I've hit a new breakthrough in thinking.

After spending a good portion of today pissed off at various people, I've realized what I want. I want to get shit done at work with as little bullshit as possible. I joked about that with a colleague the other day, but it's true. Grumbling from time to time is fine and human nature. Tilting at windmills, though, is just stupid. By working the system against itself, over time, I'll get what I want. There are, though, some people/issues that are the proverbial immovable objects. Instead of trying to chip away at that as others have tried, I think I'm going to try to be content with working around them. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of politics. I know what needs to get done and I know what I believe and I think that being persistent, yet not unyielding, will get me where I want to go. Maybe that's obvious to others...but I think it's finally sunk in for me.

I have an obligation to work for my staff and also try to get their needs met, but at the same time, fighting the same old fight in the same old way is not going to get anything at all.

Wrestled with Mon some today. I think I got everything squared away nicely. squiggy gave me an idea for dhcpreg. Not precisely what I was looking for, but useful, nonetheless. I think it will probably make its way into the package, properly credited, of course.

I recertified jrf yesterday because conversations and exchanges with him made me realize that he should be higher. It also occured to me that he was doing punch cards on mainframes when I was in junior high. Or somewhere thereabouts, anyway...

Something else occured to me. I had a talk with one of the guys fairly recently where I told him that a few years ago, I was sitting across from my manager getting the same sort of talk about not being rash. Now I'm that guy. Yeesh. I hope to god that I'm never as much of arrogant prick as that manager was. It's just funny, though. I was roughly the same age as this guy when I got that talk. I guess it's part of growing up and learning how to temper anger, arrogance, rage, and other similar emotions that tend to cloud reason. I'm still weirded out, though.

ahosey had a good idea today about the cert system. I was saying that I don't think I should be a journeyer and that I wish there was a way to force a step back. He suggested that maybe not allowing someone's cert higher than what they had certed themselves. Then he said that the source is in CVS...have at it. Heh. Maybe I should. There are other things I should be working on, though.