Insufficient Margin

Addendum:
Men can get kudos for this out of office message. I suspect women can not.

[I am not so coherent but Cloud's comment about parents in the workplace got me fired up to write about it, even in my extreme fatigue.]

We identified "Insufficient Margin" as a risk factor in a "tiger team" report* about a satellite program last year. It meant that the schedule was so tight that any small surprise can throw the whole project into chaos and behind schedule. That's life for the two-career family. (I don't know how single mothers do it. I can only surmise they are superheroes in disguise.)

Ask any mother who gets the dreaded phone call from school or daycare, "Your child is sick and must be picked up within an hour." (Don't ask why they always call the mother instead of the father, even when the contact sheet lists the office and cell phone numbers of both.)

Or maybe you stayed up all night with a sick child. You and your partner need to split shifts so one can stay home with the sick child at all times. But the amount of work that needs to be done at the paying jobs has not been reduced to fit the available hours. Moreover, all that work has to be done without any sleep.

Did you see the Ravelry group, Childfree By Choice (CFBC)? They call us breeders. Guilty as charged. (Though parents of adoptive children are every bit as guilty.)

Have you seen those out of office automatic email replies that apologize for staying home to take care of a sick child? This is my fantasy auto reply:

I am out of the office today with a sick future tax-payer; I will reply to your email as soon as I can. Rather than thank me when you collect Social Security and Medicare, please give me your help and understanding now.

Years ago, I read about a discussion in Japan's parliament about their demographic time bomb. One legislator railed against women who didn't breed and wanted to make women's pensions dependent upon how many children they raised. I thought this was horribly unfair. Why pick on women and not the entire society that makes raising children such a chump job? What about infertility?

On second thought, why did I take on a whole 'nother job that comes with no pay, compresses my salary and costs tons of money. (Have you priced quality childcare lately? Bring smelling salts.) When I get my Social Security Benefits statements each year, I see red. For doing two demanding jobs, I will not be rewarded in retirement. In fact, I will lose benefits relative to the CFBC because I have been given much lower raises ever since I dared to breed. My husband, another breeder, has enjoyed increased raises. For many of those years, our raises were determined by the same man. It just makes my blood boil.

Breeders shoulder responsibility for a sustainable society. It is not unreasonable to expect nonbreeders to understand that we are also performing a service FOR THEM.

* I've updated Why don't smart people have children? with advice given by a woman who has served on many more "tiger teams" than I have.

Anniversary Flower Scarf

I got startitis.

The first three flowers for Nicky Epstein's Anniversary Scarf, shown on the cover of the Fall 2007 Vogue Knitting magazine. I am using Golden Chai and Golden Siam 100% silk tussah (thick and thin) yarn from Artfibers. The colors will look familiar to those who saw this scarf.

I am also using the colors on the rolls above. Only 22 more flowers to go.

Two of them were knitted today on the way to attend an off-site satellite meeting. While I was sitting, I thought about the differences between Craft, Mass and Lean production as explained in The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos. According to the authors, satellites are the most complex craft product. As we sat around the table, determining what to do next, those words haunted me.

I am really too busy for new projects right now. But I am too scattered not to have a piece of relaxing knitting for a few moments of zen. In the last week, I rushed a proposal, two abstracts and another project out the door. I am also working on multiple satellite projects.

I sent one document off to a project manager last night at 20:30. He sent me back a 3 word reply, "Grace, stop working."

Satellites don't fall out of the sky because one person stopped working late to put their child to sleep. I hope. But you have to wonder when you read stories like this.

Aside:
Did anyone hear the public radio show about careers last night? They talked about the importance of not coddling working parents in the workplace because it breeds resentment in the childless. Grr. I have a lot of thoughts about that, but it will have to wait until another night, when I am more coherent.

Aside2:
I saw a poster today about 5S. I thought, "5S for the satellite industry, that's great!" But they didn't mean Seiri Seiton Seiso Seiketsu Shitsuke. It said, "Sort Straighten Shine Standardize Sustain".

When is a moderate drought good news?

When the drought is downgraded from severe to moderate.

See more at the US Drought Monitor. Click on the 6 or 12 week animation link at the bottom of the page to see the widespread and extreme drought in the southwestern US recede to moderate.

Our rain gauge showed another 1.3" between Saturday and Monday. There might have been more rain, but the gauge tilted over slightly--either from wind or the neighbor's cat.

I wasted spent some today to collect rainfall statistics links, with an emphasis on LA rainfall statistics:

• California Nevada River Forecast Center is a good place to start.
• Click on Precipitation Data over on the sidebar on the left.
• The Climate Precipitation Summary gives data for the most recent two years.
• Or check only Or data for the past 6-24 hours.
• Scroll down to see the Gridded Precipitation Maps.

• Or scroll nearly to the bottom of the page to Monthly Observed Precipitation - NWS Cooperative Observers.
• See the data for the current rain year, Monthly Precipitation Summary Water Year 2008. It is not yet updated to reflect January.
• It looks much better than Monthly Precipitation Summary Water Year 2007.
• The Climate Precipitation Summary is updated daily and shows data for the past 2 years.
  
• The LA County Department of Public Works has an excellent precipitation website.
• Angelenos will be especially interested in the near real-time precipitation map. The java applet allows the user to select a time period to view (1-96 hours). Single stations are also clickable for a twice daily 30 day history.
• http://water.weather.gov/ has tons of useful information. You can generate maps for specific regions of interest (at the state level, not finer), times of interest and by variable (observed, normal, departure from normal or % of normal precipitation.

For instance, I am a big fan of desert wildflowers. See our Death Valley trip in 2005. And Death Valley in 2006.



First, I check Desert USA's Wildflower Reports.
I look at the individual area reports and refer back to the AHPS precipitation analysis of those areas. Desert flowers tend to follow the rains by a some weeks (time varies by temperature). Take your best guess at the most promising desert area and book your hotel or campsite early. When the bloom reports say the desert is a carpet of wildflowers, all the hotel rooms will be gone.