Reflections on blogging: No time for Whining!!!

On my Anniversary I made my last blog entries and in the ensuing month have reflected on my blogs. It was a very busy time both at home and at work. K finished her last semester’s work and graduated. Both of the older kids were very busy with B going to France and being in the school play and H dancing 2 or 3 days a week. And as always there is Jack, he is growing so fast and is indeed a handful. He can actually make words and understands what we are saying most of the time. Simultaneously at work we were going through one of the “tough periods” in the process and were helping out on weekends at the plant, trying to get out of a refueling outage. Since then we put the fence in the back yard and are working on several other outdoor projects.

For blogging in general, many bloggers forget that their comments are in the public forum and are mainly available for public consumption. There are concerns in the business world that if a blogger makes some comment or confession, may have a negative effect on current or future employment. I have heard on more than one occasion, of a HR representative “googling” a potential employee, as a character reference. At the very least, some of these comments in professional, personal and military blogs, do tend to sound like whining.

On a personal level, I’m a busy guy with a wife and kids and work stuff, I really don’t have time to deal with negativity and need to efficiently use that time that I have to fulfill my commitments and to take care of myself. Additionally, I am working through “letting go” of the negativity that I picked up during my last assignment in the Navy. There were a lot of super positive things that I got out of that tour but there were a lot of negative as well, so many in fact that only a year into it, K indicated that I needed to transfer to the fleet reserve.

On a professional level, I feel lucky to have a job this year, in this economy, to be able to feed and house my family. As for the licensing method/process here at “the plant,” there are many layers resistance to change, for reasons that include self preservation, pride and self importance, in reality a lack of the teamwork that was stressed in the training environment in my last job. This leads to an environment in which much lip service is paid to the student feedback process but in reality is a colossal waste of energy and a great source of frustration and negativity. In evaluating the situation in the operations and training departments at “the plant” it appears that a professional blog that criticizes the license training method/process is a source of the very negativity that I am trying so hard to eliminate and just might not be a wise idea.

To that end, dear readers, I will limit my entries on “it’s your license to get” to answering specific questions about my nuclear activities and will endeavor to make some more meaningful entries on “thinking nuclear.”