2020 was a year

So much of the focus of this past year has been on the negative, overwhelmingly centered on the Coronavirus Pandemic and all of its effects. For me, the most unfortunate aspect was just how inadequate and irresponsible were the reactions of individuals, leaders, and governments. There was no escaping the impact that such a new and deadly virus was going to have on society, but the devastation could have been mitigated to a greater degree, and the loss of life, jobs, and social safety nets could have been greatly minimized.

An analysis of this fallout must include the myriad of consequences. I was, like many others, personally affected when I lost my primary means of income shortly after the pandemic made its full effect known in the US. Arguably the single most devastating acute change I’ve experienced in my adult life, at least from an economic standpoint. Thankfully, my choice to make the Army a career and the pension resulting from that became our primary safety net and kept us in good stead for the lean times to come. Even with this, it wasn’t permanently sustainable.

A result of the layoff (and ultimate termination) was a blank canvas upon which to fill each day. As I’ve discussed before, although I never succumbed to depression or an emotional breakdown, there was definitely a mild funk that persisted for several months. It ultimately was a lack of direction stemming from all the uncertainty. I long ago realized that I must have a target for which I’m aiming, whether it’s creative, financial, professional, etc. The loss of income put so many goals in doubt that it became difficult to focus my efforts.

I didn’t let it keep me from my core disciplines and I continued to practice guitar and drums. I can’t specifically recall what my typical days were like back then, although I started to spend more time playing video games and other sorts of passive activities as I’ve previously discussed. Prior to the pandemic I had renewed my efforts to learn writing, drawing, and studying the Korean language. These fell by the wayside for several months as I had problems finding the motivation to keep all these disciplines going.

Eventually, I think near late summer or early fall, the slow re-opening of medical care and society in general started to hint at better days to come. This slowly helped renew my desire to restart these pursuits and I’ve settled back into a routine encompassing all my disciplines - guitar, drums, keys, bass, vocals, writing, drawing, and studying Korean. I’m still trying to sort out the optimal battle rhythm since I only recently returned to work and that’s been a big shift from the previous eight months.

All this rambling to say that despite the negative consequences of last year, it hasn’t been all doom and gloom. The challenge of the virus was met with an unprecedented effort to develop a vaccine and in an achievement that I would compare to the Apollo Space Program for its audacity and technical wizardry, several companies developed not only viable, but highly effective versions of a vaccine, several of which were using mRna, a complete paradigm shift in vaccinations. Sadly, our current administration is screwing up the rollout, but I’m not sure anyone expected anything else.

The good news is that here in the US we elected a new president/vp and in a few weeks, we’ll usher in a new era and a return to normalcy, at least in the executive branch. Another positive change has been the demonstration that remote work and learning is not only viable, it’s likely a superior alternative to many traditional processes in business and education. Why should we make people drive day in and day out to an office or classroom when they could achieve the same goals and processes from their homes? There will always be industries and jobs that can’t be done remotely, but we’ve definitely shifted the focus more in the last year than we might have in ten years pre-pandemic.

The most important lesson I’ve learned is that we’re not really that far removed from being able to sustain our lifestyle without me working at all. I don’t plan on fully retiring anytime soon (if ever), but I know now that within a few years and having achieved a few economic milestones, we can sustain a fully retired lifestyle indefinitely. I’ll likely always want to work a little bit for discretionary income purposes, but now we have a better idea of how life would look with no additional income.

Reflecting on this, I’m grateful. I’m grateful for the life we’ve been able to carve out after many decades of hard work. We didn’t suffer or feel deprived in the least, and I know there are millions if not billions of people who had a much harder time of this last year, and in many cases have always had a harder time of it. The biggest burden on us was mild anxiety about our economic future and whether we’d be able to endure additional economic hardships beyond the loss of work. Thankfully, that was the worst of it as we managed to make it through without any big disasters.

I should also take the time to mention that we lost some of my all time most important musical influences this year, ironically not due to the pandemic but to other health issues, I think cancer in all three cases. Early this year in January we lost Neil Peart, arguably as big of an influence on me as any other musician, especially considering his lyrics and prose. Not long after, we lost the brilliant musician and composer, Lyle Mays, the longtime musical partner of Pat Metheny and an amazing artist in his own right. He brought so much joy and wonder to so many people over the years. Finally, in October the world of rock and guitar specifically lost a man who arguably had a bigger influence than any other in history, Eddie Van Halen. It’s impossible to calculate just how important and far reaching Eddie’s influence has been on rock guitar. Often cited for his revolutionary approach to tapping and soloing, it’s his rhythm, riffs, and songwriting that are probably the most important elements of his style. Losing these three greats was just another kick in the gut to add to the misery of this year.

Thankfully, the year ended on a high note as I finally was able to return to work, albeit for a different employer. The eventual dismissal from the VA, my employer for the last nine years, was handled pretty callously and lacking in respect from the leadership in my former clinic, but I suppose I was a bit naive in assuming the best about certain people. It’s in the past now. As part of that scenario, the work seems to have mostly shifted to the contractors, so that’s where I followed it and now find myself working for one of them. I never predicted anything as universally devastating as a pandemic, but my belief that there would always be work for disability examiners has been proven true thus far.

My goals for this year are largely consistent with what they’ve always been. I want to continue improving my craft at the various disciplines, ultimately in the service of storytelling in various mediums. I am hoping in the near term to finally record and submit that audition for the guitar program at Berklee and hopefully begin a dual major track starting with the spring semester in a few months. I’ll have to adapt my battle rhythm yet again, but I suppose that’s always going to be a more fluid aspect of my daily efforts.

I hope this year has helped distill what’s most important in everyone’s lives, I think it has in mine.

Back to the Infrequent...

…updates I suppose. Nothing monumental has happened in the past month. There has been slow progress on the work front. I’m not sure if it was within the last month that the director sent an email stating that VANTHCS would return to full operations with incremental steps for routine face to face encounters with a planned 100% restoration of services by October 6th. I’m not tracking the play by play, but it seems they’re on schedule at this point.

All that said, that doesn’t mean fee-basis will be needed in C&P in that same timeframe. Our department chief and program analyst had sent emails to the FTEs notifying them that face to face examinations would resume so they would be back in the clinic full time in the upcoming weeks. I responded to this email saying I knew that didn’t mean fee basis would be needed for quite a long time and they essentially confirmed this and expressed appreciation for my patience.

The unknown factors here are whether they will be able to stick to the plan and how quickly there will be a resumption of the normal flow of exam requests from VBA. Until they start getting a normal flow that exceeds the FTEs capability, it’s not likely we’ll see any request for fee-basis exams. My feeling for a long time (and probably expressed here previously) was the end of the year at best, and Dr. Potu (Chief of Ambulatory Care) had already expressed this timeframe as well. If anything, I could see them asking us to help out during the holidays as there’s always a shortage of providers since everyone wants to go on vacation, although it’s hard to say how that will be affected by COVID. If travel remains sketchy, those leave requests may drop off quite a bit.

I still think it will be well into next year before we can expect a resumption of full activities and fee basis numbers reaching anything near where they were at their peak. I hope I’m wrong, and I don’t necessarily need the desired workload to make a difference in our budget. One good day a month would be enough to put our monthly ledger in the black, and two days would make things comfortable. This wouldn’t facilitate the faster mortgage payoff schedule, but at least it would allow us to slowly accrue some cash reserves and give us some breathing room. My hope is we can get back at least to my normal salary limit, which would allow faster mortgage payoff, although it might take 2-3 years instead of the planned 12 months we were previously on track to achieve.

In other developments, I’ve started studying Korean and drawing again in the past week. I decided to go back to the beginning in Korean, and I’m still trying to figure out my battle rhythm with drawing. I had been bouncing around several different instruction programs and I’m starting to think I need to pick one and just stick with it through completion before moving on to the next thing. I have multiple training programs I plan to complete as I go along. Notice I didn’t mention writing. I still plan to start writing again, I’m just looking for the right window and motivation.

Although it’s incremental and often hard to quantify, I feel there has been progress in my musicianship, mainly drums, guitar, and keys. The downpicking drill based on Tommy Emmanuel’s fast run from Endless Road is definitely paying off, albeit slowly. Drumming has felt slower, but my added focus on kick pedal is slowly reaping rewards. I started alternating drill days with song days where I just play songs so I can apply some of these techniques, and I think that’s helping. Many of the drills I practice are isolated and don’t prepare you for the application within a song where all the other limbs are involved.

I need to start practicing bass again and my vocal drills have been functional but not really stretching my capabilities and I need to start singing some actual songs again. I’m not necessarily happy there was a drop off in some disciplines in light of the mild COVID funk, but I can understand it, and at least I kept applying my most primary disciplines. Not to mention, that game backlog has continued to shrink, so there’s that.

I just finished Divinity Original Sin 2 yesterday, and I’ll probably finish off Horizon Zero Dawn next and then I’ve got to decide what to tackle after that. I’m thinking Demon Souls although I realized today I might not be able to play that or Fallout 3 on my PS4, at least using the disc-based versions I own. I think there are versions if you have a subscription to Playstation Now, so I might look into that option.

Life is pretty good, all things considered. I’m not happy losing a significant chunk of earning potential, but we’ve managed to stay afloat for several months and with a few more adjustments to the discretionary expenses we could probably do it indefinitely. I’ve gotten into more cooking with the time off but the downside is that my waistline has grown with my cooking skills. It doesn’t help that I’m having a flare-up with my right knee again and I’m unable to run.

To add insult to injury, I had been trying to reintroduce push-ups and situps to my regimen so I could recover some muscle mass and stave off another ravage of aging. As luck would have it, I strained something in my lower abdomen and I’m hoping it’s just a delicate atrophied muscle and not a hernia waiting to happen. Location wise it could totally be an inguinal hernia. I’m not sure but I think it’s the same side in which I had hernia surgery as an infant and I doubt they used mesh back then. I’m hoping it’s just a muscle strain and I can resume activity in the coming weeks. One of the greatest frustrations of aging (besides becoming progressively more gray and squishy) is that your body starts to betray you and things that you are mentally and psychologically ready to do become difficult to impossible due to injury and declining function. Still, it could be a lot worse.

Speaking of, I’m essentially done with social media. After shutting down FB completely (two times now, most recently in June) I went ahead and pulled the trigger on twitter and Instagram as well. This was another decision based on the sum total effect of interaction and they both are responsible for bringing a lot of negativity that I can’t control. My political leanings are progressive and liberal and I’ll continue to support those candidates and causes, but I just can’t tolerate the day to day social media drama any longer. Every day is a new deplorable act, quite often by the nominal leader of the country and it’s easy to despair. I’m not sure the US as a country can recover from the damage it has sustained (and not just in the past four years), and although I make my best efforts to contribute, there seems to be no shortage of people who are willfully ignorant, obtuse, and have no regard or empathy for their fellow human beings. I hope we can overcome the hatred, greed, and racism running rife at present, but I have my doubts. I don’t endorse much that the catholic church says, but they got the seven deadly sins right.

Workplace Drama, Part Deux?

The drama from last summer apparently is rearing its head again with the same provider making accusations of misconduct and wrongdoing against multiple employees. I’m not sure if I discussed it here, but this person had been one of three temporary acting chiefs and ultimately lost that position because of increasingly erratic behavior and outrageous claims against multiple people. Things had seemed calm for several months, but supposedly this provider had been looking into other people’s records and made an accusation against another provider that resulted in a suspension. This is all second hand info, so take it with a grain of salt. The source is an honest and reliable person, but I have a feeling there may be some added drama to the story, whether an intentional exaggeration or not.

Following that, it seemed that this accuser appeared emboldened by this action and resumed the campaign against everyone that had rubbed them the wrong way, including yours truly. At this point, I was fed up with the bullshit enough that I sent an email to our new chief as well as his boss and included the memo I had written back in June. He spoke to me in person about it, and although non commital about anything specific, seemed to agree with my points and endorsed that this issue was a problem centered around the source and not the accused. I’ve not heard anything further, and honestly I don’t expect them to take any serious action other than telling this person to do their job and mind their own business. I’m wondering if this person will go even further off the rails to the point they must take action.

My experience with the leadership at work (in my seven years there) is that they avoid conflict and try for a quick and quiet resolution. Which usually doesn’t involve dismissals or transfers. If nothing else comes out of it, they got a detailed description of how I work now, so there can’t be any protestations of ignorance if there are any issues in the future. There shouldn’t be, as I’m following the same procedures (as directed and endorsed by my supervisors and our colleagues at the regional office) that I’ve always followed. I felt it was important to make sure our relatively new leadership chain (the clinic chief has only been here a month or so, and his boss around a year) was aware of my process.

I’m hoping the leadership will finally understand that this is a purely personal episode and this person is pursuing vendettas against multiple people to serve their own ego and not for the good of the organization or our customers. I stated that this episode was hurting morale and hindering our ability to care for our patients, and I’m hoping if nothing else that will mean something to them. We’ll see.

Drama on television or record is great, elsewhere not so much...

It's been a tumultuous couple of weeks at work and somewhat at school. At work we're hopefully near the end of a cycle that saw one of our doctors going off the rails. She was named an acting chief while they were looking to a hire a new permanent chief after the illness related departure of our former permanent chief.  To distill it down to a few sentences, let's just say she had a bit of a power trip and was butting heads and attacking several people in the clinic. 

We had been friends and supportive co-workers for many years but had a falling out a few months ago when we disagreed about implementation of the Gulf War illness policy. She's relatively new to government service and thought it was within her authority to implement the policy as she saw fit. It isn't, and she can't. But, in most cases we're willing to let individual providers rationalize their own opinions on cases as long as they understand they'll have to defend it if it's appealed or a complaint is filed. But in this case, and as part of her newly acquired (if temporary) authority, she decided the policy needed to change for the whole clinic and had directed our schedulers to change they way they scheduled these exams. 

This is where our big disagreement arose. She has this idea that if a claimed condition doesn't fit within a medical diagnostic criteria, then it's not valid. Something I've tried to explain to her for years is that our specific corner of government service is not strictly concerned with medical criteria. We work in disability claims and it's equal parts legal and even political. The entire philosophy of our claims is based on uncertainty. Our opinions typically include the statement "at least as likely as not", which basically says that if our determination of a claim is that it's fifty/fifty parts for and against the claim, then we grant the claim. 

Compared to what's happened between her and other people in the clinic, this has been pretty tame. Until she decided to go around me and accuse myself and our program analyst of inflating exams unnecessarily.  I have been a fee basis provider for over a year. This means that I am compensated by the exam. In the case of Gulf War exams, they tend to generate not only exams for conditions but also opinions for each condition. So, if a veteran claims four conditions, it results in eight total worksheets and I'm paid for each. The typical claim can generate from ten to twenty exams. Occasionally, that number can go significantly higher. 

I had an exam a month or so ago that was for around twenty claimed conditions but it also generated an equal number of direct opinions as well as fourteen or so Gulf War opinions. It ended up totaling fifty three worksheets. This is the highest number I've ever completed, and it's not typical by any stretch. A typical day for me is around twenty exams. I'm not sure if this is the exam which she questioned, but if not it was a similar one. I've had a few in the forties and many in the thirties. It should be noted that the FTE often don't reach these numbers in the course of a week, much less a day. 

My previous post history tells the story of the relative level of productivity among regular federal employees. Let's just say that they typically underachieve, at least compared to my levels. To make a long story short, she basically accused me and the program analyst of stealing money. Because she questioned the validity of the claims (going back to our fundamental disagreement of Gulf War), then she surmised that meant that any Gulf War related claims/opinions were invalid and shouldn't be billed. Like I said before, she doesn't have this authority. No one at our level has this authority. This is national policy and you're not allowed to take away from a regulation to suit your own needs. For what it's worth, my performance of these exams and opinions was directed before I was ever fee basis and had specific approval by the former chief (on more than one occasion), not to mention that the whole policy was directed by VBA personnel outside our clinic. It's a well established and approved policy that has been in place for a long time before she got here. 

All of this scenario is rather tame to what else she has been doing. To keep it short, let's just say she's accused others of outright fraud, abuse, and even having sex in the clinic. It's all bullshit and an attempt by her to discredit and destroy anyone who's crossed her path. I avoid psychoanalyzing in general, and also because I'm not qualified, but I think her specific pathology has something to do with growing up in an authoritarian regime which tends to encourage similar behaviors in those victimized or oppressed once they possess any power. She's demonstrated a feeling of superiority over others, including her own MD/DO peers. She has never understood that her authority as a doctor is strictly clinical. In the federal system, and in our country for that matter, we don't recognize social castes. Although we do have great inequalities in our country, we don't recognize our defer to people because they are part of a ruling class or aristocracy. She seems to think differently. Although some actions are still pending, it seems apparent they are going to remove her from the temporary position and her application for the permanent position would likely be dead in the water. Honestly, I hope she has enough personal shame to resign from the department if not the government as well. 

Although I know myself and our program analyst didn't do anything untoward or dishonest, it's still stressful to have those sorts of accusations hanging over you, because if they were true they would likely result in termination as well as a permanent black mark on our records. Mostly the stress derived from uncertainty to how far the accusation would go, and that the people passing judgement would be strangers who might be given incomplete and biased information. It appears that nothing will come of this for now, but it's still very troubling to face a sudden unexpected threat to your livelihood. As I have discussed with our program analyst, this was the ultimate betrayal and bridge burning offense from which a person will never come back. 

A year of freedom

This week marks one year as a contractor (fee basis) in my previous job. Fewer workdays, better compensation, and I'm almost exempt from the typical workplace drama (almost). Job security is lower in context, but otherwise there's really no downside. Our mid-range plan is to pay off the house and then we'll reassess. We may stay where we are, we may still pursue that house in the country.

This last year has seen the completion of several original tunes and videos. It's been a great year of development in most creative aspects. I'm not over the moon about anything I've done so far, but I would at least call all my projects successful in achieving what I had in mind in the beginning, and even moreso as learning processes. I expect my highly d̶r̶e̶a̶d̶e̶d̶/̶i̶g̶n̶o̶r̶e̶d̶ coveted creative efforts will likely only increase.  Not that I need more interests, but I've taken up drawing as part of my overall pursuit of visual arts. I hope to combine music, video and illustration in various ways. 

A busy two weeks

It's the Saturday after I completed my first two weeks as a fee basis (contractor) examiner for the VA in essentially the same job I was performing previously. I worked a total of seven days over two weeks and completed a record (for me) of 161 exams. This will result in a take home pay of about four times what I typically make. I don't necessarily think this workload will be typical, and I don't plan on working any more than three days a week going into the future as I was on the verge of burning myself out after four straight days of full speed ahead. I think it is feasible I could maintain an average of 60 a week with one week off a month for a monthly average of 180ish. Doing the math, this would put me right at the max salary for a year. I could earn more, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't authorize any more.

At this rate, I think it's completely feasible to pay off the house in five years and move forward with our plan to have a home on 1-2 acres on the outskirts as well as getting my dedicated music studio built. This will largely depend on a continued steady supply of exams from work. The proposed presidential budget, as corrupt, lopsided, and tunnel visioned as it is, does allow for an increase in funding for the VA, so at least for the near future work should be plentiful. I'm hoping I may look back at this post some day in 5-10 years to confirm my projections were close. It's possible the timeline could be even shorter if they keep supplying me with exams. In the present environment, I'm not having any problems getting extra exams. I was even turning down a few every day last week because I was already swamped with 20+ exams each day. The lazy and ambivalent federalistas in my department are now a source of extra income for me, so as long as they stay around I should have no problem keeping my dance card full. 

Work related updates

Another infrequent update. I've been staying busy at work and school. I can't recall if I ever mentioned it before, but in the wake of a lot of upheaval in the VA system, not to mention crossing over the five year mark last August, I decided to request a change from a full time permanent position to fee basis (contract). This would see me forfeiting any additional deposits to my 401K as well as earning any more rate increase on my federal pension. I'm also technically forfeiting the other federal benefits (healthcare, dental, vision, paid leave) but those losses are negligible. I'm already eligible (and using) my retiree benefits for these and the loss of paid leave becomes irrelevant under the fee basis paradigm.  

What I gain from fee basis is getting paid for the amount of work I do, dictating what schedule I want to work (meaning I can work 5 days, 3 days, take a month off, etc.), and the ability to leave work as soon as I'm finished on any given day. The rate at which they pay (and considering how fast I work), means that if I maintain my current production levels I can realistically take home more money while working fewer days. Although I'll be forfeiting additional increase in my federal pension, it was never going to be a significant portion of my retirement and I will still be able to draw some money when I reach 62.  The 401k (TSP) may be eligible for transfer to another similar IRA type account. I will look into this in the future. Regardless, the cons are minor and the pros are great for this change. 

The decision to change was made in the wake of perceived sweeping changes in the VA (including an increased use of contractors) and the concerns about a new administration coming into power. I made the request in December and received fast and positive feedback from my direct supervisor. In this process, he has actually been the only real support and has moved things along at every step. It's still pending because of sitting in the Dallas VA mailroom for a month (literally) and then sitting on someone's desk in HR until my supervisor personally visited and got them to do their jobs. The complete lack of inertia among many employees in the VA is what gives us a bad name. There are people content to draw a paycheck and all the benefits and perform as little actual work as they can get away with. They act like they're doing you a personal favor just to listen to your request. 

All that being said, hopefully things are in the home stretch now and I can adopt a condensed schedule. My plan is to work Tue-Thu, but I'm requesting that they give me a dense schedule every day in the hopes I can maintain similar numbers. I'm hopeful I can nearly double my current take home pay, but that will be predicated by how much they offer in compensation and how high demand remains. 

Updates, mostly gearish...

The holidays have come and gone. Things at work have been fairly steady, although a certain unnamed individual's attempt to portray himself as a visionary may have backfired on him. Time will tell. Not a lot new to report on the home front. Aeyong and I struck a deal that means she will go to Korea next year with a bigger expense account as well as helping pay for knee surgery for her mother. We would have done that anyway, but she usually tries to only spend money on the traveling costs and tries to just spend time with family. That is probably what she'll end up doing anyway, but I told her to shop if she wants to. Knowing her, she'll spend money on her family if she spends any. 

I, on the other hand, have chosen a decidedly less altruistic path. I'm going to finally get the biggest (in sheer size and cost) item that I've had on my gear wish list for the past five years or so. Drum roll, please. No pun intended. Still scratching the noggin?

It's drums, I'm getting drums. My ultimate musical goal is writing and recording music for myself. If others ever get any enjoyment from it, great. But ultimately, I undertake this process for my own personal fulfillment alone.  I've always aspired to write the music that has most inspired me, and that generally has been heavily weighted towards bands with guitar, bass, drums, and keyboards.  Of those, keys probably open up the sonic landscape the most by virtue of synths and samplers, and If I want to go orchestral or soundtrackish, that's where the keys and synths come in.  That being said, I've always wanted to have a good handle on what I consider the four dominant instruments in popular music. 

I've wanted to learn drums so I could facilitate writing (regardless of the fact you can program drums to sound real or not), so I could improve my sense of rhythm, and just because I love the instrument and I've truly always loved the drummers in my favorite bands. If I were to make a top ten list (the creation of which I generally try to avoid) for guitarists, bassists, keyboardists, and drummers, a healthy chunk of the roster would come from Yes, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Pink Floyd, The Police, and a few others. Of those just mentioned, Bonzo, Bruford, the Professor, and Stewart Copeland are held in my highest regard. Sorry Nick, I love you and wouldn't exchange you for another, but you're not in the same category as those mentioned.  

There are many others, especially in Jazz - the various PMG alumni (Antonio Sanchez, Paul Wertico, Danny Gottlieb), Jack Dejohnette, Steve Gadd, Billy Higgins, Peter Erskine, etc.  There are too many to count actually. Despite the august nature of those mentioned, I'm sure to avail myself of some less steep summits before commencing skyward.  Zeppelin will probably be a starting point, although it will take years to get to a level at which I won't be embarrassed, much less master the beats o' Bonzo. As with bass, guitar, and keys, I'll definitely put a few "unattainable in the near future" tunes in my practice list. One of my long term goals is to be able to perform and record all parts to certain tunes. While they're not as common, there are a few videos of people performing all the parts to songs out there on YouTube and the like (YYZ comes to mind).  

After negotiating with Aeyong, I talked her into letting me get what I consider the best electronic drums on the market, Roland's TD-30KV-Pro series.

http://www.roland.com/products/en/TD-30KV/

 I'm getting electronic drums for multiple reasons. One, they're relatively quiet compared to acoustic drums, and two, they're very powerful and flexible when it comes to sounds and recording. Not to mention all the percussion and drum samples I have on my computers that I can now trigger with these drums. And I anticipate being able to use these indefinitely without feeling the need to upgrade.  I didn't want to wait any longer since I'm not getting any younger, and I will need several years to really start honing my ability to a level I can use in recording.  

Why I love my job(ish)...

Love is probably a bit strong, but there are several things about my job that make me not hate it. To wit:  1.  Regular hours with no nights, weekends, or call (unless I want to work overtime on Saturday to make extra money. Which I don't.)  2.  I'm mostly in control of my day and destiny. In other words, I can work as fast or as slow (usually the former) as I want and I'm not affected by the productivity of others (or the lack thereof). 3.  I have my own office, which is my private sanctuary where I can listen to music, use my iPad, etc. without interference/noise from outside. I sound like I hate people which is not the case, but it's nice to have your own personal space when you have noisy/smelly/etc. co-workers. 4. Kind of related to number one - the work is predictable and manageable. Some days I'm busy all day, but most days there are cushion times built into the schedule so I never feel overwhelmed. 5. Pay, benefits - while federal salaries are normally 10-30% below their civilian equivalents in gross salary, when you consider the benefits (pension, paid leave, health insurance, 401K), then my job is very competitive. Never underestimate the value of a pension. Even if I had been a smart investor and had been saving/investing towards my future since a young age, I most likely would have lost a huge chunk of that in 2008-2009. Because I retired from the Army I will have a very sizable monthly check for the rest of my life, regardless if I work or not. While the federal employee pension isn't as sizable as the military pension, it's essentially the same benefit. Although I do have a 401K that I've been investing in, the federal pension I'll be eligible to receive when I retire will combine with my Army pension and VA disability to essentially ensure that I won't need to work past my mid 60's unless I really want to. Also, the benefit of paid leave is considerable in this job. I worked as a DA civilian and then contractor after I first retired and my annual leave was somewhere around 10 days total. I think I had 10 sick leave days as well. In this job I am authorized 26 days of regular leave and 13 days of sick leave for a combined total of 39 days paid leave per year. And  I've been accruing that amount since I was hired. Most jobs require you to build up tenure to accrue the higher amounts, but not this one. Authorized/paid leave is a huge deal for me. I grew accustomed to 30 days of paid leave per year in my 23 year Army career, and that first year as a civilian with only 10 days of paid leave was a stark contrast to what I was accustomed to. This total doesn't include federal holidays.