drapermache

I've been away from beehaw and it's been too long.

It's been a really hard stint for the past 4 months. On that time we've had:

1. Our van needed a $3k+ repair which put it out of commission for over a month and a half.
2. The day after our van came back, the garage door spring broke which cost another $400.
3. Two days after the van came back repaired, someone broke into the van and stole my wife's purse with all of her credit cards and her green card.
4. The people who stole my wife's purse tried to cash a fraudulent check. Even though we caught it early and it never went through the bank decided to still put $1500 in hold for two weeks.
5. Because of the hold, I was late on student loan payments, two car payments, and my mortgages, also incurring over $120 in "insufficient funds" fees across these services from auto payment I had set up.
6. Not long after I got serious and terrible pain for two days, went to the ER and was diagnosed with appendicitis and had an appendectomy the same day. Not excited for the incoming medical bill on that given all of the other financial stuff I've been going through.
7. Spent the following week bedridden, which sucks for me because I like to go outside and be independent.
8. Once I got back from recovery I found out that a 6 month initiative I was working on at work has its deadline moved up early and now I have to make a decision that I don't feel equipped to make. This is something that will cost the corporation hundreds of thousands of dollars and Im afraid that it won't go well and blow up in my face.
9. I had to travel for work which was really hard given I'm still recovering from my appendectomy. I had a ton of people who came up to me who wanted to meet with me and have a ton of stuff to plan a long with my current work, which was just super overwhelming.

I'm just really glad I've had great bosses and coworkers who have supported me through a lot of these hard times. My work is usually chill, but I'm guessing that since so many people go on vacation on the last quarter people are rushing to get their stuff done early. I also got to vote early too l, so I'm glad I got that done. I just hope I can actually relax during the holidays.

I'm sorry to hear that. I went to a company where the CISO left after being burned out, and the board of directors just put in a CISO from one of their consulting firms (so the guy wasn't even an employee with skin in the game!). This was only after the CISO position was empty for 6+ months.

What kind of work under Cyber are you in? The company I work for is hiring for a (few) positions if you're interested, assuming you live in the United States!

You can read the Reddit thread with Naomi commenting on the matter here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/wn6qx0/what_is_going_on_with_linustechtips_and_naomi_wu/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1

“A number of predominantly Republican states were hurt in the 2023 rankings, with the passage of abortion restrictions impacting states in the "Life, Health & Inclusion" category – for which Texas ranked dead last out of the 50 states”.

As someone who lives in Texas, I am incredibly happy and I’m cheering for Minnesota. Republican states have gone off the deep end and it is clear they don’t see people who vote as humans. Each law that gets passed here in Texas is just more and more aggressive towards marginalized groups, all the while things are going crazy. The only small thing we’ve passed is find a way to lower taxes for homeowners, but thats some of the most privileged groups already. Rent prices are through the roof and wages are stagnant. I have been heavily thinking about moving to Minnesota only for the fact that the Democratic Party over there don’t just do jack all when they have a majority like other states (or parts of the Federal Government). I couldn’t believe that is less than a year, ya’ll have managed to get tuition free colleges, free school lunches, legalized weed, red flag gun laws, voting rights for felons, and increased taxes on corporations, and the list goes on.

It seems that the media and politicians have forgotten that for a successful company, you need not only healthy margins, but a happy and taken care of workforce. I really can’t wait to see how Minnesota’s economy will be 10 years from now.