Sometimes it is helpful to go back in time a little bit and look at the things that were bizarre about the navy and the military in the heady days before we totally obligated ourselves to building a peaceful civilized state around the flickering embers of Iraq. With that in mind, here for your wonderment are the offices of the Program Manager for Warfare that provided the oversight for the production of the Global Command and Control System - Maritime (GCCS-M). The Department of Defense and you spent $400,000,000 to update GCCS from JOTS and its previous incarnations running on sand computers, abacuses, and Rubic's cubes into the heady amazing system that nobody uses today.
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| Entrance to PMW 157. The wall on the left is the SPAWAR facilities office |
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| PMW-157's Mobile Ops Comm for Maritime Surveillance (P-3 aircraft) with a rain bucket |
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| The rain in the bucket had to come from somewhere. This is it. |
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| The cubicle reserved for the Dictator of Patagonia. (Embiggen to read the sign) |
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| The Dictator of Patagonias usual office looking out over SPAWAR, North Island the Point Loma. |
I'm pretty sure that I got to keep using the cubicle on a temp basis because the featherheads at the Global Command and Control System-Maritime really expected to see an actual dictator of Patagonia in there. Who else would want to work in that dump? I happened to be overseas when my program office (PMW-183) sold us all down the river and exiled us to PMW 157. When they counted noses to reserve office space for us, my nose was in Korea and went unpicked. When I returned from Korea, my actual office during these trying times was across the road as seen above. It's hard to believe that our boss at PMW-157, Captain Rodriguez, was promoted to Rear Admiral and selected as the Chief Engineer of Space and Navy Warfare Systems Command. On the other hand, he immediately moved out of this dump and went to the splendiferous Flag Officer office at the opposite end of Old Town Campus where his paint job and carpet had not been hand picked by Howard Hughes in 1937.
It was kind of funny. My secretary got me an NMCI laptop before I went to Korea. It never ever connected to any kind of wireless NMCI service but it was perfect for connecting to the hotel's free WIFI hotspot on that balcony which meant I could sit there in splendid comfort, wet bar and swimming pool to my back, ice machines and sodas to my right and a really awesome Mexican buffet one flight up. I suffered in this fashion for month after month until my boss decided to use his influence to finally get me a cube in PMW 157.
It was a truly wonderful time. It was about 10 years ago, today.
4 comments:
Nice office! (The last pic, of course)
I need me one of those portable propane heaters to the left of your chair in that picture. I've been telling myself that for three years now, one day I might actually BUY one.
My little brother started a running joke in our family when he saw his first propane patio heaters. He said, "if they leave them out after dark, they are free." :)
ONLY in the armed services! And the really sickening thing is, that however extreme and outlandish the stories, one can be supremely confident that they're ALL true!
All of my stories are true. The saddest thing of all is that like us all, I DON'T have to make up anything. Understand, that none of my colleagues were asked how many of us would need to move. A drone moved through our spaces and counted noses. Mine was absent and so she gave her count to HR.
I'm happy with that. I had a great time and got to spiff the boss. What I found utterly delightful about PMW 157 was the flock of cube nazis who kept booting me out of their cubes. There were half a dozen that were empty but there was always some cube thug to toss me out when I dared to sit down. You know, that, and the fact that MOC Alpha, struck by lighting, was represented by a P3 aviator with a rain bucket on his book shelf in his cube.These were the guys that were the program office for the P8 replacement for the P3.
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