Get on the bus,...get off the bus,...

Getting our own Commandant for the school is a good thing because we need someone who is dedicated to our cause 100% of the time. For the last 5 years, the Commandant was split between two schools with completely different missions so we never got the Boss' full attention.

It also means that the new guy is bound to make some changes because he can devote all his time on making this school his own. I'm not one to resist change. I think we need to change things around once in a while to ensure we are more productive and especially to make the staff more comfortable to do their jobs. I, however don't like change for the sake of change without a thorough analysis of the consequences and risks.

When the boss said he wanted to move some people (their offices) around so it would be more efficient to have certain people grouped closer together and also closer to him, others jumped in and pushed their own agendas of who should occupy which space. That resulted in 5 of my guys being targeted to move once again (2nd time in the last year) out of their new digs that we paid 25K to furnish so a few students could have a private office cubicle to do their work in the evening. I'm busting at the seems and I still don't have enough personnel to do the work I'm mandated to do. I'm going to start piling staff on top of each other if they throw my guys out of their top floor cubicles/offices. This is definitely not the way to do business and especially when the staff we are talking about are the hardest working ones in the entire school. We need to make them comfortable so they keep enjoying their jobs. Right now with an average age of 49 and average time in service of 27 years, all of my staff save one can retire from the forces in 30 days. I don't want to piss them off by jerking them around every 6 to 12 months. They want stability at this stage of their careers and frankly they deserve it.

I have a big fight on my hands and will not surrender to this musical office shuffle easily.

You'll hear more when we meet again to discuss.

$$$$LONDON$$$$

So we're starting to book our trip to London England for our 20th Anniversary this summer. This is definitely not the cheapest country to travel to. I sent a reservation request to the Union Jack in London. It's a Private Member military club that offers accomodation to UK military and Commonwealth Officers. Compared to the hotels, it seems like we would save about $500 for 8 nights in a 3 bedroom suite. I checked the flights through Air Canada and with no seat sale at this time, the tickets are $1,750 per person so 7K for the four of us. Right now, flights and accomodation would cost us $9,500. We have not added meals, tours and souvenirs. Outch!

We will wait for a seat sale because the tickets could drop as low as $1,200 per person which would give us a 2K relief for food, tours and souvenirs.

I hope they come down soon!!!

Chuck