this is the day that the lard hath made.

This morning bode ill from the first. The three USPS priority mail packages I had set outside my front door yesterday morning were NOT picked up, despite my having printed the postage and scheduled the pick up Monday night (i.e., before their deadline) on the USPS website. So. I want to call the post office before I head to my office. I look at the so-called "Yellow Book" and find the so-called "Blue Pages," which list government offices and agencies. No USPS. Not in "Post Office" (or anything "post*"), not in "Mail*" or "U.S.*" or "Delivery*" ... not anywhere. Check Table of Contents on page 1: indeed, it says "Government offices such as: ... post offices... " Motherfuckers.

I open Mike's iBook to get online and find a phone number for the local P.O. [Aside, BTW: MacOS is at this point so startlingly inferior to Windows that I question the sanity of hard-core Appleheads in this day and age. Apart from anything else, the absence of a universal keyboard-only means of accessing and and all menu commands in any application is inexcusable.] So I'm mid-search on the USPS site when my cell phone rings. It's Rubin, my counterpart Proposal Manager at Corporation of Ingenious, Able Scientists (CIAS, which is a mynoduesp), and he asks about the latest version of the current proposal's Technical Approach, emailed by John Dope last night. (Mind you, it's 8:15 a.m. and I'm pre-caffeine.) Rubin says he needs MY most recent edit of this doc so his CIAS folks can implement Mr. Dope's changes. It will be 75-90 minutes before I can get to work and we can't spare that time. So now I have to haul out my work laptop, set it up, start up, log on, get on the VPN, check email, look at Mr. Dope's comments only to find they (a) are precious few and (b) almost entirely comprise insertions of discrete paragraphs, which I can do myself faster than sending files back and forth to CIAS for them to do. So there was no point to his request or my delaying my departure further. I email Rubin to tell him just that.

So I still haven't talked to USPS at this point. Click "Find a post office" and enter my ZIP code; every post office location it lists in response has the nationwide 800 number printed next to it; no local numbers. Motherfuckers. I call the 800 number and deal with at least 5 levels of phone tree to get a person. Person says I need to call my local post office. Fucking I fucking know fucking that fucking. I can has number plz? I call the local post office and am told I need to contact the distribution center specific to my address. I am given TWO local numbers. The first is busy. (Isn't it typical that gbmt has the only entities left on the planet that don't have catch-all voice mail?) The second number finds a wonderful and helpful individual who takes my information and assures me she will have the carrier pick up my packages. I leave a sign on the mailbox just in case.

And I'm off to work, where, within 30 minutes, I learn that the proposal I've been furiously working on (20 hrs unpaid OT in the last week), which is due tomorrow, will almost certainly be extended, via RFP amendment, to a week from tomorrow.

Which means, unless I can convince my boss to let me work from afar, so much for Florida.

Memo to Pizza Hut re "Pizza mia"

The crust is too sweet.

Wow. Just wow.

It is now just about 22 hours till this proposal is due. The expected amendment extending the due date by one week has still not been published. As patently ridiculous as it sounds, the customer can issue such an amendment up to the original due date/time. So technically they can extend the due date by a week ONE MINUTE before the original deadline.

This morning, my boss Yfyw (let's just say he's Welsh) sat down in my office and we hashed out precisely how I could keep my plans for a 10-day Florida trip starting tomorrow and still get everything done on this proposal, even if a week's extension is given.

Then HIS boss, the president of Splatcom, reversed that decision, reasoning that this thing would never get done unless I were sitting in my little box in motherfucking Vienna, Virginia, to do it.

So barring some miracle (e.g., an amendment without a deadline extension, no amendment at all and submission of the proposal by 2 p.m. tomorrow, or a conveniently timed cardiac event for the pres.), my vacation is canceled. Splatcom has agreed to pay any expenses from canceled reservations (including, if the amendment does not come out by midnight tonight, the wholly non-refundable cost of 3 nights in a Ft. Lauderdale gay resort). My boss has also made mention already of "extra" time off to be taken later. I suppose that helps toward making up the many hours I have spent putting this vacation together and the promises I've made to friends I'd be visiting.

But still, if this prop deadline is extended and I am not allowed to work it from Florida, and especially if it turns out that the RFP amendment requires only, say, 10 or 12 additional hours of my time in the intervening week, I am going to be extremely grumpy.

Well, this is interesting.

This just in:

View Event Details

Name: N00024-08-R-3091:1
Description: Support Services (Zone 4, SB Set-Aside)
Creator: Caroline R Register
Negotiator/Specialist: Deborah Drury
Contracting Officer: Caroline R Register
Category(ies): SeaPort Enhanced
Sub-Category: Solicitation
Zone: 4 - Gulf Coast Zone
Set Aside: SB
Status: ***CANCELLED*** [spelling sic; emphasis mine]
Questions: 22 (Most Recent: 1/16/2008 2:37 PM)
Answers: 5 (Most Recent: 1/9/2008 4:08 PM)
Start Time: 1/4/2008 7:22 AM
Stop Time: 1/17/2008 2:00 PM
Time Left: N/A

Mixed emotions here: 1. this invalidates all the work I've already done on this friggin' proposal. 2. I'm goin' t' Florida. WOOHOO!

My boss just told me to shut down my pooter and go home.

He told me not to come in tomorrow.

Regarding some non-proposal work that I had already promised to do for a Splatcom telecoms engineer—be it from the office or poolside in Florida—he told me to mark that on my timesheet, plus 2 days' worth of time charged to corporate overhead.

I love my boss.