About the international shitshow we’re all watching, and we still have no idea how it will end. I’m hoping someone will be served a tasty cup of polonium tea by one of his nearest and dearest and put us all out of his misery.
As for Republicans (and the Fox News watchers who honestly don’t know WTF is going on): No, the Former Guy would not have prevented this, except in the sense that he was doing everything in his power to gift wrap Ukraine to deliver to his Master with a big sloppy BJ, so they wouldn’t have been armed to defend themselves against an unprovoked invasion.
I had another one of those brief, awkward conversations with my 80 y.o. neighbor about this yesterday. His opinion: “This never would have happened if our country was still strong.”
Okay, he’s 80 and a sweet old guy, so I wasn’t about to delve into exactly how we got to this state of weakness where we have to rebuild faith with the international community, especially with a neighbor I actually like and keep an eye on. I don’t think he’d have been ready to grasp how President Biden and his people have been rebuilding relationships that were shredded by TFG and got everybody on board with delivering crippling financial blows to Russia. I’m not sure most Americans realize what a fucking amazing thing this administration has done to unite the world.
He did ask me how I thought things were going, and I said I follow experts who are alternately hopeful and not so hopeful, but the world is uniting in support of Ukraine and that’s wonderful. We shared a head shake about “peace talks” like Ukraine had anything to do with this invasion. He agreed that Ukraine’s position in “peace talks,” should be “JUST GO AWAY.” That was a common ground, and I took what I could get.
Meanwhile, while all this insane international drama is taking place, I do have a surprising bit of amazingly good news: I accepted a new position at the Place Where I Work That Does Not Pay Me. I’m going to be an employee. After SIX years of contractor status and at nearly 64 damn years old, they are going to start paying me their own damn selves.
Seriously, I am still processing this. It’s WAY more money – I had hoped it would at least meet my current income, but holy shit, it’s like 30% more – a ton of PTO from day one, great insurance, 401k match, all sorts of goodies. I’m…stunned speechless. My new manager will be someone I worked with in the past who emailed me and told me to apply. When the hiring manager tells you to send a resume, you send a resume.
I know the job will not be easy, but I haven’t had an easy job in…let me see…EVER. To be able to pay bills and take vacations and have holiday weekends and afford to do home repairs and save the max for retirement, do all that normal shit people do – I honestly can’t quite believe this will happen yet. I expect a comet will hit the Earth by Friday.
I spoke to HR and gave a verbal acceptance, emailed my future boss to tell her I accepted and thank her. Then my current supervisor IM’d me and then called, and he’s sad to lose me but happy for me. My current supervisor joked that he was going to tell my future boss I’m awful, OMG, you don’t want her, then told me how I had been the least stressful part of his job since he took his position. Everything is a juggling act, but I never brought him any problems.
I gave full credit to the outside contractors I work with and our internal project managers, we’ve all been throwing ourselves on the fires and handling them. I truly like him a lot and don’t want to leave him hanging, but really, there was absolutely no way I wouldn’t take this other job. It’ll still be a lot of work and deadlines, but I usually won’t need a fire extinguisher three times a day.
We’ll work out my transition between roles somehow, but after doing this job for two years, seriously, good luck with that. I didn’t know what I was getting into. My new role won’t be a walk in the park, but compared to the 50+ emails a day of questions and emergencies and project stopping dumpster fires of now, it will be more stable.
So anyway, we’re on the brink of WWIII and I have a great new job! Figures.
Oh I am so happy for you about the job. May this give you some much needed stability and some PTO!
Now that’s what I call good news! Treats for the critters to celebrate!
Yay!! What good news– regarding the job, that is (the situation w/Ukraine is way beyond the pale). A decent salary, PTO, insurance, etc. etc. Congratulations! You certainly deserve that. And lets all hope that Ukraine can maintain its independence without another world war… Gives me knots in my stomach at night…
CONGRATULATIONS! Sounds like a great job. Of course the Lithuanian situation is just too tense, I really hope that there is some deescalation in the near future. There are so many ways we could consider ending Putin’s life but your idea about polonium tea sounds okay as long as it is “strong”! Hope the new job is everything you want.
Congrats! That’s awesome. I’m glad to see some good news somewhere. I hope some day we all live in precedented times for a change, I’ve had all the unprecedented, witness to major historical events that I can handle. I’m hoping that all of the support for Putin will be the final undoing of the MAGA cult, but I have been wrongly predicting the end of the crazy wing’s grip on the GOP for a while now. Congrats again on the new job!