The Cave Between Gold and Platinum

For some time now I have been noticing a shift. Cake by cake, I am realizing that I am coming to the end of my Golden Years with The Program. Today, it's feeling very much like the end. A lot of people are gone. More are still going. Another one announced today. She's moving to Alaska. Unfortunately, I anticipate more cake.

This morning we also had an All Hands where the topic was the budget crisis and what we might have to do to get it right. The topic just made the day sick and done and empty.

We are millions in the hole -- mostly due to fuel prices. Millions in travel costs. Millions in charter costs. Our Head just froze full time hiring, travel and trainings. Now They are talking about docking the boats, canceling the LDB, closing runways, moth-balling planes.

Can you believe it? They are actually talking about canceling those boats. Two, big, red, ice breaking research vessels that have been running non stop since God knows when. They were the pride of the display cases. But now they are ships we can no longer afford. I joked about it not a month ago. "You wanna fix the budget? I know how to fix the budget," I said, hands on hips. "Cancel a boat! For fuck sake. It costs $12M a year!" And now, that cavalier declaration might just be coming true. They are probably going to cancel the boats.

Fuck.

Meanwhile our splintered twin of a client is back in Washington, fluttering around in a delusional frenzy, crashing into itself, approving more science. It funded ENORMOUS, international projects that have huge plane requirements (more fuel, more labor, more camp staff, more camp stuff, more flights all over), and we are talking about parking the boats and putting a whole division of the program out of business.

Yep. My Antarctic Golden Years are over. What I came to 10 years ago -- a mighty mighty American Hope and Dream -- is ground down and tired and over-extended. Literally hundreds of people have left it. Great people, who for whatever reasons, walked away. And no one is coming back right now because it's in such disarray. Disarray caused by many factors -- not all of which were our fault. But disarray none the less.

And, you know . . . despite the dark cave in which I now find myself, I have every hope that I am just in transition. Isn't that weird? More and more, I am committing to sit with my sick old friend. I need to admit that it will never be the Golden Years again. That much is clear. And I need to start the transition to my Platinum Years. Eventually, finer than Gold. I want to make another chapter for myself -- where I take what I have learned and make my old, tired friend vibrant again.

It's a weird and lonely and dark place I sit today. I can't see the path for the shifting, and we definitely don't have the right fools in the boat. We are paddling every which way, ripping the thing asunder. And I have no idea how in the world I will be of any help. But surely there is a way to right it -- somehow? Surely.