The Debt Crisis

While unfortunate events like the recent debt crisis and the ping to the U.S. credit rating are bad news for our economy as a whole, they tend to rearrange corporate deck chairs so that some individuals profit at the expense of others. In particular it's a time for the hungry young executives to make a move (and for the old timers to hunker down).

When Willow came to see me today, with a bright face and an odd interest in the project and in me, I knew (even though worker bees like me don't hear things first hand) that the shake-ups at the top of our corporate ladder didn't trickle down favorably to her. And I could guess that Jam, who has been absent from the work site for a few days, has fared better.

At a certain point, when a manager reaches a certain age, after climbing and climbing, like a baseball smacked into the outfield until the arc of possibility and trajectory flattens out and starts to descend, and even when the manager is the last person to realize it, at last the truth sinks in. Willow had that look today, hunkered down with me in the bathroom.

So we had a nice talk and I cheered her up. I asked for her advice about the project, about how to prepare the ceiling and so on, and suddenly she was her old self, immersed in a simple project again.

So where is Jam? I didn't ask, but I expect that he is moving up the organization chart.

The side wall if finished now. Sometime during the next few days, I will be trying a technique for putting tiles on the ceiling. It sounds too good to be true, but it must be true because I read about it on some guy's website.