Saturday, March 21, 2009

Feeding the addiction

Kind of a strange morning on C-SPAN -- sane people calling in, at least so far. But I've only been listening for about 15 minutes so no doubt the tinfoil hats will come out soon.

The young republican who's busy defending Reagan's policies and/or legacy did manage to say something unintentionally hilarious: the government doesn't provide any jobs. That was right after he mentioned bloated bureaucracies. WTF? Does he think those bureaucracies are staffed by robots? I work for the government, or I thought I did. Apparently those 8 hours a day five days a week I spend staring at gray fabric cubicle walls don't count as employment.

Those cubicle walls could be changing to a slightly different shade of gray soon. I got asked if I'd be willing to do a detail to serve as a copy editor at one of the journals Large Nameless Agency publishes. It would, of course, entail a temporary promotion to a higher pay grade, so my mercenary instincts kicked in immediately. Now the only question is the start date, which depends on how much time the people in Human Resources claim they need to process the paperwork.

I actually interviewed for a transfer/promotion to that journal back around New Year's, but a colleague with more time in at LNA got the job. Turned out he didn't like it and is going back to what he used to do, so they're kind in a bind now. It was an odd feeling learning that the colleague had changed his mind, a mix of vindication (for various reasons I never could figure out why he applied there in the first place) and trepidation. Like they say, you should always be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

5 comments:

  1. Good luck with the new job. I hope that the reason it was a job the colleague got and didn't like was under the previous admin, and that you will like it since you might be working for a kinder, gentler big nameless government agency.

    ReplyDelete
  2. BTW, I love, love, love that dark blue linen dress. I would buy it, but I'm worried about how big my body has gotten this past winter. And I haven't yet finished paying property taxes. Love the pale blue one too, but haven't looked at the larger picture. You do lovely work.

    ReplyDelete
  3. In practical terms nothing changed at the journal when it comes to management; it just wasn't a good fit for the guy. The journal is monthly with intense deadline pressure, and he wasn't used to that.

    As for the dark blue dress, if I could will myself into being a couple sizes smaller, it would never leave this house. It still floors me some thinking about the way sizing has changed since the 1950s. I used to wonder how many celebrities could be size 2 or 0, and now I know -- if they had been buying dresses in the '50s they would have been 8s or 10s.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Congrats & good luck with the new job!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. A corollary to your comment about the guy on the radio who said government doesn't provide any jobs: the eejits who talk about the government like it is some inherently evil entity.

    How come my nine year old can get that government is people working together to decide how to take care of needs like clean air and water, safety, etc. yet rightwingers like my halfblood sibling thinks it is some awful monolith?

    URGH.

    And, yes, good luck with your new job. Remember what Willy Wonka said about the man who suddenly got everything he wanted? :-)

    ReplyDelete

My space, my rules: play nice and keep it on topic.