Author: thecapeblog

Wood Chips

Shoveled about 1/4 yard of wood chips in the truck for the beach entrance.  Will try to do more tomorrow.

Good supper: steak, corn, salad.  Corn was from Sprout Farm – fantastic, best of the season.

30-Foot Yard

Mowed yesterday, set the mower at 3″.

Someone called China a 30-yard country.  Everything looks good from 30 yards away.  We have a 30-foot yard – looks great until you see the amount of crabgrass and number of weeds.

I’m very depressed about the gardens this year.  Mildew seems to have attacked almost everything.  I didn’t plant the right vegetables – people have been crowing about their squash.  The best tomatoes seem to be on a plant growing out of a compost pile in one of our wooded areas!

It’s been many days since we’ve seen even one hummingbird.

I’ve made several half-hearted attempts at fall cleanup.  No desire to plant anything.

Ron on the other hand has almost finished the deck at Edgewater!  He also put up a shelf in the kitchen and a wood tissue holder and circular shower curtain rod in the bathroom.  Plus, he repaired the message box at Santuit Pond Estates.

Burn out

I’m on several activist mailing lists.

This week alone, there are five different action items being pushed:

  • protest against pesticide spraying by NSTAR;
  • amendment to the state constitution saying that corporations are not persons and thus, not entitled to the same rights that citizens have;
  • report nuclear plant bills out of the Joint Committee on Public Health;
  • support green energy; and
  • raise the minimum wage and require paid sick leave.

Of course, there’s also the long-standing protest against war which has recently focused on Syria and the federal Move To Amend.  Plus the race for governor is heating up, and we are still waiting to see if Dan Wolf can keep his job as our state senator.

Recently, I’ve gotten more involved with the HOA at Santuit Pond Estates, something that affects us personally or at least less abstractly than these other matters.

Ron was invited to help out at the first WHFMS event of the season, something he really enjoys.  I received notices of some science-oriented talks which we both enjoy.

Looming ahead are decisions about health insurance, fall yardwork and finishing up projects at Edgewater.

Stick a fork in us.

Good Guys, Bad Guys, Befuddled Guys

To readers of David Yamada’s blog:

I’m retired, so can put my money where my mouth is on the subject of blowing the cover of bad bosses.

I had a great boss once:  Robert C. Mahoney, retired from the MITRE Corporation in Bedford, MA.  He gave me every opportunity to succeed.  I didn’t, but it wasn’t his fault: I was in the wrong job that didn’t suit my few talents and many personality faults.

I’ve had a few lousy bosses, most of whom were more befuddled than evil.

One in particular on Cape Cod was and probably still is a genuinely mean-spirited, disloyal, unscrupulous bully:  Don Clark, of Onset Computer.  When I worked for him, he was enabled by a personnel director who was so ignorant that she thought “curry favor” means “sexually harass”.  That’s what I mean by “befuddled”.

I am sad when I think of Douglas Fletcher, deceased, former CEO of Convention Data Services.  Doug had a good heart, but was seduced by a couple of henchmen who now have senior management positions at his company.

Others, like Tom Kennedy of Back Office Associates, had no business managing people at all.  Intensely charismatic, a brilliant idea man and obsessively hard-working, Tom lacked the patience, wisdom and compassion to be a great leader.   I wanted so badly to please him but instead was metaphorically slapped in the face.  His wife Trish on the other hand is one of my personal heroes.  They sold their company to the Vampire of Wall Street, Goldman Sachs.  No hard feelings, good luck to them.

I once worked for Gary Morris of Marketing Advocate.  Gary was a combination of Doug and Tom:  hard-working, great thought leader, phenomenal family man but led astray by someone who did him and his company no favors.  Like Doug Fletcher, I believe Gary was taken in by fast talk and a flashy personality.  I tried to do my best for him but was undermined by an underling.

So, there you have it.