Authorized Personnel Only Quotes

If you put a door marked "Authorized Personnel ONLY" and me in the same building, sooner or later I'll try to jimmy its lock to discover what's so special about it.

We took a right at the fork, heading farther north. The charred houses continued. To the right, a large sign nailed to an old telephone post shouted DANGER in huge red letters. Underneath in crisp black letters was written: IM-1: Infectious Magic Area Do Not Enter Authorized Personnel Only A second smaller sign under the first one, written on a piece of plastic with permanent marker, read: Keep out, stupid. “We aren’t going to keep out, are we?” Ascanio asked. “No.” “Awesome.

Into a nondescript one-story building on the western side of the compound, passing through a security door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Through a metal detector manned by heavily armed, stone-faced soldiers. Into an elevator that carries us four stories beneath the earth. Reznik doesn’t talk. He doesn’t even look at me. I have a pretty good idea where we’re going, but no idea why. I nervously pick at the front of my new uniform.

The corridors looked different in this wing. It had fewer doors and seemed more utilitarian, like it’d been built for equipment or supplies. Sure enough, the first door she reached had a sign reading PHYSICAL PLANT OPERATIONS: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Since anyone authorized to open the door had been dead for at least a couple hundred years, she figured there was no harm in sneaking a peek. She jiggled the handle. It was locked. Clarke

Part of what kept him standing in the restive group of men awaiting authorization to enter the airport was a kind of paralysis that resulted from Sylvanshine’s reflecting on the logistics of getting to the Peoria 047 REC—the issue of whether the REC sent a van for transfers or whether Sylvanshine would have to take a cab from the little airport had not been conclusively resolved—and then how to arrive and check in and where to store his three bags while he checked in and filled out his arrival and Post-code payroll and withholding forms and orientational materials then somehow get directions and proceed to the apartment that Systems had rented for him at government rates and get there in time to find someplace to eat that was either in walking distance or would require getting another cab—except the telephone in the alleged apartment wasn’t connected yet and he considered the prospects of being able to hail a cab from outside an apartment complex were at best iffy, and if he told the original cab he’d taken to the apartment to wait for him, there would be difficulties because how exactly would he reassure the cabbie that he really was coming right back out after dropping his bags and doing a quick spot check of the apartment’s condition and suitability instead of it being a ruse designed to defraud the driver of his fare, Sylvanshine ducking out the back of the Angler’s Cove apartment complex or even conceivably barricading himself in the apartment and not responding to the driver’s knock, or his ring if the apartment had a doorbell, which his and Reynolds’s current apartment in Martinsburg most assuredly did not, or the driver’s queries/threats through the apartment door, a scam that resided in Claude Sylvanshine’s awareness only because a number of independent Philadelphia commercial carriage operators had proposed heavy Schedule C losses under the proviso ‘Losses Through Theft of Service’ and detailed this type of scam as prevalent on the poorly typed or sometimes even handwritten attachments required to explain unusual or specific C-deductions like this, whereas were Sylvanshine to pay the fare and the tip and perhaps even a certain amount in advance on account so as to help assure the driver of his honorable intentions re the second leg of the sojourn there was no tangible guarantee that the average taxi driver—a cynical and ethically marginal species, hustlers, as even their smudged returns’ very low tip-income-vs.-number-of-fares-in-an-average-shift ratios in Philly had indicated—wouldn’t simply speed away with Sylvanshine’s money, creating enormous hassles in terms of filling out the internal forms for getting a percentage of his travel per diem reimbursed and also leaving Sylvanshine alone, famished (he was unable to eat before travel), phoneless, devoid of Reynolds’s counsel and logistical savvy in the sterile new unfurnished apartment, his stomach roiling in on itself in such a way that it would be all Sylvanshine could do to unpack in any kind of half-organized fashion and get to sleep on the nylon travel pallet on the unfinished floor in the possible presence of exotic Midwest bugs, to say nothing of putting in the hour of CPA exam review he’d promised himself this morning when he’d overslept slightly and then encountered last-minute packing problems that had canceled out the firmly scheduled hour of morning CPA review before one of the unmarked Systems vans arrived to take him and his bags out through Harpers Ferry and Ball’s Bluff to the airport, to say even less about any kind of systematic organization and mastery of the voluminous Post, Duty, Personnel, and Systems Protocols materials he should be receiving promptly after check-in and forms processing at the Post, which any reasonable Personnel Director would expect a new examiner to have thoroughly internalized before reporting for the first actual day interacting with REC examiners, and which there was no way in any real world that Sylvanshine could expect

Grayder opened the tome at its beginning. "Basic regulations 1A, 1B and 1C include the following: whether in space or on land, a vessel's personnel remain under direct command of its captain or his nominee who will be guided solely and at all times by Space Regulations and will be responsible only to the Space Committee situated on Terra. The same applies to all troops, officials and civilian passengers aboard a space-traversing vessel, whether said vessel is in flight or grounded—regardless of rank or authority they are subordinate to the captain or his nominee. A nominee is defined as a ship's first, second or third officer performing the duties of a captain when the latter is incapacitated or absent." "What all that rigmarole means is that you are king of your castle," remarked the Ambassador, none too pleased. "If we don't like it we must get out of the ship." "With the greatest respect, Your Excellency, I must agree that that is the position. I

Qualities such as honesty, determination, and a cheerful acceptance of stress, which can all be identified through probing questionnaires and interviews, may be more important to the company in the long run than one's college grade-point average or years of "related experience." Every business is only as good as the people it brings into the organization. The corporate trainer should feel his job is the most important in the company, because it is. Exalt seniority-publicly, shamelessly, and with enough fanfare to raise goosebumps on the flesh of the most cynical spectator. And, after the ceremony, there should be some sort of permanent display so that employees passing by are continuously reminded of their own achievements and the achievements of others. The manager must freely share his expertise-not only about company procedures and products and services but also with regard to the supervisory skills he has worked so hard to acquire. If his attitude is, "Let them go out and get their own MBAs," the personnel under his authority will never have the full benefit of his experience. Without it, they will perform at a lower standard than is possible, jeopardizing the manager's own success. Should a CEO proclaim that there is no higher calling than being an employee of his organization? Perhaps not-for fear of being misunderstood-but it's certainly all right to think it. In fact, a CEO who does not feel this way should look for another company to manage-one that actually does contribute toward a better life for all. Every corporate leader should communicate to his workforce that its efforts are important and that employees should be very proud of what they do-for the company, for themselves, and, literally, for the world. If any employee is embarrassed to tell his friends what he does for a living, there has been a failure of leadership at his workplace. Loyalty is not demanded; it is created. Why can't a CEO put out his own suggested reading list to reinforce the corporate vision and core values? An attractive display at every employee lounge of books to be freely borrowed, or purchased, will generate interest and participation. Of course, the program has to be purely voluntary, but many employees will wish to be conversant with the material others are talking about. The books will be another point of contact between individuals, who might find themselves conversing on topics other than the weekend football games. By simply distributing the list and displaying the books prominently, the CEO will set into motion a chain of events that can greatly benefit the workplace. For a very cost-effective investment, management will have yet another way to strengthen the corporate message. The very existence of many companies hangs not on the decisions of their visionary CEOs and energetic managers but on the behavior of its receptionists, retail clerks, delivery drivers, and service personnel. The manager must put himself and his people through progressively challenging courage-building experiences. He must make these a mandatory group experience, and he must lead the way. People who have confronted the fear of public speaking, and have learned to master it, find that their new confidence manifests itself in every other facet of the professional and personal lives. Managers who hold weekly meetings in which everyone takes on progressively more difficult speaking or presentation assignments will see personalities revolutionized before their eyes. Command from a forward position, which means from the thick of it. No soldier will ever be inspired to advance into a hail of bullets by orders phoned in on the radio from the safety of a remote command post; he is inspired to follow the officer in front of him. It is much more effective to get your personnel to follow you than to push them forward from behind a desk. The more important the mission, the more important it is to be at the front.

In the wake of the Cognitive Revolution, gossip helped Homo sapiens to form larger and more stable bands. But even gossip has its limits. Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings. Even today, a critical threshold in human organisations falls somewhere around this magic number. Below this threshold, communities, businesses, social networks and military units can maintain themselves based mainly on intimate acquaintance and rumour-mongering. There is no need for formal ranks, titles and law books to keep order. 3A platoon of thirty soldiers or even a company of a hundred soldiers can function well on the basis of intimate relations, with a minimum of formal discipline. A well-respected sergeant can become ‘king of the company’ and exercise authority even over commissioned officers. A small family business can survive and flourish without a board of directors, a CEO or an accounting department. But once the threshold of 150 individuals is crossed, things can no longer work that way. You cannot run a division with thousands of soldiers the same way you run a platoon. Successful family businesses usually face a crisis when they grow larger and hire more personnel. If they cannot reinvent themselves, they go bust. How did Homo sapiens manage to cross this critical threshold, eventually founding cities comprising tens of thousands of inhabitants and empires ruling hundreds of millions? The secret was probably the appearance of fiction. Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths. Any large-scale human cooperation – whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe – is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination. Churches are rooted in common religious myths. Two Catholics who have never met can nevertheless go together on crusade or pool funds to build a hospital because they both believe that God was incarnated in human flesh and allowed Himself to be crucified to redeem our sins. States are rooted in common national myths. Two Serbs who have never met might risk their lives to save one another because both believe in the existence of the Serbian nation, the Serbian homeland and the Serbian flag. Judicial systems are rooted in common legal myths. Two lawyers who have never met can nevertheless combine efforts to defend a complete stranger because they both believe in the existence of laws, justice, human rights – and the money paid out in fees.

Many people feel confused and depressed in their early twenties. Life seemed so much more fun in college. Well, of course it was. Don't be fooled by the surface similarities. You've gone from guest to servant. It's possible to have fun in this new world. Among other things, you now get to go behind the doors that say "authorized personnel only." But the change is a shock at first, and all the worse if you are not consciously aware of it.

Joanne’s federal government employment history had been hidden very efficiently, of course. DuBois hadn’t found anything specific about what the woman or her coworkers did. But you could deduce their mission from what my protégée did uncover: the group’s funding (lavish and murkily channeled through nonexistent government agencies) and jurisdiction—in the U.S. only (office leasing and travel authorizations). Its history was enlightening too. The organization was created two weeks after the first Trade Towers bombing in New York in the 1990s, and their budget and personnel were doubled after the African embassy bombings and tripled after the attack on the Cole. After

A determined female photographer who tended to view No Trespassing and Authorized Personnel Only signs more as friendly suggestions rather than enforceable laws.

Can there be any positives for an addicted child? It’s hard to believe that there could be. But there’s a lot to be learned from a drug addict or alcoholic. The experience of being a drug addict or alcoholic can definitely serve humankind. As it turns out, some of the only people qualified to call themselves authorities on the subject of substance abuse are former substance abusers themselves. Only the former addict can tell you how the mind of a drug addict works. That’s because he or she has been there. And we haven’t. Nor have many of the so-called expert psychologists and counselors. As in any trade, it’s best to have some degree of education. Former addicts got their education from the substances they abused. As the escalation of drug-use hits an all time high worldwide, there will be an increasing need for these former addicts who’ve actually been “in the field” and can counsel the steady flow of younger addicts. Counselors who have been addicts are usually better able to detect the manipulations or scams devised so cleverly by practicing addicts. As these counselors will testify, they probably know every move an addict is making or is planning to make. Didn’t they do the same? So perhaps there is a positive to your child being an addict. Perhaps your child is being trained to counsel others. Maybe the streets and the alleys are his or her classroom. On staff at practically every rehab in every city across this country, there will be at least several people who’ve gained an education living the life of a junkie or a drunk. These are invaluable personnel, people who’ve walked into the darkness and have walked out again. Could be this is where your addicted child is headed? How about you? Can you help others? There are many child-psychology experts out there making valuable contributions to our culture. But unless they’ve taken the same roller-coaster ride that the parent of an addict has taken, they can’t speak from experience on this topic. Experience doesn’t always count for everything. But once the parent of an addict has passed a certain stage, the “letting-go stage,” he or she can relate to other parents in trouble and offer help. After all, who knows better the pain and sorrow of seeing a child in such distress than the parent? It’s not that I don’t have the greatest respect for professionals or feel that there isn’t a huge need for them: It’s just that there’s a big difference in “living it” and “learning it.” Not long ago, I attended a three-hour seminar given by a noted child psychologist. His subject was how to deal with teenagers so that they wouldn’t fall into the clutches of drugs and alcohol. I was curious about his methods—which consist mainly of “talking” to young addicts and “talking’ to them some more. Then he mentioned that his own children were two and three years old. Listening to him, I wondered just how much his methods in dealing with young people would change over the years, especially after his children reached puberty. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say in a decade or two.

In a pastoral letter in 1976, Archbishop Kabanga of Lubumbashi issued a devastating critique of the system that Mobutu ran. The thirst for money . . . transforms men into assassins. Many poor unemployed are condemned to misery along with their families because they are unable to pay off the person who hires. How many children and adults die without medical care because they are unable to bribe the medical personnel who are supposed to care for them? Why are there no medical supplies in the hospitals, while they are found in the marketplace? How did they get there? Why is it that in our courts justice can only be obtained by fat bribes to the judge? Why are prisoners forgotten in jail? They have no one to pay off the judge who sits on the dossier. Why do our government offices force people to come back day after day to obtain services to which they are entitled? If the clerks are not paid off, they will not be served. Why, at the opening of school, must parents go into debt to bribe the school principal? Children who are unable to pay will have no school . . . Whoever holds a morsel of authority, or means of pressure, profits from it to impose on people, especially in rural areas. All means are good to obtain money, or humiliate the human being.

The khateeb reiterates that his role is vital and positions himself as the spiritual teacher of the recruits. This position is belied somewhat by my earlier description of my encounter with him and his superiors, an impression strengthened by my conversation with other senior army officers. A retired infantry general shared with me how he had confronted the khateeb’s influence in the barracks while he was in services. A particular khateeb under his command during the Kargil war was asked to go to a post nearer the combat zone to motivate the troops. The cleric refused on the grounds that certain requirements of jihad29 had not been fulfilled, so he could not support the effort. “I summoned him and told him, ‘You talk of jihad; God will decide what is jihad. This is a war zone, and I am ordering a district court martial of you, and I will ensure that you are put before a firing squad right over here in front of my office.’” He then had him posted out of the area with immediate effect. The khateeb is told here that he is in no position to adjudicate what jihad is, the implication being that the military, in this case the commanding officer, has the right to adjudicate this over and above religious authority, whose only role is to motivate troops in the name of jihad as and when ordered by the military officer. The khateeb is a spiritual guide, then, with no real official authority, an army person but not regular army personnel. He is a “harmless” person yet one who must be monitored, as evidenced by the colonel’s initial reluctance to let me talk to him. As another retired infantry general jokingly put it, “He [the khateeb] is uneducated but very motivating.” Much like his soldier-class contemporaries, he is regarded by the officer class as somewhat uncouth but nonetheless essential for the training center. He has the specific task of motivating troops and acting as a religious mascot to lend credence to the militarism project. 265/378