Zshot

Has anybody heard from Psalmie lately?

I was a wow in Bossier City, LA. That was the worst year of my life on many different levels.

The rules were stupid!!! What idiot came up with only working part time? :blink:

At best, I learned to tolerate my "wow brother" <_< We did not even try to keep in touch after the year ended.

The last time I received a letter from one of my "wow family" is when I was stationed in Germany and she ("family coordinator") wanted money because she was in the wc. :blink:

Who decided who would be stuck with whom for a year

To be fair, I did learn a few things such as:

1. How not to treat people. in short, do the opposit of how I and others were treated.

2. It sucks not have any money, a car and living with people you would rather not be with.

I could go on but I don't want to bore you guys...

I am glad that no one got hurt! My prayers are with Andrew and Ron.

My Aunt works for UPS and she told me about how UPS handles breaks and lunches.

They log in and out of there computer terminals for lunches and breaks. The "clock" starts and ends for lunches and breaks from their work stations. At UPS there is a very strict on time limits and people do get fired for taking long lunches, breaks and coming in late. During the breaks and lunches is when they can take there smoke and use the restroom.

I agree with Mark said about employment. I work for the Federal Government, Dept of the Army to be specific. I enjoy working for the Government. It is hard and demanding work. I have found that what a Drill Sargent told me back in '79 is still true: There are 3 ways of doing things, the right way, the wrong way and the Army way. I am sure that saying applies to all Federal jobs.

If you are looking for a job working for the Military, do a search for the military installations in your area, go to there web site, look for a link to there civillian personell office. Here is one of my area: http://www.cpol.army.mil/

Hopefull,

What part of Arizona? There are some cities that cater to people who are... err... close or at retirement age and hire these people.

If you decide to move, not only do you need to look at job prospects, you will need to look at the climate.

You are in my prayers.

Things down here aren't too bad.

In the early morning we are in the low 30's, but by the afternoon we are in the high 60's to low to mid 70's.

I Love Arizona in the winter time

The first thing you need to figure out is what you are good at, and what you are not good at. (The ugly truth is, you might want to be a supervisor/manager (for example), but if you are not good at it, you are setting yourself up for failure. (please note: I did not say anything about qualifications. You might have the qualifications, and still not be good at something). Figure out where you work best. We might all want to "work from home", but that might be the place where you might be the least productive. Many people are more productive when they have to be at a certain location and/or enviroment to work productively.

I admit that I am very fortunate. I am a budget analyst for the Army. I like what I do, and I am good at it. I worked my way up from the bottom of the tottem pole to where I am now. Based upon my pay grade and years of experience, I am qualified to be a supervisor. However, I know I would not be good at supervising (seen the job and don't want it, even for a pay raise).

Sometimes to find a job, it's all about "who you know". This is where it pays off to belong to a gym, be active in a church, go to and/or play or go to sporting events, help coach a "little league" team, etc... In short, you need to be where people who can influence hireing decisions go to when they are not working.

Sometimes it all boils down to this. Working at a job you hate, usually pays better than not working.

Just to add more fuel to the fire

Next time you pick up a ball to play a sport or put on athletic clothing, think about who manufactured the clothing, ball or equipment. Currently, many of our sporting goods are made overseas. There are very few companies here in America that still make athletic equipment.

Psalmie,

Still praying for you and your family.

"His young son is pretty angry about how his dad is treated"

treated by whom?..does this imply that the young Martindale is a lurker at the Greasespot cafe?

If that's the case, maybe the young Martindale would like to post and speak his mind?...Unless of course, he would rather read what others say and give no response? Afterall, if you have nothing valid to say, why not keep your mouth shut and simply be a.........................lurker.

I would also like to hear an arguement on anyway that lcm has been mis-treated.

Actually, if I thought about it, i would be angry at how lcm was/is being treated treated. I think he should be serving time in prison for the things that he has done. I do believe he will be held accountable to God for the terrible things he did in His name.

The best revenge you can do to somebody that has wronged you is...

Be happier than that person.

Be more successfull than that person.

Not giving that person the satisfaction of knowing that you may have cared what that person said or thought.

I remember the MacKay's.

I helped them move from the house in Leominster when they decided to stay with lcm and twi. (I was living there at the time also). That was the last I saw of them.

I was at Devens 2 times. 83-86 and 89-93.

I would also suggest to add a rifle and/or revolver. This could be used to hunt for food.

Also, emergencies can bring out the best in some people, unfortunately, it could also bring out the worst in some people...

In Arizona we have a "stupid motorist law" for those who ignore posted warnings about floods and still try to drive through the flooded area. They are responsible to pay fines and for the rescue workers who have to save them.

The same should hold true for those who refuse to leave an area that were given evacuation orders due to an impending threat. They put themselves in harms way by there choice. They should pay for there decision if they need to be rescued.

:( Washington Post

October 10, 2001

Pg. B1

Tear-Stained Spreadsheets

Army Office That Lost Half Its Staff Reconstructs A Year's Work

By Steve Vogel, Washington Post Staff Writer

Robert Jaworski huddled with assistants in his Pentagon office, anguishing over a schedule of funerals for 34 of his employees. The big white calendar on the wall was filling fast, and Friday was a particular concern.

"There's one at Fort Belvoir at 10, another one at a different chapel at Belvoir at 11, there's an 11:30 in Dumfries, there's an 11 in Manassas," he said. In the afternoon, there were two more, one of them in Georgia. Most had been Jaworski's colleagues for years.

"What funeral do you go to? How do you have that choice not weigh on you?" he asked. "It's a dilemma you never visualize getting put into."

Resource Services Washington, the close-knit Army office that Jaworski runs, lost more people than any other Pentagon office when a hijacked plane struck the building on Sept. 11. More than half of his approximately 65 employees were killed. In one division, the only workers who survived were out of the office when the plane hit.

It is a casualty rate rarely seen by American combat forces, akin to what a few companies suffered landing in the first wave at Omaha Beach on D-Day.

Those who died in Jaworski's office were not warriors. They were budget analysts and accountants -- most of them civilians -- who had been busy closing out the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. "These were ordinary people, at their desks, doing their jobs," Jaworski said.

In the days and weeks that have followed the attack, traumatized survivors have banded with volunteers from other offices -- most of them friends and former colleagues of those killed -- to complete the budget documents the terrorist attack left unfinished.

Working up to 18 hours a day, through tears and memories and destroyed records, they managed to close out the fiscal year and are now firing up the fiscal 2002 budget.

"It's a phenomenal thing that's occurred," said Sharon Weaver, who led the budget division until several years ago and recently came back to help. "Actually it's been a miracle."

Her close friend Ada Mason, who took over when Weaver left, is among the dead. Indeed, the budget division lost 24 out of 28 workers. Of those who survived, one was on leave, two were in the restroom, and one had just returned from a doctor's appointment in time to see the jet plunging into her section of the Pentagon.

Last week, Jaworski gathered what was left of his staff and told them that what they had accomplished was a tribute to their fallen co-workers and the work they had done before the attack. But more trials were ahead. The office would be reconstructed, with new people hired to replace those lost.

He told them about the flood of pending funerals and memorial services. It would be impossible for everyone to attend every service, he said. But no one would be buried alone, without colleagues on hand.

People comforted each other, passing tissues, patting shoulders, rubbing hands. They ended the meeting by joining hands and praying.

"It's going to take a long time before we ever get to normal," said Jaworski, director of the office for 12 years. "We've redefined normal to basically mean survival."

The scope of the disaster that befell Resource Services Washington was not immediately apparent to those who survived it.

"You couldn't get a fix on who was missing," Jaworski said. "In a normal process, you would rely on a supervisor where their employees might have been. In our situation, there were no more supervisors."

Half the office -- the budget and accounting divisions -- had moved two months earlier into newly renovated space on the west side of the Pentagon, on the outer ring near the heliport.

Jaworski, who had yet to move, was supposed to attend a meeting in the new office on the morning of Sept. 11, but his plans had changed the night before. The meeting was to start at 9:45 a.m. -- about the same time the jet hit.

Hearing the explosion and evacuated from the Pentagon, Jaworski saw thick clouds of black smoke coming from a spot near where many of his workers had moved.

Initially he thought his staff might have missed the worst of it. But there was no way of knowing.

From home, Jaworski and others began calling the families of the budget and accounting workers to find out who had heard from their loved ones. Almost nobody had. Some said they had been on the phone to husbands or wives or mothers about the attacks in New York when the line went dead.

In the hours and days that followed, those who survived learned how many of their colleagues were among the 125 Pentagon employees who didn't. The list went on and on: Ada Mason, who'd been a mainstay in the office for nearly two decades. Dave Laychak, with his young children. Capt. Cliff Patterson, who had a 3-year-old. Carrie Blagburn and Brenda Kegler, inseparable friends. Terri Martin and Cortez Ghee, who'd worked there for years.

"I wanted to cry," said Cheryl Reed, a longtime employee. "I couldn't cry, because there were so many to cry for."

The office essentially pays the bills for the Department of the Army Headquarters -- more than $3 billion worth. To keep cash flowing, Army agencies around the world were relying on the staff to balance accounting and budget records by Sept. 30.

"Essentially, we were decimated at the worst time of the year," Jaworski said.

Even as he and other officials consoled families, Jaworski began assembling a "shadow organization" that could reconstruct and close out the year.

The call went out for volunteers familiar with the office's procedures, and they came from across the Pentagon and across the country.

Shirley Freelon, who'd leftthe department in 1999, came back from Texas, where she was working as a budget analyst at Fort Bliss. "I explained to my children that it was something I needed to do, because I felt like I owed it to my friends. We were a family, and I feel like I lost a part of my family."

Freelon came back to find some of her best friends -- Brenda Gibson, Janice Scott, Robert Russell -- gone. "I knew it would be hard when I came back, but to actually walk in the office and not be able to see them, it really hits you," she said. John Olson, who in years of working at another Army agency had developed a friendship with Cortez Ghee, volunteered to finish Ghee's work.

Initially, they had no place to work, with the budget offices reduced to "burnt rubble," Jaworski said. A sister organization -- the Defense Supply Service -- moved some of its people out of the Pentagon to give them a place to set up.

Much of the budget data had been destroyed and needed to be restored. "We lost everything," said Maj. Sean Hannah, another volunteer. "We lost every single paper in the office. We lost all three of the servers that stored all our electronic information, and so when we came in, the task was basically, reconstruct a whole year's worth of activity for $3.6 billion, and you've got 10 days to do it."

Much of the institutional knowledge was gone as well. "You don't realize how much you take for granted until you start asking for something," Jaworski said. "You would call so-and-so, and they always had that answer. Well, that answer's not there."

The workers consulted with other Army offices, looking for e-mails or copies of reports, anything they could use to reconstruct budgetary items that had been in the pipeline. All four of the budget division's survivors, battling survivor's guilt and fears of returning to the Pentagon, went back to work. Gradually they reconstructed the budget information that had been lost.

Every day, not far away, the bodies of their friends were being pulled from the rubble. Early on, Jaworski called meetings to announce who had been identified, but that soon stopped. "Frankly, it was too emotional," he said.

But there were constant, hard reminders. "Every time you'd look you'd see the names of those people who've passed," Hannah said. "Every day people are calling and saying, 'I'd like to speak to Miss Blagburn.' Well, Miss Blagburn is not here anymore. They're looking at documents which have the signature blocks of the people. They're having to relive this every day."

Motivation was not a problem. "We wanted to do that in their honor, because they worked so hard through the whole fiscal cycle; for us to let them down was unacceptable," Reed said. "We kept saying, 'You know they're looking down on us, saying, 'You go, you get those books closed.' "

Weaver said, "It made the whole office come together, and finish what they had started. We kind of put ourselves on the side of the brain that says we want to accomplish this mission."

They worked through the final weekend, staying until 3 a.m. on Oct. 1 to finish the job. They didn't celebrate, but they hugged before going home. Then they came back at 8:30 to start work on the fiscal 2002 budget.

In one sense, closing the books, with the distractions it afforded, was the easy part. Now comes the painful ordeal of so many funerals for so many friends. "Five funerals in a day," Jaworski said. "It's going to get worse before it gets better. It's going to take an emotional toll on everybody."

Just beyond that are difficult long-term decisions.

"One of the big concerns, and we're going to see more of this, is that some folks feel they don't really want to be in the building anymore, and I understand that, and I'm not sure how we collectively are going to deal with that," Jaworski said.

"Everybody's here. They may be physically present. I know at times they are mentally trying to deal with a lot of this. That's understandable. If it doesn't impact you, there's something wrong."

It seems that twi is now just going thru the motions in order to retain assets, and the all important tax exempt status. They are doing just enough to keep those still under the illusion of what TWI is/was content.

Hopefully, more people will realize that twi will suck the life right out of them if they don't leave.

twi is a spirtual broken cistern that is almost dry.

From the title of this thread, I thought it was about the vertically impaired

Rocky is exactly right.

Alot of people ran vpw's death through there various spin cycles for there own intentions.

(((((ROBI))))))

I just now read this thread. You and your family ar in my prayers.

I have thought of you as a friend since I first came to GS many years ago. If there is anything I can do for you, let me know.

Craig

I had 3 jobs during my wow year (actually 4).

The first was working at a Wendy's. The pay was min. wage. The problem were that I wasn't able to get enough hours and transportation to and from work were an issue.

I later got a job working at the BX on Barksdale AFB selling ice cream and hot dogs. This was at least within walking distance. They did an hours cut and staffing reduction and was let go.

I was out of work for almost a month, when I was given permission to go go to Shreveport to look for work (we lived on the 1/4 mile from the city limits.

I was able to get a job at an apartment complex as a painter/maintaince worker less than a 1/2 mile from where we lived. The problem was that it was a full time job :unsure: I was tired of not working and the LC calling to see if I had a job yet. I took the job, but didn't tell anybody that it was full time. I was tired of not having any money in my pocket. When I started working overtime my wow family found out and yelled at me . I didn't care and kept the job and kept working overtime

Oh, yes... My forth job. I was in the Army Reserves and did my one weekend a month drills.

During this year, I never was behind on my share of the household bills (even while unemployed.). I just didn't have any money in my pocket for most of the year (untill I got the job at the neighboring apartment complex).

I was happy when that year was over. After the rock I decided to go active duty Army and I have been happy with my jobs ever since.

By the way... After my wow year, I did not hear from my "wow family" except from the FC was went back into the WC. She was able to get my address and sent me a letter asking for money. I think I sent her some money (not very much). A few years back I heard that she is/was married with a couple kids and living in Wisconson.

Somethings evolve around different attitudes. For example

In twi we may have held ouselves and others in in twi in higher esteem than we should. Now I have learned not to take myself and others too seriously and to keep my feet on the ground, not any higher or lower than anyone else.

I joined a health club and learned to play racquetball and made some good friends over the years. Joining things you like will put you in touch with people who have similar interests. This will help with the "social" part of once being part of twi. For a while "all" my "friends" were in twi, and we know all to well what happened to those "friends" after we left.

Take time to find out who you are outside of twi and enjoy being you!

I am a budget analyst for the Department of the Army.

I also retired from the Army Reserves.

And a wanna-be racquetball player

I was in Leominster (FT Devens), from 83-86. Then from 89-93.

I was just another face in the crowd...

Mark,

My prayers are with your Mom and your family.