I could bore him to death with Teams meetings.

Years ago I was working on a major relocation as a government contractor - like shutting down a base and moving all the civilians to another state kind of major. We were in charge of getting people in the new building set up. Stuff likr making physical connections to the networks (6 different networks in some cases) when the drop is on the other side of the room, setting up specialty stuff like rooftop GPS or cell service antennas to get timing for some of the equipment, and adding or extending drops when some manager decided that the room that has been designated a conference room since before the building was complete should now be his department’s lab, and the lab should be his office.

Anyway, I get a call from the facilities manager that “Jane Doe” does not have network access, and instead of coming to him or us, she called the Director of the entire fucking command (Senior Executive Service, above a GS-15, so equivalent to an Army General), and the Director is pissed that we screwed this up. Jane is well-known for being a difficult person, to put it mildly. Her whole department was a bunch of entitled prima donnas, and she was the worst of the bunch. So we meet the facilities guy outside the department office, which has about 30 people working in cubicles. I walk in, then turn around and walk back out, and ask him politely how exacty can she be surfing CNN.com on her computer if she has no network access? Turns out she was upset that she didn’t have a pretty blue ethernet cable like a bunch of other folks, and thought they had something that she didn’t. No, she had a fiber connection. The whole ginormous building had SM fiber to all the drops, but this conference room-turned-office only had about 10 or 12 drops, so some people got fiber but most got CAT6 coming from a switch that we installed as a temporary measure to make sure that everyone would be able to have network access until they figured out who was going to pay to install more drops.

Who want-a some Wang?!

Breaking up a hamster fight.

When I’m working from home I drink about 4 cups a day, usually no later than 3:00 PM but occasionally I’ll have a 5th cup as late as 5:00 or 6:00 if I end up working late. Some days I switch to tea after 3 cups, sometimes caffeinated tea, sometimes herbal. When I’m on travel I don’t have a much desk work, so, it’s usually 2-3 cups a day, and every once in a while a cappucino or a latte after dinner.

One place I worked at had a cafeteria with a self-service espresso machine that would grind the beans and give you latte, cappucino, mocha, straight up espresso, or Americano. And it was free. I had to set some limits on myself there.

made an awkward gesture forgot he wasn’t supposed to do the Nazi salute in public in a moment of enthusiasm…
FTFY

Reverse osmosis system under the sink. I’ve got a whoe house water softener, too, but it’s almost 30 years old and needs replaced. I’m on well water, and while it’s safe to drink, it has high manganese and calcium content. The calcium will gunk up my electric kettle pretty quickly, but as long as I fill it from the filter faucet it stays pristine.

I could never order the 10-inch Meat Feast without cracking up.

The answers to both of your questions are probably yes it’s okay, and yes you should probably be looking for another job.
Are you morally/ethically okay with your agency’s mission? With your role in it? If you are, then the new administration’s policies may not be reason enough to leave. You pretty much have to work somewhere. If the answer is no, you probably would have already been looking for another job.
Should you be looking for another job? Probably, depending on what your agency is and it’s mission. If TFG and Project2025 have their way, many federal government agencies will be defunded and/or privatized, and pretty much toothless when it comes to enforcement. We already saw what happened to the EPA under the first Trump administration. If yours is in danger of that you should be preparing a backup plan. I wouldn’t want to give up a government job, but I would want to be ready if I got RIF’d, or if I got fed up with the bullshit.

“That’s Oz-wee-pay.”

For me it has to be an Arctic Blue Fox. Saw several on a trip to the Aleutian Islands. Not really rare or endangered, but as someone who lives well south of their territory it was certainly a rare thing for me.

Don’t bug users to change passwords periodically. Only do it if there’s evidence of compromise.

About damn time. I log into my company laptop with a smart card and PIN or a PIN/authenticator code, computer autoconnects to the VPN, and I’m good to go. If there’s no internet available, the smart card will still get me into my computer. If I’m on my personal computer, I log in with the PIN/authenticator. This morning I tried really hard to find someplace where I had the option of entering a password and there is none, yet I have to change my password every 6 months. At least my IT department lets me use KeePass.

When I delivered pizza as a side job back in the early 90s, I asked my manager how I should handle reporting tips and he said “Go ask James, he can tell you how it works.” James was their senior driver, and a long-time friend from school, and he said, “I don’t know about the other drivers, but I have never received any tips.” I got the message. This was back before online ordering was a thing, and if somebody wanted to pay by credit card they would have to come into the store, so it was 99% cash. Every now and then a regular customer would pay by check, but the check would be made out to the company, so I would just take all my tips out in cash when I settled up at the end of the night.

My cat’s claws will curl around until they are starting to dig into her toe pads.

Dixie Normous

All of my machine names are related to Elvis Presley. Elvis has been my desktop PC for years, and I have or have had Priscilla, Lisa-Marie, ColonelParker, Blue-Hawaii, Hound Dog, Memphis, Tupelo, and Graceland. I want to rethink this a bit to have to flow better, maybe have Graceland as my network name, or maybe the router. Also thinking about changing to something space-related or Norse Mythology as the theme.

I got upgraded from my usual generic Mercedes C-Class rental car to a BMW 5-Series on one of my trips to Germany. I instantly felt 10% more assholish as soon as I got into it. I even managed to get a speeding ticket within the first 10km or so - camera caught me going 8km/h over the limit in a construction zone, I think on the A67. The fine was only something like €20.
I usually make a conscious effort to not drive like an asshole, especially when I’m traveling, although for some countires driving like an asshole is mandatory.