But it's a nice place to work

It is Friday evening. 4 dinners out, 4 lunches. Little or no time for reflection. How do politicians do it? No wonder Hillary Clinton needs BIG pants suits.

And on the consulting front:

I did not lie. I did not create a story. An "out" if you will. I am staying for the time being letting our new coordinator help with the heavy lifting. In a week or two I will drop back to part time until a regular HR Director is hired. 20-24 hours a week a week is what my client and I agreed upon.

Like my friend Jerry said. "It is what it is."

My boss asked me what my HR model would look like so I told him. He listened politely (personally I like him..he means well) but he doubted that people in the company would give an HR person permission to do what I told him could be done. Free of any desire to truly stay, I openly said to him that this wasn't about asking permission. It was about earning respect and trust within the culture so that they would take you in as one of their own. Then, as TE Lawrence once wrote, you can do with them as you please.

"Even with the best of us, you are a year away," I added. It would take a year and I didn't have a year. I may not have a month.

I think it will be tough. He seems to literally revel in the throw them in the pool and let them sink or swim approach. It's almost macho and has created a race of exhausted zombies.

There are potential allies and agents of change but it would be an uphill battle. People seem more interested in putting the flag on top of Mount Suribachi than in talking Iwo Jima.

"We'll do that later," they say. It just doesn't scale. The casualties are too high. You never get a chance to breathe. Of course I could just begin to fight back and either win or get fired in the effort. I would be a Black Swan event for F & A. And the truth is that they really cannot fire me. I am a consultant and clients are always telling me to leave (one way or the other). I would just need to keep a smile on my face. Sounds like a great deal of designer drugs to maintain the evenness.

"Roark looked at the sketches, and even though he wanted to throw them at Keating's face and resign, one thought stopped him: the thought that it was a building and that he had to save it, as others could not pass a drowning man without leaping in to the rescue."

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand