On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

After fifteen months, my current contract ends tomorrow afternoon. No idea what's next beyond returning a laptop computer to whence it came the following Monday and going back to the house to start the paperwork of the next job search.

I'm better off than many, worse off than others. Somewhere in the middle, I guess.

Good night and good luck.

I'm still here. Just busy with lots of stuff.

My current contract ends in three weeks. A contract that started in November 2023 and will have lasted 15 or 16 months. A new personal best for employment in my life. I'm hoping to do better with the next one, the political situation notwithstanding.

More later...

I just self-tested again, and I still seem to be avoiding/delaying my second COVID-19 infection. So that's good news.

I'm scheduled to be laid off because end-of-contract on March 14th. This will have been a personal best at 15 months' steady work. That should improve the odds of being (re)hired somewhat.

The science-fiction club Zoom meeting last night fizzled due to various issues, so we're going to try again in two weeks.

I'm up to working on four map projects with the Tranquility Press fanfic collective.

More later.

I have concerns(!) about the choice of phrasing in Treasury Board President Mona Fortier's arguments for a hybrid work model for those branches of the federal civil service that her branch of the federal cabinet has jurisdiction over.

Also, doubling down on "right of the employer" rhetoric is not helpful.

The civil service needs sufficiently safe workspaces to return to and, for those who do not or cannot drive, a sufficiently safe public transit system to use to get there. I'm not seeing that here. OC Transpo and STO must be allowed to return to "mask up!" rules for everyone who can medically manage it or this isn't going to do what the current government is hoping for. And the same requirement exists for public transit in any city that has such services and a federal civil service presence.

Without at least the mask rules back in place, we won't have safe federal workspaces. We'll have superspreader sites. Again.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/treasury-board-president-calls-return-to-office-plan-right-of-employer

(Yes, there's other arguments to be made for efficiencies, pollution/ecological considerations, savings on government expenditures, etc.. Other people are making those arguments.)

I got my dosage yesterday.

Still masking for my public travels, and wishing more of my neighbours would get back to that habit. It would make finding and holding a new job again easier for me and any prospective employer.

I've applied on two jobs today. This after some 20-30 job boards and other relevant web sites checked out over the space of 5-6 hours. Also, practice time on Affinity Publisher because why shouldn't I use a personal, family project as a means of developing desktop publishing/book design skills?

The frustration continues, and I intend to keep putting one foot in front of the other as best I can for as long as I can in spite of that.

(For some reason, I imagined myself writing something a lot more detailed and involved than this.)

Here's mine:

Always expect to be dragged off-course from what you expected and trained to do for a living.

Inspired by a contest put together by the Algonquin College Alumni Association.

Hoping I picked the right driver version for the Cintiq to download. Since I'm doing day-job work at the same desk I expect to use the Cintiq with, it's going to be a few more days before I can test it.

Listening to this on the radio right now:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thehouse/cbc-the-house-may-8-2021-1.6017783

Needing to think through the implications raised by the discussions aired today...

This bears re-transmitting.

https://twitter.com/KimberleyNoble/status/1385262509683322882