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[wombat]

The bright side of all this is now you understand why it's all suddenly happening, because of the civil service rules thing. All the non-bright-sides, like how somehow this wasn't clear to you when you were hired, well, no use crying over spilt milk. The thing to do now is stop expecting the rules to make logical sense, stop wasting energy obsessing over whether something is your fault, and figure out how to work the system.

Have you thought about trying to write down the coherent thoughts that turn to mush when you are talking face to face, and sending them in an email?

[theinevitable]

Yes, that is a really good idea. I emailed a few people who head up other sections of the department asking to talk about open positions. And trying to figure out who in HR can explain the civil service thing.

Thanks for listening (reading) and for the good point.

[Lister]

Today I remembered that this place is a thing. Not gonna lie, it made me feel good to see people I knew posting here, even if it's sporadic.

You guys are the best.

[pmcd9]

Lister old friend. This has become a place where you say the things you can't say on Facebook. You don't have to worry about what your family, or friends, or co-workers think.

[AugustWest]

It's the secret internet hideout!

[theinevitable]

The job stuff is still shitty.

I met with the woman in charge of the cool programming job (still in the city planning office). It is definitely over my head FOR NOW but we talked about what I can work on to get there.

It was my GF's birthday and I got her a simple necklace and an Instant Pot. She is wearing the necklace and we are cooking lots of good stuff in the instant pot. Mission accomplished.
Her mom said she feels JEALOUS that some guy who's known her for a year gave her the best birthday presents. That's right lady, there's a new hoss in town

[pmcd9]

That's right lady, there's a new hoss in town

Well Shit, Goddamn, Inev's a Man!

[theinevitable]

Really promising job opening at work. Have contacted a few people but haven't heard back yet. Drooling a little.

[Carlos del Vaca]

My younger daughter has not been doing well with the transition to middle school. In particular, she's not enjoying the hallways between classes. She's a small kid, and the halls are super crowded (the school is in the midst of a construction project which makes it worse). In particular, she's having trouble getting from lunch to the next period, which is basically a study hall/activities period. She's not allowed to bring her backpack to lunch, so she has to go to her locker after lunch, swap out her stuff, and get to the next class which is at the far end of the school. She's been late for it almost every day, and the teacher gives her a hard time about it (which is galling because it's not an actual class).

So Mrs. del Vaca e-mailed the teacher and the guidance counselor, went over the situation, and said "My kid is not goofing off or anything, she's trying her best but it's not working. This is a ridiculous thing for her to be stressed out about; can anyone figure out why this is so hard and help fix it." And the teacher wrote back like yeah sure, we'll see what we can do.

This morning, she writes again: the break between those periods is only four minutes, when all the rest are five. WELL THERE YOU GO. Good on Mrs. del Vaca for making them actually look at this shit. A big part of her struggles this year is that some of the teachers seem to not give a shit; they're like "No one is going to help you in high school so we should we do that now." Jeez, what a shitty attitude.

[miles]

A big part of her struggles this year is that some of the teachers seem to not give a shit; they're like "No one is going to help you in high school so we should we do that now." Jeez, what a shitty attitude.

Of course independence is important but the really shitty thing about that attitude is that it doesn't really reflect how life actually works. I don't know very many people who didn't have mentors, or weren't cut some slack, or didn't get some help to get to wherever they are. Those teachers are just assholes.

[pmcd9]

Yikes!

[theinevitable]

Hm. I am turning in my application for a really cool job opening at my department.

Throughout my time at my job they have said I need to do a better job documenting steps on my projects. This is like pulling teeth for me. When my process is "put the thing in excel and fiddle around with it" it's hard for me to break it into steps that are specific enough, especially when part of the process is "try this thing, no that didn't work, try this other thing."

Now I am looking at this other opening and this division of the department puts all their code up in public (and does a lot more stuff with code instead of excel). They do this thing I have read about, which is making a master script that does every step of the process-- so you could recreate the whole project on your computer at home and it will turn out the same as theirs. This makes so much more sense to me than just writing tons of notes. Each step has a comment like "remove extra columns" and then the actual code that does that step.

So now I've coded up a little example project. It downloads the entire city building database, removes all the uninteresting columns, fixes a few formatting issues, and then prints a report of "building typology" broken down by neighborhood. So you can see that one neighborhood is mostly 2-3 family brick rowhouses, and another is mostly that but with more big apartment buildings, a third is more wood-frame single family homes, and so on. And the whole thing is connected by this one script with comments explaining each step.

(Step I don't know how to do any of: turn this into some kind of interactive map, or let the reader see pictures of what is meant by "2/3 row brick" or "city style home.")

Computers are so damn cool.

[pmcd9]

I've never had much luck cracking the Excel code, too dumb I think. So coding sounds like a much better idea to me.

[theinevitable]

Not to toot my own horn but I’m pretty damn good at excel. Just not good at the project management / organization aspect. Even when i spend a long time cleaning up the folder and organizing and renaming things my coworkers react to my work with ... bemusement.

[Victoria Waterfield]

Not to toot my own horn but I’m pretty damn good at excel.

Check out inev here always knowing exactly when he needs to buy more eggs and milk