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.

There's simply not enough for me to be doing to keep my mind engaged on something, and thus is left in a free-fall.

And with the political scene being what it is...

That's what my mind decided to dwell on.

To be clear.

I still recognize that my complaints are first-world in nature.

Doesn't make them invalid.

Prolly gonna look into a job change here very soon.

...Very soon.

Shit.

Had some extra work dumped on my plate and at first glance was expecting it to help pad out the remaining time I had left here for today.

...And then finished it in an hour.

With three hours left to go.

Was told not to work so fast.

Nah.

Got a bandaid that needs removing, I've always been a "rip it off" kinda gal.

At least past me is helping future me for once: giving him the gift of some flexibility in the workdays to come.

And you know what?

I thought about it...

Whether I'm here at this place or at home, I don't do a goddamn thing.

Here, I get paid for it.

Home, I can sleep when it gets too fucking dull.

Because the appeal of a five day weekend every couple weeks sounds amazing.

In other news, also trying to decide if I wanna go on a diet, or stay the course and let my body self-destruct.

How's y'all's lives these days?