Goombye, 7601

When I started working at the RWMC back in 2006(!) one of the first procedures they set me to work on was TPR-7601, a general waste movement procedure that's kind of the backbone of the waste treatment process. It concerns getting the waste either moved to where it could be processed or moving the processed waste where it could be temporarily stored for shipment offsite.

Yesterday, I began the process to inactivate that procedure, as general waste processing work is complete and we're preparing for the long journey to put a cap on the landfill where the least-dangerous waste lies for permanent disposal.

That's an odd feeling.

Yet another RCRA, cradle to grave moment for me.

I've taken this procedure through 113 revisions, with only two revisions in all that time done by someone else. Some of the people I worked with on those revisions -- most of them, actually -- have retired or moved on. The procedure is getting old. I'm getting old. But that's okay. In an academic sense.

That doesn't mean work is done. I've got a decade or more to retirement, and I'm fairly confident there's enough work left to do to keep me employed until I decide it's time to go, or I stroke out and drop my breakfast on the floor for the dogs to eat as my corpse cools.

Of the people I worked with then, only Art and I are still around. The building I had my first cubicle in is still there, but it's used for disused cubicle storage now. Or at least that was what it was being used for a few years back; I haven't been out there in years since I started working from home.

Things evolve, I guess.