She was a huge Hanson fan and frequently went to their website to send them fan mail.

Unsurprisingly, she never got anything back beyond the automated "message received" garbage.

One day, I found a random email spoofing tool and sent her an email from one of the Hanson boys.

Also unsurprisingly: it didn't take anything more than coming from the @hansonline.net domain to make her believe it was authentic.

To this day, I'm unsure if she ever figured it out.

...Or if she just forgot and/or got over it.

Well, she definitely at least got over it, since I don't think she's into Hanson anymore.

That being said.

I have trust issues.

Because I know there's people out there like me that do things like what I did.

Mind you, I've not done anything like that in at least 25 years, so...

I'm a changed/better guy in that respect.

But again: because I know people like me (past and present versions) exist, I know that things can't be taken at face value.

I bring that up as my current USAJobs application pool has breached 40 applications.

My main two concerns are:

• Those jobs are posted with a candidate already in mind and they're just running through the motions or
• There's a secret cabal/distro between department heads and EBM put my name on a black list

Both of those seem like they're real possibilities.

And both of those make me sad.

Still holding out to hope that one of these jobs actually works out.

...And I just got an email from one of the jobs saying they'd like to continue with the process.

Urk.

Because I don't like working on laptops.

And I've been neglecting this desktop for a good while.

So.

Since the last post, it's been about four months.

In that time, I've been unemployed.

Actively searching for new jobs, I ended up with a handful of potentials.

• (Pending, applied OCT25) The first is a technical writing job in the area. Meeting with the folks over there, they seemed pretty friendly. Bonus points to it not being located on a military base. The pay was a pretty substantial cut, but I was willing to deal with it for the potential chance of upgrades later on down the line. I was supposed to start working in November, but my security clearance "lapsed" in the month that I was unemployed? I've had to reach out to them consistently for updates, and the update has always been "no update".
• (Pending, applied JAN26) The second one is also a technical writer job, but fully remote. I didn't get a call back when they'd said I would, but just got an email back from them today saying they'd put additional interviews on hold until the last half of the month. So... in two weeks I should hopefully hear back with some good news.
• (Pending, random email on FEB26) Got a random email from a company earlier this month for a job reviewing hardware setups. Of the three, this one pays the most but would require me to make Norfolk my regular place of work again. Not jazzed, but at least it's something.
• (Unsure, random phone call FEB26) And finally, a random phone call from a government branch of the tribe I'm affiliated with. It was a pretty lengthy phone call and it's got me somewhat optimistic about a future job, but... we'll see.

And of course, the many, many, many pending jobs on USAJobs.

Every once in a while I get an email about them, but nothing particularly amazing.

Meh.

First day without having to worry about being screamed at by an irrationally angry man-child.

Thank Christ for that.

At this point, my only real concern is how he's gonna respond to that email that I'd sent out.

Assuming he finds it, I think the most likely outcome is that his incredibly weak attention span just ends up having him opt out of it. Because anything beyond a couple sentences (as he defines them) are a huge ask.

That being said, this will (hopefully) be the last time that I mention that job.

Ever again.

Because it's just not worth it.

And in the few days since I've quit, my blood pressure has calmed down and the pain I'd been feeling in my gut has subsided for the most part.

I've also been able to focus more on working at Zephyr.

And gotten a bit more active in learning C#.

...Though to be honest, I think the federal government could really learn to leverage more than just that damn techology.

But... it's whatever.

I've also got the time now to focus on checking out the folks over at APEX Accelerators.

See if I can't get me my own government contract.

Working on my own terms.

Without having to worry about other folks just slowing the whole goddamn process down.

We'll see.

Note: This is scheduled for delivery on 18OCT25 @ 1200. Ain't no way I'm gonna drop this bomb while I'm still here, lol.

Mr. [EBM],

Good morning.

I’m sending this email to you after I’ve gone because:

• You genuinely scare me more than anything I’ve ever encountered ever has (and that’s including grizzlies in Alaska), and
• I don’t trust you to act rationally.

On any given day over the past year that I’ve worked here, I’ve watched you quickly shift between both extremes of the spectrum when it comes to your emotional state. But since I’m no longer employed by the amazing people at [my employer], I’m not as worried about you doing something overboard.

That’s not great for someone in a leadership position, whether you’re a department head at [this bonkers circus] or a Crew Leader at McDonald’s. End of the day, nothing matters. Not really. (And a lot of [our department's] applications have COTS alternatives.)

That said, on Tuesday during your tirade about how “process is the worst I’ve seen in 20 years”, you asked what you’re doing wrong and what you could do better.

I’m no longer officially on the clock for [your establishment] but here you go, free of charge:

• I didn’t lie to you about “the leads saw this” for [that stupid project]. [Rowdy] told me to send it to you for demo (don’t believe me? I included a screenshot of his email on the [stupid project] card in the weekly update board just in case of such a situation). Last I checked, he’s a lead. If I’m at fault for listening to a single lead, that’s on me. But that segues perfectly into this next bullet:
• [Rowdy] and [his BFF] aren’t your friends. They’re your employees. Stop treating them like friends and force them to facilitate swift delivery of your product. [Rowdy] is back in the office more than he was—as are you and anyone else whose jobs could be done from anywhere—but he still spends half his workday outside on smoke breaks or at lunch.
• Follow-on from that point: nobody here is your friend. Everyone in this department is your subordinate.
• [Rowdy] and [his BFF] need to STOP DEVELOPING and start mentoring and leading their people. I can’t speak for your experience in the Navy, but I can say that for me, I was told when I got to a certain level my work would shift to the dull admin nonsense. It did. Theirs needs to, as well; especially for what I assume is a ridiculous six-figure salary. You're not getting your money's worth for this arrangement, you're getting a band-aid. ...Many band-aids.
• You have a unique (to me) frustrating habit of not remembering what you said. Or at least giving the impression that you don’t. SEND YOUR REQUIREMENTS IN AN EMAIL. You’ll say something in one meeting and by the end of the week, your requirements have changed into something only vaguely resembling what you originally said.
• Follow-on: “this meeting could have been an email”. You should consider having agendas for your meetings in typed out emails beforehand.
• This entire department is a house of cards just waiting to come crashing down. There’s very little code documentation in the front end, and I can’t imagine the database side looks much different. You have three people here that whose departures would cause serious problems: [Rowdy], [his BFF], and [his BFF's BFF]. You mentioned you’re going to be here for at least nine more years—would you stake your life on them sticking around the entire time?
• Everyone in this department has the permissions required to look at every single app and provide feedback at any time. Yet nobody does unless they’re asked. REPEATEDLY. Go through your catalog and see just how absolutely terrible things really are.
• You coddle your favorites too much. To repeat: nobody here is your friend, they’re your employees. Your coddling them only makes things worse for the department in terms of output.
• You’ve made it clear that you don’t care for anyone that’s not a developer or a DBA. Or at least, that’s the image you project every single time you intentionally loudly dump on people within earshot. That's both incredibly unprofessional and insanely childish. (And something being labeled childish by me is a pretty big deal.)
• Free example: You praised [FNG] for his “fucking cool” implementation of a grid that refreshes every sixty seconds, and at the same time shat on the process analyst responsible for writing a different story about the grid. Sir, with all due respect: refreshing elements on a web page on a timer isn’t hard, lol. There’s undoubtedly more, but those are the big ticket items.

If you want to worship developers and DBAs, by all means do so. Computer science is amazing and I’ll sing their praises until my dying day.

But if you don’t want anyone else here, change your contract requirements.

Fill the room with developers and DBAs.

So this department can be just like the folks on the west coast that “gave the customers what they wanted, with no documentation”.

Two final things:

• I believe that being assigned here and meeting you is the cosmos "balancing things out" for me for having a 20-year career with amazing department heads.
• Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, [EBM job title]. One of the things that I absolutely believed in during my time in the Navy was that a leader should have a good understanding of what it is their people do. Maybe you've got that knowledge. If not, please look into C# software development and MSSQL. Then dive into the codebase. It's wild.

Goodbye, Shaw

I don't know why I expected the fucking Nightmare Gaggle™ to be any better than it usually is, but... welp...

It wasn't.

We got to that project that I'd been excited to get rid of when EBM asked the question:

"I was told that all the leads have looked at this."

And the only one that rogered up was Rowdy.

Fucking

Rowdy

Of all the people at the table.

The one I don't really have much faith/confidence in to have my back.

What's more, he seemed just as surprised that the others hadn't looked at it.

Suze was gone on a European vacation for the time that it was assigned to lead review and fwend has her own stuff going on.

Plus... fwend is fwend. And I can't be angry with her because... history.

That left Rowdy and his buddy to be essentially the sole reviewers.

And Rowdy told me to throw it to QA, so I did.

But that wasn't right, apparently.

Nor was confirming it when EBM had asked me if all the leads had looked at it.

What I should have said was that it was assigned to lead review and then I was told by a lead to move it through QA.

And it was mostly seen through QA, though looking through the fixes that EBM had requested... those were done.

But...

Fuck it.

Doneski.

Tried to make it through the pay period, but I think I'm gonna fail to meet that because I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

This is at best a sinking ship, at worst a raging inferno a few doors down the hallway nobody knows anything about.