It's been over a year since I've been here! Things have changed a lot! Here's a new #introduction
I'm Brad, 33, he/him (mostly), in the US midwest, working on space science hardware (as far as I can get from the military-industrial complex)
I'm into:
#electronics, #embedded, #cooking, #hiking, #tabletop, #knitting, #sewing, #rats, #anarchism
I'm getting into:
#rust, #MushroomGrowing, #clarinet, #ukulele
I want to:
- Live in community with friends
- Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism
I am now a week into my new job, and honestly, I'm really enjoying it. Seems like they value work-life balance, and the pay/benefits are better than I'm used to.
As usual, work is bullshit and the 40 hour work-week doubly so, but I'm glad to have landed in a place that's gonna give me some brainspace to work on the stuff I actually want to work on.
Spicy Bullshit from my Former Employer
Update on this, they forced her to take the $7k pay cut and pay back the $10k with a combination of giving up benefits and paycheck deductions.
She's looking for a new job and already has several promising leads.
You would really think the world would have figured out how to share one set of peripherals between multiple computers, but apparently that's just fucking impossible.
Since DisplayPort is such a hot mess, I'm just gonna buy new monitors, build my own KM switch with audio, and write a little daemon that switches the monitor inputs over software when the right USB devices appear or disappear.
Spicy Bullshit from my Former Employer
I've been talking to a former coworker. She's one of two people in a department, and they're WAY overworked. She's single-handedly saved them from drowning, and documented SO MUCH process, despite an incredibly rough year personally.
She just had her yearly review (late), and noticed an error on her salary/raise.
Turns out, they've been paying her $10k MORE per year than they thought they were. AND NOW THEY'RE TRYING TO NEGOTIATE HER DOWN TO THAT AMOUNT.
One of my favorite things: The NASA Tire Assault Vehicle (TAV), used during the testing of Space Shuttle Tires, should they become dangerously damaged or worn and require deflation.
It's an RC Tank with a drill bolted to the top.
There's some bitter irony in the fact that the first, only, and last time I visit a NASA Center with my current employer, it's during the middle of a pandemic, and I can't even enjoy it. Tours, museums, etc are all shut down. No on-center dining is open. It'll be lab -> fast food -> lab -> hotel -> fast food -> hotel -> repeat for 3-5 days.
Career, Space, MIC
And it's weird leaving a "dream job" for something more boring. Although at this point I'm convinced that the new job will, at least, make the world bad at a slower rate than the space job. And give me the brainspace I need to learn and do more in the service of making the world better.
Career, Space, MIC
I'm definitely still working my way through this one, but leaving the space industry soon has my in my thoughts.
One of the hardest realizations for me is that working in a mostly-positive subfield of an industry that is essentially a giant military industrial subsidy does not a greater good make. In fact, mostly what you get are halfass attempts at science from folks that would rather be working at furthering fascism.
electronics, science, space, bad puns, and one day escaping to the one place that hasn't been corrupted by capitalism.