piratepete

<sigh> I drove for over 8 hours today to get what could have been done with a phone call in my opinion. I really am starting to believe that the fall of western civilization won't be from the lack of jobs, gasoline drying up, or even Seinor W starting up the cold war again but the lethergy of our own government.

I've been researching everything from our own situation with both medical coverage and immigration issues to how to propery retire medical records of the family members of a military member who has retired or is no longer in service that have not been seen by our facilty in the last 2 fiscal years. Its total lunacy!!! We have people who's job to refuse shipment of a box of records because the box they were shipped in is the wrong color or because it got there on a wednesday instead of a monday. (This isn't really the case but it sure seems like it)

Did you know that there are about 8 different facilities that track, house and maintain the records of any government employee or their family members seen by a military or contracted medical center and each of them have different proceedures for archiving records and their requirements for shipping are about as consistant.

My command seems to think that the following is possible:

(1) I am going to be able to sort things out that this guy at our clinic spent 6 months fucking up before getting fired in less then 30 days. (This guy is a piece of work in his own right but that's an entirely different rant as to how every time I fix something that was fubared they move him in to "manage it" because he's a more senior petty officer only to get fired from the position for fucking it up so I can unfuck it again)

(2) Maintain my own physical readiness for reporting with-in the Marine's standards. I have to face facts on this one, I'm not a little guy and haven't weighed under 200 lbs since I was a freshman in high school and they want me at 200 (245 is about my ideal weight) or it goes to a proven "scientific" method of determining body fat composition by the magic number that is made up from a formula that takes the persons height, neck circumfrance and waist circumfrance. Sounds like fuzzy math to me since I have a scale that does it based on the bodies own conductivity and resistance to electrical current (proven accurate with in .01%) and the numbers arn't even close to the same ever.

(3) Find a place to live, I'm supposed to get 10 days house hunting leave to (a) look for and secure a new residence. (b) pack up all my shit and clean my old place (c) move all said crap into the place I don't have yet (d) move my family stuff down from the great white north (e) set everything up... Oh did I mention that I don't "need" this time and I'll get it after I'm done with a 2 month course.

(4) Resolve immigration issues outside of normal clinic buisness hours. Ok this is a good one in itself, I work for the military and we have extended working hours (0600 to 1700), I am dealing with... (spin the wheel to determine what beureaucratic moron I have to talk to this time around) If you picked the Immigration and Naturalization Service your wrong, this week it is the Department of Homeland Security... oh wait it clicked into the next spot on the wheel! It's the U. S. Department of Justice! But first you need to take two steps backwards spin around 3 times to your right in a counter clockwise motion while clicking your heals together chanting "There's no place like Texas" but only between the hours of 9 and 4 (with a 2 hour lunch thrown in some time between 11 and 1) eastern time (when they are located in the mid-west). Oh and one more thing give us more money, do not pass go we collect $1010.00

(5) Stand another week of duty 3 weeks before you leave when its policy to have the entire month off the watch bill to take care of check out, moving, uniform issues, etc. I guess I'm "special" and won't have any problems with just picking up all my shit and getting the fuck out of here.

I couldn't be more motivated to leave this squirrel brained nut house than anyone, only they keep pushing my transfer date back (I was told that it could happen again due to short staffing and they're going to send out another 2 or 3 guys to Iraq). In all honsety the area isn't all that bad if your into doing outdoors stuff, I've made some good friends here but its the rest of the fucktards that have seemed to be able to turn what should have been a leisurely well earned shore duty tour into a churning malstrom of stomach acid and drama.

All I have to say first part of July is... FUCK THIS SHIT, I'M OUTA HERE!!!