[Tanktimus the Encourager]

That's awful man. I strongly suspect you are right that they are trying to weasel their way out of work from home. That's some BS about moving the goal posts.

[Mistr]

I agree with Tank, your work is screwing around with you. My BFF works for the state here, and she has to use the same tactic of paying new people more to get an increase for her current team. It is a stupid and frustrating process for everyone.

 

Let me say again, every company and organization in the country is out looking for good people right now. You can definitely find a better position than you have. You read and write English, can follow instructions and show up on time. That's all you need. You don't even have to relocate. Lots of places are offering remote work.

[Kishi]

19 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

That's awful man. I strongly suspect you are right that they are trying to weasel their way out of work from home. That's some BS about moving the goal posts.

 

17 hours ago, Mistr said:

I agree with Tank, your work is screwing around with you. My BFF works for the state here, and she has to use the same tactic of paying new people more to get an increase for her current team. It is a stupid and frustrating process for everyone.

 

Yeah, and despite my penchant for conspiratorial thinking, I'm pretty sure it's just stupidity and decisions based on an overreliance on certain datasets rather than active malice. A few things to poke holes in my complaints:

• The goal posts are usually moved around every 6 months or so. It's pretty normal to get a set of goals that nobody succeeds at, and then to have them be adjusted halfway through the fiscal year. I haven't had reason to care for a while on account of not being in compliance with most of those goals. Now that I am - because compliance yields a fundamental change in my situation - I'm drawn to care and complain.
• Analysts aren't the only ones with work from home. There's a wide range of workers here who have that capacity, and there's no talk from them about any sense of withdrawal of privileges. It's possible that management could be playing games with the analysts in particular as part of some kind of long game, but I don't actually have any evidence of that.
• Stupidity, I find, is generally a better explanation than malice. I can't really discern a motive for why management would want us back in the building. True, we're paying rent on our building, but 1) we're public sector; we don't necessarily have to justify our expenses in the same way as private sector would, and 2) there are multiple agencies operating in the building now, so the landlord is making money hand over fist compared to when we were in the building; also, 3) even if none of us were in the building, we'd still need the building for storage of paperwork if nothing else.
• Based on what my supervisor told us, it sounds like this could be coming from above even our upper management. It's the nature of bureaucracy. If the wrong person in the wrong spot cares too much, it makes trouble and it ripples down to the bodies below. It could be that there are other branches where work from home is being "abused," leading to a crackdown across the bureaucracy as a whole.

So, as mad as all this makes me, until I have evidence to the contrary, it's best to just assume it's a systemic problem based on artificial hierarchy and dictation from above rather than leadership from below. And that's the kind of crap I'd have to put up with anywhere I went.

 

18 hours ago, Mistr said:

Let me say again, every company and organization in the country is out looking for good people right now. You can definitely find a better position than you have. You read and write English, can follow instructions and show up on time. That's all you need. You don't even have to relocate. Lots of places are offering remote work.

 

I thank you for the reminder. I took a look around and while I'll keep looking, the prospects aren't great. Lots of marketing companies with an unwillingness to discuss salaries, which tells me they're either stealth sales jobs or that they're looking to negotiate. There are analyst jobs open in my area of expertise, but their pay range is worse and they'd want to start me off at the bottom, and even if I got to the top of the range, it'd be below what I could make here.

 

I'll keep looking, because why not? But my emotions to the contrary, I really could be in a worse place than where I am now.

 

Thanks as always for worrying about me.

 

*

 

So, not much to say without training. I didn't go out to the mats because of my cough, so I decided to focus on chores and mental stuff. Did laundry, listened to a video lecture on one of the resources I got for fear management. It was constructive, and I'm pleased to report that it's congruous with a lot of what I was doing in terms of meditation and 'learning to breathe.' There may be more to qigong and WHM than I thought. A lot of what I took from it was learning to recognize when I was afraid and trying to get to the root of that fear, something that the stoicism has been helping with.

 

Found a 'fail point' in the story I'm working on, which is awesome to do from the bird's eye view versus being down in the prose. Stared at the problem for a while and may have found a solution; need to go back to some of my worldbuilding and see if it fits, but if it does then I think I have something way more interesting from a character/conflict perspective than just blowing stuff up really good. (not that I'm opposed to blowing stuff up really good, but I want it to feel earned, you know?)

 

Got up this morning. Cough's responding a lot better to medicine than it was yesterday. That's a good sign. No mat time tonight - learned my lesson - but maybe some gentle work to see how far I've recovered. Will adjust from there.

[Scaly Freak]

7 hours ago, Kishi said:

It could be that there are other branches where work from home is being "abused," leading to a crackdown across the bureaucracy as a whole.

 

This is why I now am working in the office three days a week. A small number of weasels without a work ethic when left alone were unfortunately in positions that made their lack of discipline very noticeable. And now we all suffer from it. 😒

 

7 hours ago, Kishi said:

Cough's responding a lot better to medicine than it was yesterday. That's a good sign.

 

This is a very good sing. Glad you're doing better.  

[Kishi]

17 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

This is why I now am working in the office three days a week. A small number of weasels without a work ethic when left alone were unfortunately in positions that made their lack of discipline very noticeable. And now we all suffer from it. 😒

 

I'm sorry to hear your company was so dissatisfied with a few people that they decided to punish you for it. That sucks.

 

17 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

This is a very good sing. Glad you're doing better.  

 

Thanks!

 

-

 

And today is today.

 

Got home yesterday and elected to do 'slow' training - stretching, bridge work, farmer's carries. Nothing to get the heart moving too hard for too long. Did some qigong afterward. Meditated before bed, but no other breath work. Researched a technique I saw at open mat last Sunday; the purple belt I saw doing it says it's one thing but when I mimic it and see it on video, it sure does look like something else. Oh well. A little late in the game to be trying to pick up new stuff, but a little late in the game to be sick off the mats. Nobody's perfect.

 

I'm trying to look ahead of the tournament to figure out what I want to do next. I've been measuring my bodyfat percentages and they keep coming back in the "Obese" range, so I reckon that's something I gotta do something about. Mark Sisson posted a blog recently about Protein Sparing Modified Fasting, which sounds crazy and restrictive and possibly just like what the doctor ordered. Thing is, it's a scientifically backed crash diet, and there's no point in crash dieting if 1) it wouldn't be advised for me, and 2) I couldn't maintain the results. So the adult thing to do is probably to talk it over with my doctors, since I have no idea what my thyroid would do in a situation like that, and I might not be cleared for it.

 

But that's after the tournament. Right now, my weight's actually doing pretty well; I seem to have stabilized on the high end of my weight class, which is about where I want to be. No reason to gum it up now.

 

Speaking of weight classes and tournaments: my academy's moving! Looks like our building's getting gobbled up by developers in the Warehouse District, so now they're moving closer to where I work. It's almost like they want me there more.

 

So... yeah. Should be a writing night tonight. I feel a bit better and no worse than I did yesterday, so I'm going to go a touch harder and do my core work tonight if I can.

[Kishi]

Exciting news! Got the word yesterday that, with the onset of September, I was cleared for telework from home! My boss and I blitzed through the paperwork and I'll be starting the new schedule next week!

 

Because in this place, joy functions at the speed of bureaucracy

 

But, yeah, that was freaking welcome to hear. I guess by complaining to my higher-ups, I accidentally advocated for myself and I got a good result out of it. It helps that I had a lot of good work to back me up and the support of my immediate supervisor as well.

 

Trained yesterday, this time doing fast stuff. No uptick in symptoms. Today will be a rest day per protocol to see if I lapse back or anything, but if everything goes well, I'll resume the normal course of things starting tomorrow. I'm actually not sure if we have class tomorrow or not since apparently we are to be moving the mats to the new place. I have questions about what this means. I suppose I'll get them answered if I help tomorrow.

 

I played around with some numbers on the PSMF protocol and, basically, I can't do it. I need too much protein between my bodyweight stuff and the mat stuff and I would exceed the calorie allotment just on protein alone, which is before you get to the associated fats you'd get with whole foods and getting just enough veggies to keep fiber in the system. I guess we'll just have to keep on with slow and steady and getting to know my body better, and adjust as I do more and more strenuous things in GST and mat space.

 

Otherwise, though, went and wrote with friends and had a good time. Figured out the problem I was trying to solve and made progress. Good. Tonight will be easy and casual. No plans.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Congrats! Here's to no commute, time for training, and comfy chairs and breakrooms.

[Scaly Freak]

7 hours ago, Kishi said:

Exciting news! Got the word yesterday that, with the onset of September, I was cleared for telework from home! My boss and I blitzed through the paperwork and I'll be starting the new schedule next week!

 

This is great news! Congratulations on having autonomy and control over your work-life balance again  

[Mad Hatter]

Excellent news!

[Kishi]

On 9/2/2022 at 2:21 PM, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Congrats! Here's to no commute, time for training, and comfy chairs and breakrooms.

 

On 9/2/2022 at 7:03 PM, Scaly Freak said:

 

This is great news! Congratulations on having autonomy and control over your work-life balance again  

 

On 9/6/2022 at 4:29 AM, Mad Hatter said:

Excellent news!

 

Thank you all!

 

*

 

Oh man, I chilled and vibe'd myself so hard that I missed the start of the next challenge! I gotta get on that but in the meantime my thanks to everyone who stopped by. Special thanks to @Jupiter, @Mad Hatter, @Mistr, @Scaly Freak, @Tanktimus the Encourager, and @WhiteGhost for following along.

 

See you next round! Which is... oh, it's now