Annual evaluation time

Apr. 21st, 2026 12:41 pm
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[personal profile] missdiane
I had assumed that Boss Josh would feed me a line of bs about supposedly still working to get me an upgrade and I was correct. I let him know that I have no confidence or hopes it will happen after a decade of effort and on top of that the recent rejection that was not handled properly by University HR and down the line (which I put in a statement citing policies and procedures that were not appropriately followed since I want it in the file). I also told him that I know he means well but to please not do the whole "Diane is the EXPERT!!" in our outreach to folks because when they see that I don't have a leadership title though I'm toted as leadership, it's embarrassing. I got the "please let me know about these things" and uh...isn't that what I just did? Not that I said that. I just reiterated that I know he means well but please don't say these things in the future.

I also noted that I didn't think any upgrade was going to happen because when Elaine was going for her promotion, she had special meetings with the Executive Dean and with the head of the Business/Budget/HR office about it and I've not once been asked to attend any meetings with them about anything, much less my position. Not that I particularly WANT to be in meetings but if I'm the "expert" then why have I never been asked to attend and give input? Josh seemed to get that but then said something that well, ticked me off though I kept my mouth shut. He said that if I were to attend a meeting that I should watch how I talk. As if I'm suddenly going to be inappropriate? Uh...dude, I have been professional in every one of the meetings with faculty, meetings with staff, outreach zoom meetings, in person events that we've held. Just because I'm more honest in discussions with YOU, that gives you some indication that I will be some sort of sassy loudmouth with people lateral and above you? The hell?

My suspicion is that the assumption of inappropriate behavior comes from the former boss that was awful to me talking smack. Well if in the year and nearly a half that you've been my boss and witnessed my interactions with these sorts of audiences hasn't convinced you otherwise, then I'm done bothering making effort. I didn't tell him this because again, why bother? It'll have zero effect in any positive way.

If either a better job offer comes around or when I reach retirement eligibility, I find a nice lower stress job in the private sector, don't be surprised if I quietly leave without much notice. In the meantime, I'm going to do my work as exactly described, placidly smile and nod and not assert myself, not make promises of anything above my level.

boom crash boom crash

Apr. 17th, 2026 04:19 pm
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[personal profile] house_wren
I'm hoping we don't get hail shaped like a medieval morningstar. Right now the red box on the weather service map that indicates a tornado warning stops just short of where I live. I'm grateful to be able to hide out in the basement.

May your weather be very, very boring.

***
Edited to say that the tornado here dissipated, but where the old family farmhouse is located one was spotted on the ground.

The Friday Five for 17 April 2026

Apr. 16th, 2026 05:46 pm
anais_pf: (Default)
[personal profile] anais_pf posting in [community profile] thefridayfive
These questions were written by [livejournal.com profile] ideealisme.

1. What did you do on Monday?

2. What did you do on Tuesday?

3. What did you do on Wednesday?

4. What did you do on Thursday?

5. What are you going to do today?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

(no subject)

Apr. 15th, 2026 05:23 pm
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[personal profile] lycomingst
I rented Fantastic Four. I don't have many feelings about it. I like Pedro Pascal; I liked the last fight. I didn't feel attached to any of the characters.

I bought a couple of tomato plants. Too early, like last year, but the danger of frost is over and I didn't want to wait till everything is picked over. I kind of stupidly want blueberry plants.

My space key is getting stuck at random and it's annoying.


Poetry.
The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me
By Delmore Schwartz
“the withness of the body”

The heavy bear who goes with me,
A manifold honey to smear his face,
Clumsy and lumbering here and there,
The central ton of every place,
The hungry beating brutish one
In love with candy, anger, and sleep,
Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,
Climbs the building, kicks the football,
Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.

Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,
That heavy bear who sleeps with me,
Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,
A sweetness intimate as the water’s clasp,
Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope
Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.
—The strutting show-off is terrified,
Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,
Trembles to think that his quivering meat
Must finally wince to nothing at all.

That inescapable animal walks with me,
Has followed me since the black womb held,
Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,
A caricature, a swollen shadow,
A stupid clown of the spirit’s motive,
Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,
The secret life of belly and bone,
Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,
Stretches to embrace the very dear
With whom I would walk without him near,
Touches her grossly, although a word
Would bare my heart and make me clear,
Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed
Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,
Amid the hundred million of his kind,
The scrimmage of appetite everywhere.


Music Monday - Two Gallants

Despite What You've Been Told

missdiane: (Default)
[personal profile] missdiane
The jargon bullshit at work is getting tedious. As is the boss's obsession with putting every fucking thing through AI filters.

Just in two meetings, yesterday afternoon and this morning, some of the pointless hoo ha phrases spewed:
Ground-truthing
Logic model
Convergence research
Bandwidth
Close the loop
Metrics
Mission critical
Strategic vision and framing

I told Emily that I should do a roleplay for the channel just cram packed full of this stuff. At least then it would seem USEFUL to me to have to suffer through all the babble. Oh, btw we're at 1055 subscribers and 2471 watch hours. Need to keep cranking out decent videos to see if I can get to 4000 watch hours to get monetized.

spring again

Apr. 11th, 2026 04:51 pm
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[personal profile] house_wren
Today's nature report:

the sound of peepers in the backwaters by the river
a pair of white swans by the river
a pair of pheasants by the side of the road
a pair of bald eagles in their nest in the big tree by the river
Canadian geese in the air
a hawk
5 new beaver ponds, terraced in the little creek, surrounded by the remnants of 8 chewed trees
3 deer running across the field
yellow daffodils and forsythia
blue squill

I am exhausted by autoimmune illness. Also isolated. A family member has cancer again. I'm numbed by the state of the world.

On the bright side, a sleep study shows I do not have sleep apnea. I have exercised consistently for 19 weeks. I have cleaned something for about 20 minutes every day, which is a good strategy when ill. A drawer is clean, a shelf is cleaned, etc. I did my favorite jigsaw puzzle. I chatted with the one friend I have that I have known for more than 50 years. I ordered a book: Dressing a la Turque; Ottoman Influence on French Fashion, 1670-1800 by Kendra Van Cleave. (Kendra from the fabulous FrockFlicks.com.) I'm rewatching Be Melodramatic, one of my favorite shows.

I hope you are well.

Well, I got some nice shoes?

Apr. 11th, 2026 03:18 pm
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[personal profile] missdiane
We headed into Brooklyn close to noon on Thursday (Lyft to train station, NJ Transit to NY Penn Station, subway to Brooklyn then walking several blocks to the hotel). We tried to stop for lunch at a chain called Sweetgreen but the pin on their map is in the completely wrong location so we crossed the street and tried to get something at the revamped fancy train hall but the food court had no place for us to sit so we gave up and ended up chilling for a few moments at a Zaro's bakery in old Penn Station before hopping the subway to Brooklyn. I had a small but tasty tuna salad sandwich (noting the food for future reference).

When we got to the hotel, since we were dragging suitcases and hadn't done the ol' city crawl in a long time, we were pretty tired and so we got into each of our rooms and crashed for a while. We tried to get adjoining rooms but that didn't happen. We were at least on the same floor and I did have a walk-in shower in my room. A few hours later we decided to walk several blocks to a modern Mexican restaurant that sounded good. The food was super tasty - I ordered a horchata, a lobster taco that's served cold and is a little spicy with some fresh onion and a bowl of pozole which I've always wanted to try that soup. Emily also ordered some fresh pico and chips to share.

I finished my fancy taco (it wasn't any bigger than any regular taco) but had just a few chips and pico and barely made a dent in the pozole and didn't finish my drink. I chalked it up to the Mounjaro finally making me full quickly. I was bummed that I had to waste the rest of the soup since it wouldn't have traveled well but at least we know that this place, while a little expensive, gives filling servings. It wasn't just the size of the meal...I screwed up, I screwed up BIG. While I do need to contact my doctor to graduate to the next dose up, it's still effective enough at slowing digestion and I had been avoiding things like broccoli, brussels sprouts and...ONION...since starting the drug. The tuna salad had raw onion, the taco had raw onion, the pico had raw onion. Oh hell.

And naturally the Tums I meant to bring didn't make it into my toiletry bag or my purse. I had to spend $4 for two Tums at the front desk and it still barely made a dent into the stomach woes. I didn't sleep much or well that night. The next morning I thought that it was down to a dull roar and had a little of the free breakfast (oatmeal with fixings since they had an awesome oatmeal bar and a side of a little scrambled egg for the protein), but through the day, I just kept getting waves of feeling hellish. We went into the city since I wanted to go to a shoe place I saw online to try on some flats. I liked the fit of them - they even have quarter sizes which I didn't know was even a thing! After doing a little more wandering in Manhattan, we were both tired and took the subway and the several block tromp back to the hotel in early afternoon. Since neither one of us were up for doing a sit down meal that night, we had stopped at a bougie grocery in Brooklyn on the walk back to get some things to eat at the hotel before the concert.

I had to spend another $4 for some more Tums since I was still in a good amount of gastro distress. I managed to keep things down, barely and laid down for a few hours to get things under control. I did eat the very simple sandwich I got at the grocery before we went for our several block walk to the concert venue.

It was a good enough concert, well kind of, but we ended up leaving early because we couldn't take how ungodly LOUD it was. Like rattling your seat loud even when he was doing what were ballads. Emily was getting a headache and that thumping didn't help my stomach any so we were only there and hour and a half.

I stopped at a Walgreens outside of the Barclays center and got extra Tums and water. It helped. Unfortunately someone was having a party at 1am in the breakfast area that Emily's room overhangs so she had to call the front desk to complain about the noise. We were both sore as hell the next morning so instead of dragging ourselves the several blocks, I called for a Lyft to take us to the subway. Thankfully we didn't have the energy to do more exploring in Manhattan since during the time we were hanging out in Penn Station for an hour waiting for the next NJ Transit train, some guy with a machete went on a rampage at Grand Central. Yikes.

It wasn't a terrible time but hopefully the next trip we go on has less misadventures. Hey, I did get over 12K steps in on Friday alone.

(no subject)

Apr. 10th, 2026 03:57 pm
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[personal profile] lycomingst
I got my car back after paying a TREMENDOUS amount. Well, the car is 17 yrs old and the back wheels were about to fall off or something. I didn't get the air conditioning fixed because I ain't going nowhere hot. I just suffer driving to Safeway.

The Friday Five for 10 April 2026

Apr. 10th, 2026 01:55 pm
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[personal profile] anais_pf posting in [community profile] thefridayfive
1. What was the last book you read (or are currently reading)?

2. What was the last movie you watched?

3. What television series are you currently watching?

4. What are some of your favorite blogs or communities online?

5. What social media do you belong to and check often?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

(no subject)

Apr. 8th, 2026 12:12 pm
lycomingst: (Default)
[personal profile] lycomingst
I had to get the car serviced. New oil et al. Of course, I had to vacuum it because I don't want mechanics knowing I really live like this. And also to the car wash I went. That turned out to be a "dumb woman driver" adventure.

The car washes I've gone to have all had two tracks you guide your tires on and you zip through. This one was like a baby car wash, half the size. You have to line your left tire up with a gadget near the curb. Anyway, wash guy had me back up, motions turn the steering wheel, back up. I finally understood the system and we were off.

Then I had to deal with more people at the garage. Left the car there and was shuttled back. Gave god awful directions, like I always do. Now I wait for a phone call on the cursed phone.


Poetry month.

Let No Charitable Hope

Elinor Wylie
1885 –1928

Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am by nature none of these.
I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The little nourishment I get.
In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.

And Music Monday.
This the first song of his I heard, he was on some late show. I said, that's my guy.

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