Dried up paint and the GSA
My son does not have hobbies. When something sparks his interest, it becomes an all-consuming passion. For proof of this, you need only look in our attic: Several Rubbermaid containers housing Thomas the Train Engine and all his friends along with bridges, wooden train track and other accessories.
Then there was his Yu-Gi-Oh phase. At first simply collecting cards and watching horribly predictable anime on TV was enough, but soon he was spending his Saturdays at Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments.
Then came Warhammer: a tabletop wargame where two or more players compete against each other with “armies” of 25 mm – 250 mm tall heroic miniatures. The remnants of this last hobby have yet to make it to the attic. They’re in that in-between place also known as the closet.
His propensity towards enthusiastic immersion in interests isn’t necessarily a bad thing. His drive to be the best he can be at whatever interests him has helped him become good at both football and French horn.
But with football season over and the school year winding down, my son has found a new passion: Paintball.
If you or someone you know has ever played paintball, you know that it is not a cheap hobby. It’s expensive enough if all you ever do is play with the rental equipment provided by the paintball place, and it only took a month of Saturdays for my son to come to two realizations: 1) He wanted to become a professional paintball player, and 2) He would never achieve this goal using rented equipment.
His allowance covers the cost of his weekend paintball games, but soon he began asking for extra chores around the house to earn money for paint pellets, a mask, protective jersey and pants. Oh, and a gun. But that’s a whole other story…
The first chore I relinquished to him was a no brainer. With the exception of two 9 month periods over the past 15 years, the job of changing out the cat litter box has been exclusively mine, and frankly, I don’t know why I didn’t give him this job sooner. But as disgusting as it is, it wasn’t going to earn him the kind of disposable income he was seeking. He needed a big job, and after thinking it over for a couple of days (which may or may not have included his constant nagging), I finally came up with one.
Some of you may know that in my non-virtual life I’m sometimes a painter–walls, canvases, etc. If paint will stick to it, chances are I’ve painted it. Over the years, I’ve managed to amass quite a collection of acrylic paint–you know the kind–the little 2 to 4 ounce bottles they sell in the craft store? Yeah, well I have about 500 to 600 of those, many of them either nearly empty or dried out. And since I’ll soon be painting a couple of murals, I’ve needed to assess what I have, and who better to go through 500 to 600 bottles of paint than my darling son? Better him than me, huh?
He was eager to get started and even more eager to get it over with and get his $20. My instructions were clear. He was to check each bottle, first by shaking it. If he couldn’t hear and feel paint sloshing around inside, he was to open the bottle and check to see if the paint was dried out. Good paint was to be returned to the color coded 2 gallon ziplock baggie from whence they came. The duds went into a large garbage sack.
This system worked fine for the first 50 or 60 bottles of paint. But then he decided that if he didn’t hear the paint sloshing around, he wouldn’t bother checking to see if there was paint inside. He simply assumed the paint was dried out. This resulted in a whole lot of full bottles of paint which had never been used being tossed in the garbage. It also resulted in him having to start over again and some mild grumbling. The job was eventually completed, but this time under my watchful eye.
I hope that this was one of those teachable moments for my son. I know it was one for me. Because you see, even though my son cares for me, he cares absolutely nothing about painting. To him, those bottles of paint were just things to be sorted or discarded. He couldn’t understand, as my daughter would, being a fledgling artist herself, that those bottles of color represented the elements of a sunset or an ocean teaming with life, a poppy flower or a puppy dog. How could he know that? And why should he care? Painting is my passion, not his.
There’s no attachment to something you take no ownership in.
Which is why I’m not particularly surprised to hear of the recent scandals surrounding the General Services Administration or GSA. To be honest, I’ve never paid much attention to who they are or what they do, or rather what they’re supposed to do. According to Wikipedia:
The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government, established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. The GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government-wide cost-minimizing policies, and other management tasks.
It’s bad enough that an agency created in-part to develop cost minimizing policies for the government is so brazenly wasting taxpayer money, but to mock us all in the process? It makes my blood boil.
But why should they care? It’s not their money, right? They didn’t earn it. They’re not personally invested in its management. They were simply put in charge of spending it.
What could possibly go wrong with that scenario?
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Kat, I have a friend who’s in management at GSA. He’s very conservative, very much against govt waste, and he says this story (about the Vegas event) is being reported very erroneously.
James Williams´s last [type] ..Blue Like Jazz–the Film, opens this weekend
Okay, so you’re saying that the conference in Las Vegas never happened? I’m not sure I follow you.
They were supposed to have this annual dinner for employees, just like a lot of organizations. The White House directs them to emphasize environmental issues in this one, and directs them to spend a lot of money doing it. So they set it up in Vegas, like they’re told. They hire actors to do a skit, like they’re told, and the skit has a very “green” message. They do a few other things they are told, with orders from the top. Many of the excesses that are reported simply did not happen, and others were exaggerated.
Some time later, news stories come out describing lavish expensive stuff, and throw in the part about the skits. A couple of people in charge get let go, their entire careers, retirement they have been working toward, etc., get pulled out from beneath them because the White House wants to look, in an election year, as if they are putting their foot down regarding govt waste, when the waste that occurred that trip was the result of their directives. A a couple of men who have families to feed, who put on the company party as told, end up getting screwed.
I’m not sure who I’m more disgusted with: the press or the White House.
James Williams´s last [type] ..Blue Like Jazz–the Film, opens this weekend
I’m not saying the conference wasn’t a waste of tax money in some ways. I’m saying the ones responsible are now the ones firing people beneath them, and that’s reprehensible.
James Williams´s last [type] ..Blue Like Jazz–the Film, opens this weekend
I think Kat’s point was about governmental, bureaucratic waste….which I don’t think anybody would defend. The NYT had a good article about this particular event, yesterday.
In December, the Oregonian detailed governmental waste at conferences for Oregon bureaucrats in this article: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/chicken_spaghet/
My son has 28 children in his kindergarten class, the district is always screaming for more money….and they spend some $8600 per student to educate kids…far MORE than the expensive private school at my church (which I cannot afford to send my son to.)
Egregious governmental waste is a fact…and it’s probably because of the very reason Kat listed, above.
Cathy´s last [type] ..Whatchoo talking ’bout, Hilary?
Haha…sorry, wrong link.
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/12/recession_doesnt_slow_travel_b.html
Unless Kat wants to correct it for me.
Cathy´s last [type] ..Whatchoo talking ’bout, Hilary?
Way to be gracious with your son- it takes a lot of understanding when people don’t share passions. I’m lost on GSA though. I guess I’ll have to look it up.
jake´s last [type] ..Somewhere Among Hermits & Zombies
How long did it take you to write this sentence? There are three words with 4+ syllables in just this line.
“His propensity towards enthusiastic immersion in interests isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
And…I think I’d feel better if your Starbuck’s feller was in charge.
Simply Darlene´s last [type] ..The Creation of my Fudgy Cow Pie Cookie Recipe
Hmmm…I don’t know how long that sentence took. It was late…
I think we learned a lot from this post and I am sure a lot of people will be interested with this..Thanks Kat!
Mhikkai´s last [type] ..Ernest Becker
First off — seriously? There are professional paintball players in the world? Who woulda thunk it.
and secondly — wow — you managed — with great ease and poise — to take a valuable life lesson for your son, and for you and tie it into a government excess scandal. Now that’s impressive!
Louise G´s last [type] ..Sunday Somethings full of Fun! (The Piano Guys video)
Hi Kat.. I am not actually familiar with this and I am still glad that you have managed to shared it to us especially the video..
My son love painting. He spent almost of his time painting birds and mountains. Thanks for letting me join the conversation.
I heart you for the Big Bang photo. You can never have too much Sheldon.
Cathy´s last [type] ..Whatchoo talking ’bout, Hilary?
Every time the someone says that the government needs to fix something, I want to say “Why? Because the government ended poverty with ‘The Great Society’ programs like welfare, food stamps, and medicare/medicaid or because the government ended stock market fraud and established sound money priniciples with many new laws beginning in the 1920′s or because the government initiated programs like the Tuskeegee Experiment, sacrificing some lives so that others could live without actually informing the people who were to be sacrificed what the program involved?’ What has government really fixed. Their answer is always a new government program with more government workers being paid from our tax money. I know that President Obama thought he was making a good decision by holding salaries, but at the time he made the announcement, many of my friends and even our family were undergoing a 10% – 20% pay CUT. They would have been grateful for a pay freeze.
My kids and I are studying 20th century history this year and almost every president since FDR has established some new agency that requires yet another person to be on their administrative staff. Former Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush were the exception. More administration = more taxpayer money. I should be thankful, at least that the previous presidents made the administrators subject to the scrutiny of Congress, rather than czars reporting only to the President. Oh wait, not all of them did, did they?
Sorry for the rant. Happy Tax Day!