His helicopter landed on the roof

Hello!

Lars here.

Hope things are going unreasonably well.

I was thinking about something recently.

It happened about ten or eleven years ago, when I was still in the Chair Force.

(I started calling it the Chair Force after they took away my airplane and gave me a staff job :).

I had just driven from Langley up to the Pentagon. That commute usually lasts between three and nine hours, depending on traffic. I made the trip once or twice every week for just shy of three years. On this particular day, the trip had taken just a bit over four hours.

Unfortunately, that was more time than I had available. And even more unfortunately, it wasn't the kind of meeting I could be late for.

I was a lowly lieutenant colonel, which meant that I couldn't actually park in the Pentagon parking lot, and I had to park a couple of miles away.

It was one of those frigid DC days. I grew up in Colorado, but somehow the wet, clinging DC air and the biting chill blowing in off the Potomac felt much colder than any winter's day in Denver. It had a way of cutting right to the bone.

I was fuming over an email I had just read on my government-issued blackberry. I had made the mistake of reading it while stopped in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

It was from my boss. I didn't care much for him, and I'm pretty sure the feeling was mutual. He was very uptight in general and extremely uptight on this particular day, because the meeting I had driven to DC to attend was a very big meeting.

I had a somewhat high-profile job trying to keep tabs on a very wayward acquisition program, the largest acquisition program in DoD history, in fact.

I had driven up to DC to be the USAF subject matter expert in a meeting full of three- and four-stars. 

Lucky me.

The Big Boss -- the four-star in charge of all USAF combat air forces in the United States -- was meeting with the Big Air Bosses from the Navy and Marine Corps, and a few very serious-looking generals from the Secretary's staff.

The aim was to get our collective stories straight regarding some big funding decision that loomed for the acquisition program.

As I plodded through the streets of DC, the biting wind seemed to change directions to punch me in the face again each time I turned a corner. My stomach did strange things. I was uptight because of all the intimidating big-wigs on the attendee list for the upcoming meeting.

And my mind churned through the potential response to my boss's email, which had me all twisted up. He had wanted something extremely annoying and, in my (somewhat expert) opinion, entirely unnecessary. It was going to require a large effort, which meant rearranging my life for the next couple of weeks.

I didn't want to rearrange my life for the next couple of weeks.

Screw that guy, I kept thinking. I'm just going to quick this freaking job. They can find some other chump to put up with all of this BS. 

Just then, whop-whop-whop-whop-whop...

A Blackhawk helicopter flew over my head.

I recognized the markings. 

The four-star who I was supposed to meet in ten minutes was on that helicopter.

It landed on the helipad atop the Pentagon's roof.

I shook my head. I had sat for hours in DC traffic, like the chump I was. He had flown in on a helicopter.

I need to reevaluate my life, I thought.

And I also thought, I need to hurry the hell up. Being late to a meeting like this one wasn't really an option.

The Pentagon is a shockingly large place, and also a very confusing one. I charged down infinite loops and blind alleys, keenly and painfully aware of the time, growing even angrier at my boss -- it was his fault I was late in the first place.

Screw that guy. Maybe I'll tell him that he can do his own damn busywork.

I arrived at the meeting out of breath, slightly sweaty, and in a foul mood. 

I met the four-star -- not the friendliest fellow, if I'm being totally honest about things -- and he gave me a terse nod. He waited for me to open the door. Protocol.

I saw the four-star's displeasure at my timing and the perspiration on my forehead, and I thought again of my boss, his unreasonableness, and all the work he was going to cost me.

Screw that guy.

We sat down at the table. I was the youngest guy in the room by at least a decade.

My four-star, the guy who had flown in on a helicopter just minutes before the meeting like the Big Boss VIP he was, kicked off the conversation like this:

"I am so pissed off at SECAF that I can't even see striaght," he said. 

And that's when it struck me:  even the "Big Boss" has a boss.

And there's no such thing as a good job with a bad boss.

That moment solidified my intent to retire as soon as humanly possible, a resolution I followed through with. I retired on the earliest possible day and at the earliest possible hour of that day. Sayonara, suckers!

Anyway, if you have read any of my novels, you will definitely notice a particular weariness and cynicism from my characters when it comes to the government scene. It's probably the most realistic part of the stories :).

OK, that's it for now. Be well!

All the best,

Lars