Working From Home

but jeez even my miniscule commutes added up to 3+ hours a week, that's a significant chunk of time

Yeah I think its why my company have remained happy with WFH - if I come into the office I'm in at 8.30 and out at 5, but if I'm WFH I'm often logged in/at my desk by 7.30 and still plodding away after 5, and I dont usually claim OT if its only 20-30 mins. Theyre getting more work out of me for sure.

Yes, this. I just turned down a job even though they would have accepted an extremely weird schedule: work from home in the AM, drive in like 10, leave at like 3, long in and work a bit more.

Way easier to just be generally available for a reasonable portion of the day, and skip the 1.5 hours of non-productive highway time.

considering showering at the office for a while to claw back money from the last few years’ water bills

pre-screened for the new position, am moving onto the interview process.

i was reading ILX threads during the conversation.

in a way it's kind of a testament that I could do something like this half-attentive and avoid filler words and sound interesting for 15 mins with a complete stranger, but actually interacting w/ strangers socially = stutter central.

i had my first t*x client meeting of the year yesterday (because of storms almost everyone in my state gets an extension until October, so I'm not super late) ... I was super anxious even though I've been doing this for 20 years, but I quickly found myself in autopilot mode and afterwards was like, "Oh, damn, I have gotten good at this?!"

still waiting for the interview to be scheduled (now that the recruiter doesn't do it themselves, it tends to move slower - but this is normal), but my friend on the inside put in a good word for me.

have found it hard to stay focused this week. i wound up playing World Series of Poker for an hour during my shift yesterday, while I actually had things to do.

Best of luck to you Neanderthal

I think one thing I've often left out in my work rants over the years is how progressive in terms of values my company has been since I started, which is probably one reason why even after some of the stressful years I endured here, I've stayed. it's not just lip-servicey either, for decades we've had several inter-office groups/clubs for gay and trans employees, and invited guest speakers (The Trevor Project is a very frequent invited guest for lunch and learns), and we normalized using pronouns years ago. the workforce is extremely diverse.

Not all of the EMPLOYEES here, mind you, are all that forward-thinking - a few years ago, trainees learned that one of their fellow trainees was transgender, and several issued threats to this person. but when leadership takes these position, it helps a lot, to make clear that this shit isn't acceptable (I have no idea what happened to these employees but fairly sure they got shit-canned immediately).

today, one of our leaders wrote an article titled: "Trans colleagues need support as violence turns toward community". incredibly well-written article focusing on the community healing from the school shooting while also calling for compassion for trans colleagues who have now become an increased target of hate due to it.

really helps a lot in these dark times to at least know the place you work at is actually not enabling this horrible shit.

That is good to know, for sure.

Got an interview today for a gig doing promotional materials (maybe creating, but most likely just proofreading/editing) for some healthcare lab. Should be at least mildly diverting and hey, money!

best of luck!!

lately our VPN connection has been messed up, almost like the login script that is supposed to run after you connect doesn't always work.

many of us having to disconnect and reconnect multiple times throughout the day when applications mysteriously stop working mid-day, despite still showing as connected to VPN

Does it have options? We have like "Staff Remote 1" and "Staff Remote 2" - sometimes choosing another remote will make it work, in my limited experience (I'm no IT guy)

interview in t minus 7 minutes.

already did my preparation, now it's just go time.

Good luck!!

meh. I overtalked a bit, but I had prepared with copious amounts of notes so when they asked behavioral questions, I answered them very thoroughly. my problem was I was trying too hard to fit in what I do now with this job, because they're different departments, instead of trusting that they could make that connection or ask.

but....I'm always critical of myself in interviews. we'll see how it goes. I was the fifth person they interviewed.

after hearing a description of the role, I could do it in my sleep.

Sending good thoughts your way for good news soon! I'm sure you nailed it.

wtg, n!

Best of wishes to Neanderthal

look forward to hearing that you got the job, Neanderthal

you should totally get this job, but otoh there are a lot of stupid people in positions of power, so if you don't get it ... it's not you, it's them

so far, haven't heard anything back yet. but they said 'within the next week', rather than "by the end of the week".

I was towards the early wave of interviews though so I'm not too worried - i'm going to log on and peak later to see if my application status has changed.

I will say, at this company, you usually get ghosted if you didn't get the position, or told like a month later

ok, application status is still "reviewing application" so that's good, selection hasn't been made yet

fingers crossed for you Neando, hope you get good news soon!

lord. one of the last classes I supervised, after a few months of a more hands-off approach, turned out to be a disaster that created a lot of noise, so I decided to fight through my burnout this week and keep a closer eye on this class. i figured it'd go fine as both instructors were experienced, but they committed every rookie mistake possible today and fell 2+ hours behind (which pretty much means we're fucked and will have to make cuts now).

so I gave a ton of feedback and I guess one of the instructors is 'bummed' about it (even though I did highlight what they did well). ffs, if I'm not allowed to shut down when I get feedback at work, you aren't either.

this was after rewriting the feedback 70 or 80 times to remove any harsh edges. i see that was pointless.

May I recommend a move into marketing? Not *writing ad copy*, but proofreading/copy-editing/etc. I make a substantial portion of my income that way and it's not that hard to break in; in fact, with your combined background you'll probably wind up making more than me because you can get in on the tech side (I don't have the vocab to work on SaaS marketing shit, but you probably do).

― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, May 2, 2023 8:08 PM (two days ago)

Shifting this from another thread so as not to derail it, I could use some leads and pointers on how to pursue this. "Not that hard to break in" especially caught my attention, since I had been under the impression that copy editing was a dying field due to cost savings, but maybe that's just in newspapers. I'm currently very underemployed at three bar shifts per week and proofreading/copy editing seems like something I can succeed at.

hi dere, I do technical writing and editing for a living.

You could start with some staffing agencies / temp agencies; some used to specialize in editorial workers (Like Editorial Experts Inc., now sadly defunct) but maybe find out what's local to you. Say no to anything administrative or clerical, specify that you will only do editing/proofreading.

I did a bunch of consulting and freelancing and temping, but it was years ago. A smidgen of medical/health, PR/marketing occasionally. But currently I'm mostly in proposal development, which is a very specific niche but not impossible to start in. The biggest placement agencies are https://www.shipleywins.com/careers/ and https://smawins.com/jobs/. Boring but lucrative. A lot is attached to government contracting, because that's where the money is, but there is plenty of other work out there.

YMP, thank you!

I got a new laptop a month ago. they gave me a prepaid UPS box to send it back in, and I made a mental note that I'd go out to a drop box and send it back that Friday.

that mental note congealed into a false memory that I'd actually sent it back, so it sat in my closet untouched until I finally noticed it this week, screaming "send me back!" in a blithe voice. interestingly, nobody on IT side asked about the missing equipment until yesterday, lol.

finally sent it back. we'll always have Paris, Dell

*send the old one back in

proposal development, which is a very specific niche but not impossible to start in.

i feel like i do this as part of my non-lucrative non-profit job, but maybe I am not entirely clear on what it is? like, is this basically the equivalent of applying for grants but for for-profit businesses? ... i don't even want to know what these people make in compensation. ... me & my co-worker both regularly experience people doing work along the lines of what we do, who get paid way more than we do, and who know far less useful background that would make them much more effective at their jobs ... okay, this is my "small vs. big" rant of the month

I return to a daily in-office schedule this Monday, but with reduced hours from 10 am to 2 pm, which always matched what was the busiest time (in relative terms) at the library location. This allows me to take care of a lot of things in the early morning at home, from laundry to local errands, while keeping an eye on immediate work tasks/email before I head out. A good balance, I won't say no (as the job was always public-facing to start with, a return was going to be on the cards at some point, so a three-year break as such to get adjusted to a better balance like I have has been a treat, much as I will miss having lunches at home).

Sarahell: you are right. You don't want to know.

looking at one of those websites you linked, YMP, it did make me think about how both me and my coworker have educational backgrounds related to semantics & semiotics (we jave had conversations that apply Barthesian concepts to occupancy load factors) and how language is used to create the illusion of specialized skill and technical knowledge that is generally just, basic common sense (meaning -- things people know/learn just by observing the world around them and going about their day-to-day) or an application thereof.

Yes, lots of methodologies are formalizations of common sense.

Business schools and books are always coming up with frameworks (TQM, Six Sigma, PMBOK, Agile, ITIL, Shipley, CMMI, ISO, etc.) and then pretending that it's knowledge in the same way as knowing the lengths of rivers in Africa is.

It's absurd but a necessary absurdity in certain contexts. It's hard to work with people who follow a five-step methodology with three core principles when you follow a four-step with six core principles.

(I should note that I claim exactly _no_ specialized expertise, and frequently say so. I just put words and pictures on pieces of paper. The same thing I have been doing professionally since I was 15.)

Application status: No longer being considered

(not that they actually told me or anything - I just looked this afternoon and they'd surreptitiously updated it).

aww that sucks man

back to drawing board. gotta see what feedback they have for me first.

always get the feedback even though you don't want to

Yeah I'll make them tell me. Whether it's something in the interview or if they didn't think my skills mapped to it.

maybe they just couldn't manage without you in your current position? or do they not communicate or take that into account?

that would be a terrible reason not to hire someone!

it's probably not that - my boss supported the move.

if I had to guess it's that my experience is all in customer care and this is a different wing and when you're trying to jump departments they have to clearly see how your current skills map over there. i probably didn't do a good enough job proving that.

during the interview, I was asked a question about what I currently did after I went through my 'career summary' and it felt to see like they were trying to see how I could take what I do now and apply it to the new job.

that's why I never quite understood why my friend thought I was a 'shoo-in'. he didn't just leave customer care for this job, he left it for a lower level position in the same department, then got promoted into this role. I'm betting they promoted someone who was already in that department.

it's ok though. other things will pop up!

you should totally get this job, but otoh there are a lot of stupid people in positions of power, so if you don't get it ... it's not you, it's them

― sarahell, Sunday, April 30, 2023 10:46 AM (one week ago)

very true. in this case - I'll recharge and try again.

I have vacation coming up anyway.

How huge is this company? You had to get that news via the application website? Lame. Sorry.