe even better than fine, and that's with a significant chunk of the workforce dealing with bad work-from-home situations like dealing with childcare/schooling or for people without kids, generally feeling shitty because their lives are really disrupted. (I really want to try this for two or three months without kids home during the day--my impression is that I would be a lot more productive than in the past, as irrelevant/low-value meetings seem a lot less frequent now.)

        It's different if most of your job previously was face-to-face, but even there, I think where we can enable people to stay home here and there, it decreases traffic for everyone else and frees up their commute time, regardless of spreading germs around.

        1. Working from home since ~2003, I was fine with a couple days at HQ every couple months, and 3-days every month was better because I could get some ad hoc meetings in as well, but really those trips were not all that necessary. The RR higher ups have already indicated that they're happy with how well things are going WFH, and I think they'll be okay with most all requests from people not ready to go back in quite yet. Still not sure when that'll be, but they've already said it'll be phased in slowly and possibly staggered.

    3. I've been told to go back to the office 50% this week and ramping up to 100% within four weeks. My job can be done from home.

      1. That sounds similar to a neighbor's daughter, her office in Dallas is expected to be back to 100% in two weeks This week is a soft open with executives only.

        She is less than thrilled.

  3. Boy, I don't remember this

    Fun Fact

    On May 27th [2006], Rincón entered a game against the Seattle Mariners with the bases loaded and nobody out in the 8th inning. Rincón was able to escape the inning with just one pitch, inducing a triple-play from Kenji Johjima.

  4. We braved a state park yesterday. It wasn't very busy, so keeping a safe distance was pretty easy. It was also the first time Ginger experience a lake. She wouldn't go out and swim on her own, but she did great when she was carried out to deeper water.

    1. I went ahead and bought OOTP the other day so I have also been OOTP'ing the season so I may a tiny bit of insight. For some reason, Arraez gets left off the lineup for almost every game, so I have to put him in there.

  5. I surely hope I made LaTroy Hawkins laugh when I asked "But what if I bump into Tommy Kahnle?" in response to his post advising everyone to be kind to each other.

    Spoiler SelectShow
    1. I note that my comment was written before Bob Kroll's militia reasserted itself (because it could read like the Hawk's post was in response).

      1. All I have to say is "holy crap."

        I did not realize what a wonderful human being Kroll is until seeing a few stories about him in the wake of today's utter shit show in Minneapolis.

  6. Got the drier vent all cleared out of bird's nest. The extension ladder was pretty much at full extension, but working from the top was much smoother than the trip up and back down again, even with the neighbor spotting me. He did comment that he had Les Nessman flashbacks, though. No, you don't want to know.

  7. 3rd time mowing this year - mower ran fine the first two times (maybe a little hot?).

    Tonight I got half of the yard done and the mower stopped. The gas tank wasn't completely empty, but I added more gas (3 week old gas). It stopped again on the upper yard, but since I was sweating in the sun and needed a break, I pushed it into the garage and made dinner. I checked the spark plug and that seemed OK (I replaced the plug just last year). After dinner, It started again, but then soon crapped out.

    I'm not a mechanic - any thots on what to check next?

          1. I was expecting more of a 'replace the 3-way Plebney gasket' response. (turns on Twayn-Signal)

            1. I think I fixed something like that once on an old John Deere mower, but I'm having trouble recalling exactly what it was. I think there was a float or other mechanism that was sticking. Fuel delivery was ok upon startup, but flooded after a little use. (Or starved, but you get the idea)
              Upon further googling...yes, I did mess with carburetor parts on that one. There's a float bowl. A local small engine guy helped me find the right stuff. It was pity service and I think he was just glad to see someone trying.

            2. With the engine cold, check the spark plug and make sure it's dry. If you have an air compressor, blow out the combustion chamber to make sure it's dry. Reinstall the spark plug but leave the wire disconnected and pull the starter cord several times. Pull the plug again and check it. If it's dry, you're not getting fuel through the carburetor to the combustion chamber. Check your fuel filter if you have one, it could be clogged. Check the fuel lines for rot and hardening, a small hole in the fuel line could cause those symptoms, they usually rot worst right where they connect to the tank and the carb. Check the needle valve on the bottom of the carburetor fuel bowl and make sure it's not fully closed. If you decide to replace the carburetor it's pretty easy and replacements are generally cheap. To check the spark plug, you can pull it from the engine and attach it to the wire, then hold it a quarter inch or so from the cylinder head while you pull the starter cord. If your magneto is good you should get some arc between the plug and the head. If the mower is very old you could have worn valves. That's not a hard job but it requires some special tools and you have to take the valves to a machine shop for grinding. I did a valve job on my snowblower over the winter and it was a can of corn.

              1. With the engine cold, check the spark plug and make sure it's dry. If you have an air compressor, blow out the combustion chamber to make sure it's dry. Reinstall the spark plug but leave the wire disconnected and pull the starter cord several times. Pull the plug again and check it. If it's dry, you're not getting fuel through the carburetor to the combustion chamber. It was dry. So a fuel issue.

    1. First three things to always check - fuel, spark, air.
      If you think the first two are OK, then next I'd say carb/air filter

  8. Shitty day in Minneapolis. Wake up to the news that my city’s police force killed another defenseless African American in the streets. The video and photos are horrific. As I’m trying to process that, I hear news that a very gifted and genuinely friendly fellow from my studio building passed away suddenly this weekend. He was about my age and universally well liked by everyone at the Northrup King Building. I hate 2020.

    1. I probably should’ve spoilered the killer cops, but this is a global news story that cannot be shoved under the rug.

    2. I only saw a brief part of it, but not what happened before the video - what started the whole thing? Why was he being arrested?

      1. they were responding to a call about forgery taking place along with public intoxication. And they said he physically resisted the officers. Just fucking hateful, disgusting, the worst.

          1. meanwhile today I had a white client picked up by police for stealing a car. They talked him into getting into the police car and brought him to the hospital for a psych eval. They never had to touch him.

            1. Spoiler SelectShow
    3. Yeah, it's terrible. It's awful that it happened and somehow even more awful that with all that's happened in the last 7 years that police are still killing black men. Aren't police now supposed to be trained in de-escalation strategies and all that good stuff?

      1. Doesn't matter how much you're trained in de-escalation when you're terrified of the people you serve. Also, there's no evidence that this person even needed de-escalating.

    1. And the outside store video showed nothing close to resisting arrest, unless you count the policeman having to lift him from his position sitting on the sidewalk with his back against the store. He was already cuffed at that point. Just absolute nuts

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