Holdfast Training Services Trial Blog

I’m almost afraid to admit this on the blog…..but I had a pleasant week and a bit since the last post….I’m sorry.

I took a bit of leave to spend time with the family after 4th July and the subsequent week has been akin to the last week of school before summer holidays. We had ‘office call’ where all the outlaying office persoinnel were called in for a USACE update – which was a veiled attempt to make everyone feel safe and secure in their jobs. Reading between the lines, it seems that a lot of USACE offices hired extra staff during the Base Realignment and Closure (BRaC) project and now that it’s over there is a surplus of staff that need to be either re-assigned or laid off. The summer hires were told not to get their hopes up of getting a job here. A whole bunch of generic training was thrown in for good measure and the event was finished off with a quiz and a BBQ…..nice.

EDC SolarWall®

I’ve been chasing RFIs in relation to the 65% design solution that was submitted and we are now at a stage where the design is ready to be re-submitted with all 22 agenda items being addressed which should see a gear change in activity….provided the contractor has actually done something about the security clearances.

One thing that almost caused a delay was a poorly delivered comment from the Client that led the Contractor to beleive that the site conditions were different than expected. In the end it was just a query about available space for sealing the duct work work. This is frustrating as a hastily prepared conference was required to ascertain this before the sigh of releif came.

The recent modification to the design has resulted in over $14,500 being unallocated. This would ordinarily be great news for the Client, but as with all Government mechanisms….this means more admin. Ben has commented previously about the credits system which is aimed at minimising this. So we’ll sit on this until another hiccup shows and then there’s a pot of cash to deal with it. Then at the very end of the project we balence the books as per the final price….unless they go over budget ofcourse.

ECIP 732 / 760

My boss agreed with previous comments I made about the PMP that District produced and sent her own correspondence. This time they are taking relevant actions to ensure correct buy in and project risk management is covered. Perhaps I was too polite when I responded? Revised schedule completed.

C4ISR Tobyhanna

My CC1 of the matrix I sent out to District appears to have pissed off a few folk. There was a sudden rush of activity that was bypassing the guy who is ultimately responsible for producing the next set of work, so I sent a plain pictoral format flow chart showing what was expected of each stakeholder. Well it seems to have worked.

On a seperate issue – some representatives from District came to deliver some training, funnily enough, on contract adjustments and how they are administered and negotiated – so perfect timing. The odd thing about this was that they are trying to get us to adopt a certain way of working so that they can have more credence in changing policy. I always thought that you made policy then trained employees based on that policy, not the other way around. There is perhaps some politics at play here.

I have held the first coordination meeting to discuss findings so far and we have a coordinated approach to the initial response to the REA. The amount of documents that we now have to read through and analyse is huge and I understand why the contract admin guys always look like they want to hurt themselves. This is great experience – but by goodness I wouldn’t want to do it for a living!

I am now drafting statements to include in the response and ensuring that every stone is turned. I would like to plot a flow chart for each negotiable item to provide decision point for future use, but am not sure about the effort vs pay off curve at this point……I will try not to turn to self harm in the meantime.

Ashley Reservist Centre

This has finally come to a head. As a result of the last report I did on this project a ‘mystery snap inspection’ was conducted by District who concluded that the Quality Assurance and Quality Control is sub standard. This has resulted in an interim Non-Satisfactory performance rating. This means that unless the contractor sorts himself out, he is unlikely to ever be considered for Government work again. There is also an option to terminate the contract which will be another bag of fun learning for the Fryster. I just hope it doesn’t kick off until the C4ISR is put to bed or I might really hurt myself.

And in other news….

Lukas needed medical treatment for an ear infection but was point blank turned away from the local clinic when Ulli took him there. This is because we don’t have the correct medical insurance to cover this (No cash accepted). The advice from the embassy was to take him to the Emergency Room. ER for an earache? really? There’s a lot of talk on the news about Obama care and how terrible it would be to end up with a European style health care system. I know which I prefer.

We have started receiving weather updates on a regular basis now. We have severe weather warnigns much more frequently and they have proven valuable on more than one occasion for me, but just recently they have started to includse space weather reports as well…..I’ve never taken much notice of space weather before, but you’ll all be glad to know that the recent M-Class solar event will have no significant influence to us in our daily lives….but if you were planning on listening to the radio in the North pole then you’ve lucked out. You’ll also be glad to know that the magnetic field remains stable.

Birthday coming up in August….is it wrong that I am 34 years old and want a skateboard?

 Don’t try doing your blog slow time online over the course of the day….it times out, you lose it and have to start again…..not cool. Really not cool.

God bless Murka.