Accidental Troll

Today I'm taking a day for me. I've had coffee I "don't need."
I have...stupid amounts of work to do. I have a list of chores.
I also intend to play video games and make cookies. The cookies are optional.

Deadline to move to dreamwidth?

I'm less depressed over politics. Good news, the right is so insane it's in the public eye now. The left might be pulling it's head out of it's collective ass - memes mock Stein's latest stupidity similar to dumpsterfire. My favorite quote was from the gym "They're coming out during the day now."

Gotta buy the girl a ring; been shopping. Ethics matter in shopping for crap fwiw

Gym:
My shoulder still bothers me but my weights have all recovered or are leaping up (bench is still off, but may be only 10%). I have been rolling and stretching, but still my ankles are too prone to move and my shoulder too unlikely to. I did start running but have not kept up...my gym location is a real issue, as is coordinating my schedule with the girl. I've started in on full relationship nag with the girl, as her need to take classes is a scheduling and logistical nightmare that impacts us both. Also, she literally has no gains. So I'm pimping strength and trying to stretch myself to more therapeutic workouts (i.e. face pulls), and trying to drag her with me. I think she'd be better at, and happier with, strength training than her "weights cardio." However she's a grown damn woman, smart, and better at her things than I am, so she might destroy me at some point. No mansplaining.

I'm revisiting form. With my side-pull injury crap, and after watching that yes, even with shoes on my ankles move, it's a good idea to reground myself. This weekend the gf is out of town so I can do crazy long workouts instead of cram it into an hour workout. Less huge lifts, more cardio/conditioning, and more support work would be good for me. I'm trying to drag the gf with me into "have a plan, one that doesn't require fees or scheduled appointments" type workouts. I can generally take my gear and go to any decent gym on the day in question and do my workout.

House:
The contractor has not shown up once since xmas, other than one time to tweak the heat. His stories and plan made sense, but I fear the reality is he hasn't paid the/an electrician which is holding up the permit. Girl went online into his finances and found his property has equity, but the water company has put liens on his property. Twice. I don't want to sue a guy to suck the value out of his house when he has a young child, but at some point if I don't - if he loses it, I don't want to be last in line.

I got Scott to paint and fix up the Arlington place, to be rented soon. With the condo paying a bunch of it, and trusting his schedule and work product, it made sense - having interacted with him as he found quirks along the way? Very happy and worth the premium price (plus Joe cheapo never bid/showed).

I just got a bill from DC as they called my work likely 60% or more complete, with increases the value of my home by about $90,000, pumping my taxes and mortgage to cover.

I love my house. I love my hood. Neither is perfect.

I was going to write a long post about my job interview, but I mostly facebooked the issue. I interviewed for a job at OGC, reluctantly because I like what I do, where I do it, for the same money. Reasons were told to all, then announced as secret so I'm on the down-low about why.

On the other hand, my lack of fear of the interview was well founded. I handled all the questions well. I walked in with a tabbed folder of my credentials. I don't feel like I bombed, but again that's just my unsubstantiated impression. If any thing I prattled on too much "(No, really, as, me more about me)." I joked, and I stuck my neck out...I was asked about work location, and I openly admitted, noting my honesty, that I was frustrated that I was only currently allowed to work at home 2 days a week with exceptions. I was asked why, and noted I work in a cube farm which is distracting, and I like to save the time and money while being in my house next to my kitchen. The big boss noted they discourage, actively, "AWS" (I didn't point out that acronym is not for telework location issues) because they encourage discussions (though they have private offices) (oh bytheway they have private offices like actual lawyers) and want to be available "for their clients." I didn't ask because...I know damn well no clients walk down the hall to their fucking offices.

I've been on the fence about the issue because I wanted to determine whether I would accept a job or not if offered. I kinda don't want it, less so since it seems they don't litigate in any courts either - it's just my job for the same pay with some pluses (905 series for-real attorney, office, main building is kinda neat, high-caliber coworkers and possibly more legal training and refinement) but minuses that matter to me (autocratic environment, likely restricted hours unless it's to work to my detriment, less telework, same fucking pay?).

I was asked to provide 3 professional references by Thursday. Then bigboss said Tuesday, but nobody corrected the actual day. I provided my references today.

Then today I realized for my organized packet, I forgot to provide the requested writing sample. So for the tabbed handout, I was missing an entire section. At least there is a good reason to not offer me the job.

Today I talked to my old boss who called me immediately after I emailed about a professional reference (immediately after emailing hellyesses). He noted that while we all likely face a hiring freeze, these things don't often last long, and his group has the same work - more to my culture in the sense our group is more settle-em high, and I'm hang-em high because they're liars, and very flexiplace friendly (he lives in Atlanta, though his job resides in DC for many purposes). Oh, and they are GS-15s (a higher rate of pay).

Huh.

Hearing about the movement of eljay to Moscow and the jailing of dissidents, I'm thinking this may be my last year of eljay. I don't use it much, not making new connections, and viewing my friend's list makes me sad to see all the vanishing acts. I feel connected enough with the stupids and variable ratio schedule of the fb algorithm.

I've changed in a lot of ways, but I'm still pretty stupid - particularly emotionally. I'm not sure if I just got old, my glands stopped, I grew up a little, or this is just a lull in my personal crazies and some bump or event will snap me back into emotional reactions out of proportion with events in my life.

I should do more updating, but I've been running around nonstop with the girl and...really just want to play diablo.

I talk to myself.

Listening to old tunes I'm feeling that lovely empowered after oppression feeling, remembering, and enjoying my new bizarre status as mannish n'shit.

But then I listen to a misplaced song, one where I didn't understand the lyrics and it took on a different meaning to me. I felt miserable, but ...
as I've done too many times before
taunted myself with what I thought I wanted, needed,

And I made the break. And I feel better, much, and things and my life are good.

But I hurt someone to do it.

So when I listen to this song that reminds me of the pain I once felt,
what I feel is guilt.
Yet I move on.

I don't know what's right.

I hate end of the year reflections like any other holiday, though it's less offensive without a religious backdrop. But why today vs. another?

I will say this is the first year in a long time I haven't been looking forward to the new year. Between news of terror attacks, foreign aggressive powers for gain, and a clown car of anti-government activists put in charge of government agencies...things look as awful as during reagan or bushes.

But I'm doing great. All those years of hard work and sacrifice are paying off - everywhere. My investments are ok. I live in my house and am really liking it - seemingly more every day. The finances aren't done yet / the old place isn't rented, but it's imaginable that it will be. Heck my physical abilities are decent after years of this lifting things. The girl and I are comfortable but not bored of each other.

It's strange to be happy about me and sad about everything else. I guess someday I'll miss breathing without masks, water without filters, and exterminating the food rioters.

I'm feeling old because I'm old. I'm perhaps peak for my age, education, and this industrialized world I live in, but seeing physical changes is saddening. I found a long eyebrow hair - death.

Had an odd experience the other day where we had a happy hour in an unresearched place - turned out to be a watering hole near a hockey game that was just starting. It was annoying, loud, and not ideal for our happy hour group - but curiously I didn't even think until later that I never felt "threatened." Sportsball fans always make my hair stand on end, call it perceived middle-school jock trauma. Last night we ate in a casual place staffed and attended by suburban white high-school jocks. I mean it sounds odd to say, but gee at 48 I'm over it. Only 30 years and I've moved on? I'm glad not to feel threatened, but I have this little tickle in the back of my mind: how different are kids today (in all those jocks, nobody was being a douchebag), how different am I, and how annoying was I back then / what was my role? But as a 48 year old man, I don't much.

I can hear rain falling on my skylights.

I've been eating terrible, forgotten what vegetables are, drinking often, indulging in cookies n'stuff, and seem to have lost 8 lbs. Yay gym payoff?

Gym is fun. I go. I am trying to do more volume work after getting some gains. My chest/left tricep is still dead / nerve not firing. My squat is slowly increasing. Slow is probably good for me, and I still get stranger comments when they see me lifting that much at my size. I'm tempted to relish the 3 plate old nemesis, but I used to enjoy my old bench 2 plate nemesis - before my nerve died.

An opening is posted for OGC 13/14. That fear aleved. New fear, I have to apply.

This has been a great weekend. I pretty much did not do my chores other than the gym and cat care, but played a million hours of video games. It's a symptom of my disease(s), but I feel great that I got my geeking on.

Loving my house, work continues to be slow.

Work exploded so I've been mostly offline for a week. Now I'm...not really online. Writing no much or long. I feel less driven to share my observations - a side effect of confidence and social connection?

I have fought all my life for security.

In the middle of the day yesterday an all caps MANDATORY MEETING was sent out to my branch for a meeting at 2:30, in-person or phone conference. Our AA (high-up official) told us quickly that the Office of General Counsel had recommended that Agencies lose the ability to do EEO representation any more, and that recommendation was being implemented starting in January.

It turns out that despite all indications it would go the other way, including OGC's analysis, an EEO AJ had ordered an Agency Representative to turn over all their communications in an EEO case because they were not an attorney, only a representative. The Agency lost the case, theoretically in part because of the internal work product of the non-attorney representative. Man fuck the EEOC, fuck them.

Starting in January all the EEO cases are being moved to OGC. IF we have active bar licenses, we are allowed to apply for our jobs when they are posted to the public via USAJobs. There is no guarantee we will be selected, and OGC is known as fussy about their selections. I'm not sure if it is like other Agencies where they only hire you if you fit an emphasis program, have a connection, or went to an ivy league school. I've always tried to politic a little there, and hope I've made a good impression because...

The phase-out starts January 2017 and is currently estimated to take 1-2 years. When the EEO cases are removed, the Agencies are theoretically able to still do their own representation work in arbitration and MSPB appeals. I'm not convinced they'll be allowed to do that though, as I once litigated an arbitration grievance that resulted in a multi-million dollar settlement (once the scope was understood, OGC was linked in, and there was much scolding that something that big could happen without OGC - who, at the time, argued that I was fuckingamazeballs at the work and had it well under control). MSPB cases are easily as much of a liability as EEO cases, and some of those are "mixed" to cover EEO. I think the odds of this work remaining in the Agency are slim; if it does keep some of the work, there will be a lot less of it so staff would have to be reduced.

Sadly most of the people I worked with at OGC are gone and the connections have gone stale since that big multi-mil case.

Door #3 is if the work goes away and we don't find work elsewhere, we'll be placed within the organization somewhere. Sadly there are not a lot of non-supervisory GS-14s, and I'm too high up to take a 13 w/o a pay cut. Part of me likes the idea of having less responsibility at work.

In reality, there is no question what I'm doing: Applying for my job at OGC.
I always thought I'd wind up there, though lately I've wondered instead about doing management in this area in the Agency - with the work gone, that's not even possible. In theory I should be a shoe-in: I'm a bar-licensed attorney andthankfuck I kept my license active. If I get the job, it would likely start at my existing GS-14, rather than a promotion to the GS-15s they have (in fact my guess is they'll take "their own" and make them 15s based on the new staff members filling the lower ranks). The benefits there, besides money, are a much better support system, private offices, and working in the main building that I like. The downsides (besides not being selected at all) would be possibly lower pay (sometimes they only hire 9s and 11s to mold their own staff), possibly not offices as they increase in size, the main building is in a desert of places to eat, now that I moved that building is no longer in my metro line (transferring, oh no), losing a lot of the benefit of my 10 years of building my agency reputation, needing to dress more professionally, more reviews and monitoring of my work, a stuffier business climate, and hellish work politics. I've never applied for an OGC position in my part of gummint.

Oh and there's no gym nearby. With no gym near my home I'm going to lose a lot more time working out.

Last night we went to brew night at zoo lights, starting with a beer in my flashing-light tumbler from the brewer's art, and then cascading into today's hangover. I'm at Veronica's with her best friend crashed in the living room so I can't even salve myself with coffee. I suspect we'll all be hurtin'

I'm mad at Psyche because I loved her post that was no-commented. Grr girl.

It's the day after thanksgiving, and for not-T-day I took my mom to Dukem on U Street for Ethiopian. She's never had it, and loved it, so that was fun and a win. Sadly she has a strong hand tremor and it may have been a bit messy. I've seen someone with bad tremors recently who has trouble eating - he's seeking medical intervention and mad it isn't working, but my mom just seems to accept it. That said, with the counters made of stone, and the floor still perpetually dirty from work boots, and my absence of opiod abuse, the visit is going far better than when she came down to take care of me post-surgery. Said another way, I'm focusing on spending time with her and not being an anal-retentive git.

House. I say house and it sounds like that movie...but I love house. I got heat just the week before she arrived, and we got the thermostat to turn off / regulate temperature rather than just stay on the day before she arrived. However, with all utilities now working properly - even fios? This place is amazeballs.

Some of the new happy comes from catching up with work and having time to spend here, and I got some major furniture shuffling and box unpacking done while mom's been here. I still may lose a shelving system and bookcase here or there, but more memory boxes are in the attic, the floor can be walked on and across instead of around in box-mazes. Sadly my office has gone from the most organized to the least, and somehow with the time to do un-boxing I haven't taken clothes off the drying racks.

I've even cleaned the bathrooms. You can sit on toilet seats with confidence - even in the powder room. All the switches are fixed so...fans in every room if you so choose.

I'm organizing the kitchen because...I'm using it enough for the locations to start to make sense.

Oh, I can BARELY hear that my mom is getting up, as I put insulation everywhere, so it's time to visit and chat with her while I provide her with press-coffee.

I'm happy. Veronica comes back today and we'll be able to spend time here and in her place with little inconvenience and NO PLANNING. I don't have to go to Arlington - and while it needs prepping and renting, it doesn't require daily work now. I don't have to figure out where I'm going to have my work stuff, food, and clothes between multiple locations. It's no longer an hour through rush hour stop and go, it's 10 minutes including parking.

hogawd and I've taken mom out to eat every day, just highlighting how everything is here. Thip Khao, Chuchos, Meridian, and then Dukem...and I live here. Whew. So the house is comparatively a castle (with less moving boxes but some to go) and it's in a fun part of town. Unreal, that this is my life, and it's just starting. Granted, this'll be normal to me in 3 weeks perhaps - but right now it's amazeballs.

When I left the DOL-OFCCP, I was persecuted by a raging twatwaffle. I know I played a role in that, but even reflecting back some of the objective facts do show something was not quite right (such as insisting against my advice I take performance-based action, then overriding it because "it would look wrong for a white man to take action against a black woman)," giving out performance awards directly (while again, shadow having me give the bad news as if it was from me). I was pretty down on things when I left.

But I went to unnamed Agency, and while I was terrified when I saw how much discipline they issued over things that were not even considered misconduct in DOL, my hard work was rewarded and I adapted to the culture easily. I turned back into a happy and patriotic employee. Then I had another abusive twatwaffle and downturn...but it was never all bad, and I turned that around as well.

At unnamed Agency, I met an old coworker, frankly one I had an inappropriate crush on at DOL (I was a manager, she was my co-manager's subordinate). Now there was no barrier, but I was used to the barrier so I sort of maintained distance. Still, we were friends and more frank than average coworkers. I hung out with her when I worked in Beltsville, and she told me horrible stories about coworkers I liked and considered friends - things which, if true, would make me not want to be friends with them. Still, while I knew and trusted her, I knew and trusted the others. Lacking details I decided "not to decide" whether my friend was telling the truth or if my other friends were twatwaffles. Even so, my friend stayed negative, avoided people, and kind of spiraled into defensiveness and negativity until she left unnamed Agency. Her work and attendance suffered. Persecuted or not, she was not a good employee when she left. I got a rumble that she didn't do well in her new job either...

And...in that is my mystery. I work against mostly fuckups, people who disappear into the EEO complaint process routinely, moving from trying to work for reward to fighting perceived wrongs via the complaint system, withholding work, and looking for attacks. I work with the fuckups who don't believe they were discriminated against, but have no problem filing complaints hoping to hit the "eeo lottery" of rewards for technical violations or missing files etc. Understand - I'm the first to say there is discrimination, but sadly the people I see using the process -largely- are not victims 98% of the time (even the ones who believe they are vs. lying). So, I'm not sure I'm that different - I went negative and while I faced some problems - was it discrimination? If so, how much was that, and how much other things?

Most importantly - how did I get out of that mindset? How did I go from negative to so happy today? Why didn't my friend who went from the same environment to a similar environment? I lost touch with her when she left this job and withdrew from me (mostly).

If there is a most-valuable-thing I can do from my position - it's not defending taxpayers against the frivolous claims or even shutting down the abuse of the system. It's finding a way to flip the switch on people who have gone to a perspective of negativity and defensiveness into working for good, for a team, for the US of A, for their own ethics ... making things instead of defending and attacking perceived threats. That's the mystery I'd like to solve, and then communicate with behavioral results.

Those 1/10 or 1/100 freakshows cost a fortune in the bureaucracies I see.

However if I could get the right people using the system I could perhaps do more good than that. Every study that looks at resume or loan applications with sex/race information on them finds bias in how the same facts are rated based on the race/sex of the named applicant. I fear that the ninnies trying to score undeserved goods, thieves who intend to abuse the process, are not only causing direct harm via wasted resources - but preventing people who could file substantive claims, the kind that could lead to institutional change, from using the process as it was designed.