My gosh this month has been a lot. A lot. A LOT. It’s January 30 now. Yesterday, all of the feds where I work received the infamous “Fork in the Road” email. I hope that no one falls for that because I don’t know nothing about nothing but I do know that responding “RESIGN” to a spam email sent from an illegal server is not a good way to exit a job, federal or otherwise. There is absolutely no way that OPM or the personnel directorates in all of the Executive Branch agencies are prepared to manage a mass spur-of-the-moment exodus. Most people seem to understand this, though. I know a lot of federal employees, and I mean A LOT of federal employees, and I’m pretty sure that no one is falling for this.
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Last night, a passenger jet and an Army helicopter crashed in mid-air over the freezing Potomac River. First responders worked all night and were not able to rescue anyone. At this point, it’s a recovery effort.
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As everyone knows now, no one survived that terrible crash. It’s Friday January 31 and they’re still pulling bodies out of the Potomac River. I love living in the DMV - I always have - but it’s hard this week. It’s a dark time in Washington DC and environs.
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I normally telework on Tuesdays and Fridays. Soon, I will have to say that I used to telework on Tuesdays and Fridays because we have to return to full-time in-office work at the end of February. As a contractor, I will not be eligible for a parking pass, so I’ll have to take Metro to work. Metro fare and parking are about $3500/year. I live six miles from the base, but the commute will take an hour each way, at least. I’m looking at all of my expenses and all of the ways that I spend my time and planning to make the adjustments that will - I hope - make the commute time and the expense and the loss of telecommuting privileges sustainable. Almost everyone I know is dealing with similar challenges, and we’ll get through it. There are worse things.
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I won’t even bother addressing Trump’s response to the crash because what else would we expect from him? Decency? Compassion? Concern? He’s capable of none of these things and his comments about DEI hires were really the least shocking thing I’ve seen or heard all week. But JD Vance and Pete Hegseth and Sean Duffy standing in front of microphones and cameras straight-faced claiming that ending DEI initiatives is all about hiring the most qualified people - that is quite another thing. I would love to hear any of these tiny little men explain exactly how they are the MOST QUALIFIED PEOPLE for the jobs they currently hold.
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It’s Saturday morning now. It rained all day yesterday and after a morning trying to power through a bad headache, I took the afternoon off. It won’t be long before Elon Musk decides that sick leave is socialism, and so I might as well use a few hours of it while I still can.
For four hours, I did almost nothing. I moved from my desk to the couch, and I watched “Vera” on BritBox, and I drifted in and out of sleep in a kind of twilight state. By 4:30, I felt better, so I got up and started doing things. Doing things always helps. And now it’s a beautiful mild sunny Saturday morning. The dirty weeks-old snow has finally melted and the ground is clear for the first time in weeks. January is finally over. Spring is around the proverbial corner and even Donald Trump can’t stop the cherry blossoms and the forsythia and the daffodils from blooming.
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