Work

I am already on the books as having stated that this blog is not about what I do in Iraq, but I do have to talk about how the typical work week lays out. All shown times are in 24-hour format.

Every day here is like Monday. Except Sunday, which is more like Monday afternoon. Most days begin with a VTC during which the USF-I commanding general, GEN Odierno, receives staff updates. Three days a week this begins at 0800 and marks the start point of the work day. Two days a week it begins at 0900, so we get to sleep in a bit. There is no VTC Wednesday, so we sleep in a bit then as well. There is no VTC Sunday, either, so we use that reprieve to create our "weekend," which begins at close of business Saturday (2100-2200 range) and stretches all the way to 1200 Sunday.

For me, there are a number of meetings and VTCs spread across the week that generally take at least an hour, can last two hours, and frequently seem to take forever. These routine meetings are always scheduled before 1700. In the white space between meetings we schedule time to: do actual work, gorge at the most excellent dining facility, exercise, and take care of any pressing personal needs. Because the work day stretches until 2200, everyone works out their own pace and routine to get them sanely through the day.

The mantra is "it's a marathon, not a sprint." For a FNG (politely: freakin' new guy) like me, you don't see your time here as 12 months, or even 52 weeks. You see 365 consecutive 14-hour workdays and, frankly, it is intimidating. So the trick is to keep moving to avoid any possibility of clock-watching. If you're not hunkered down over a project, go visit someone whose work intersects yours and chat awhile. Try to get to the gym or pool every day. I prefer late afternoons for this, but again everyone has their personal preferences. Make time for sit-down lunches and dinners in the dining facility. I see a lot of folks doing carry-out and I hope they are not headed to their desk with it. Walk over to the PX and marvel over the lack of things you need or want but they never carry. Go to the Green Bean for coffee.

Stay sane. Get into your Skype and/or phone calling routines. Hopefully get some mail periodically. Mail is a funny thing here, though. Everybody loves to get it - the 2-3 times a week it gets brought to the office can be like Christmas - but nobody knows what to do with more stuff. A ton of food shows up in the mail and every office has a large cabinet given totally over to storing what never gets eaten. Even stuff people like to eat goes directly to a common area because everybody, and I mean everybody, is diet conscious because of the incredible spread available at every meal here ("if I have to eat prime rib and lobster tail one more time I'll puke!"). And, of course, non-food stuff has to find a home in your CHU somewhere. With most folks here having to share a CHU, there is little room for accumulation.

This blog is getting entirely too long based on such a lame subject, so I'll cut it off here and abuse the topic again at a later date.