Generally been my strategy for things through life these past forty some-odd years. Normally works out.

Not optimally, but it eventually balances out.

Somewhat.

This time, though, I've decided to apply that approach to health matters.

Started with a weird soreness in my lower belly area, and then gradually got worse.

To the point of doubling over in pain if I stand up after having sat down for an extended period of time.

Standing up is fine.

Laying down is fine.

But sitting will trigger that shit with an absolute vengeance and I've yet to figure out why.

Though I do know that it's not nearly as bad if I've got an empty(-ish) stomach. So I'm gonna start seriously limiting my intake.

Wasn't all that big to begin with, but I do drink a lot.

Both water and the boozes.

And a full bladder is just as heinous to whatever the hell it is as a full belly.

Meh.

Had me out of commission for a couple days this week so as not to snap at folk at work that have nothing to do with it.

Anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Hope yours is a great one. Cheers.

Had an appointment to get Ghost's inaugural maintenance at 0800 on Saturday.

Woke up around 0600 and was strongly considering just... not going.

But nah, it's her first maintenance.

Milestones and shit.

Got there just a couple minutes early, checked in, and took a seat in the waiting area. Fortunately I'd brought along my crochet stuff so managed to kill time pretty effortlessly through the whole thing.

Though I was interrupted a couple times by one of the service representatives. First to tell me I'd requested maintenance I didn't need (bruh, I'm just following the guidance of the postcard Mazda sent me) and then to ask if I wanted to have the Bluetooth software update completed.

He warned me that it'd make my wait a bit longer, but I shrugged it off.

And I prolly shouldn't have done that.

Because for an oil change and a software update, I was sitting there for

Three fucking hours.

At the end of it, he came out and unceremoniously gave me back my key and I deuced out.

...Without a receipt for the maintenance.

And my seat pushed as far back as it'd go.

And my rearview mirror adjusted.

And my A/C turned off.

Dafuq.

And then as I got home, I realized: I never have any proof that the maintenance folks actually do anything. Usually I've got the service receipt, but not this time.

And even when I do get the receipt... do they actually do what they claim to have done?

Man.

Fuck my brain.

In other news: short week this week because national stuff-your-face day.

Opting to come in on that day and take off the next because days off in the middle of the week are stupid. It's the work equivalent of waking up and hitting the snooze, only to have to wake up ten minutes later anyway.

Meh.

...Not that the job is remotely political, mind you. Just that the goddamn downtime I've got gives me nothing better to do.

But on the flip side, I get to watch Turnip staff his circus.

Musk and Ramaswamy are billionaires, thus unsuited for the role of discussing shit that will have potentially devastating affects for the regular person of America.

His CoS is a real life Dolores Umbridge.

His AG is a trafficker of humans, apparently.

His SECDEF is a rapist.

His Department of Education secretary is a... I don't even know how to put it into negative terms other than "WWE figurehead".

Golly I'm not looking forward to 20JAN.

We all use them.

And a lot of the time, we don't even notice them.

Words like "so", "um", "like", and variants thereof.

Old guardsman here at work chains a shit load of them together as some sort of defense mechanism at the end of a lot of her sentences.

A lot.

"So but um..."

And she made the semi-joking statement just now that I'd stolen some work from her.

Nah, fam.

I was assigned that work.

Because I get shit done.

Meh.

In other words: the training specialist job interview yesterday was... interesting? Showed up about half an hour early and then walked inside about fifteen minutes early.

Got picked up at the quarterdeck and walked around by someone that recognized me from years ago, much to my surprise and amusement.

The interview had three other training specialists, and the questions are largely simple. Examples of past work I'd done on training development, training itself, test development.

Final interviewer asked more pointed questions. How I prioritize projects. How I keep track of said projects.

"Give an example of a past coworker that you've been at odds with, and how you overcame that."

Oof.

Sorry, Billy: used you for that one. You know I <3 u, though.

Left after five or ten minutes, with the person walking me out reminding me that "We work for the government... and bureaucracy isn't quick. We'll forward everything we have to our hiring manager and you'll hear back when we've got updates."

Fortunately, the USAJobs subreddit had me prepared for the wait: anywhere from six months to a year before I get an offer (of which there's a temporary and final variant).

So.

I guess I'll just keep on keepin' on with this job as long as I can.

Or until my VA disability rating gets maxed out.

That's how much extra time I'm spent "working" in the form of daily commutes over the course of a two-week pay period.

Obviously, that's not a massive amount of time, but think what you could do with six hours.

Even worse is the fact that the job I've got now has no reason to be an office job. Maybe once or twice a week tops for the meetings we have regularly scheduled, but there's also no reason for those two meetings to be on two separate days. They both weigh in at around twenty minutes, total, and they're not remotely taxing.

My job, in case I hadn't mentioned it before, is that of a business process analyst. Google defines that as

a professional who improves the efficiency and effectiveness of a business by analyzing, designing, and implementing business processes

Which would be solid, except that's not what I do.

I meet with customers for their web app requirements, then translate them into statements (called "user stories") for the developers to use when making their products.

Example:

As a user
I want to log in to the system
So I can perform my tasks

With the accompanying criteria being:

Given a user
When using this particular app
Then I can enter my username and password to be taken to the main dashboard

It's trivial tasking. Doesn't take a lot of time. It's monotonous and routine, which lends itself to being something I very much thrive in.

That being said, I'm having an increasingly difficult time finding the value in it. The paycheck is alright, but I can't wrap my brain around any hypothetical figure that'd make the excessive amount of downtime worth it.

The people are friendly, though. The company has a great atmosphere.

But when left to my own devices, well...

Idle hands and all that.

Not sure how much longer I'll last, but I'm gonna say... two weeks.

Ish.

If I was offered the ability to just do my tasking from home (less the aforementioned meetings) and be on call during the twelve hours we consider our "work hours", that'd be ideal.

I'd even do the damn retroactive rewrites of user stories for the apps we don't use anymore.

But that ain't gonna happen.

Because if they did it for me, they'd have no reason not to do it for the others, and I can't imagine that'd go over very well.

Meh.

Training specialist job interview next week, and Amazon Flex application under review.

Options.