Tag Archives: title

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Last minute discoveries. In an abundance of caution, I reviewed the major book retailers one more time last night and found, to my horror, that there is, in fact, a paperback on the market using my working title almost word for word. It’s not available as an ebook and I guess that’s why I missed it when I was doing my initial research, but there it is sitting on Amazon, priced at $64 and ranked at #3,184,365 in books. To say this sent me into a mild fit is possibly an understatement. So yeah, it’s back to the drawing board for a title.

2. Rent. I’m not a fan of renting. I’m less of a fan when the rent goes up. Sure, I know it’s been the same for two years, but with the real likelihood of needing to slash 20% out of my expenses for the next six months, even a minor increase is going to have an outsized impact. Like businesses everywhere, it means I’ve got to come up with a way to pass that cost on to my customers, because I’m certainly not going to take the hit from my own bottom line. I’m going to pass that rent increase right along to my own renters when their leases expire and thus the circle of pain continues for everyone.

3. Memory. I don’t know if it’s because I’m trying to keep up with a couple dozen things at once or if it’s early onset Alzheimer’s, but I don’t seem to be able to remember a damned thing lately. Writing it down helps, but only when I remember to write it all down in the same place rather than leaving a trail of random Post It notes in my wake. Either my brain needs to get itself in gear and start carrying the load or I need to come up with a better written system to keep it all straight, because right now I’m missing stuff and that makes me crazy.

200 and climbing…

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For those playing along with the fun filled and exciting game of How Many Resumes can Jeff Send Out Before Losing His Bloody Mind, the total now stands just north of the 200 mark. This is perhaps more impressive in the fact that it was at the 199 point that I ran out of available positions to apply for with the Army. So from here on out, we’re broadening the scope to include Army and every other government agency in the MD-DC-VA-PA area. Thank God for http://www.usajobs.com. I don’t know how anyone ever did this back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and resumes were delivered on paper.

If you’re curious about what lucky #200 was, that would be a Strategic Analyst on the Joint Staff. It’s a little vague on the duties, but it’s a pretty sweet title. Nothing appeals the heart stings of a career bureaucrat like a title bump… well, a title bump and a kickin’ retirement system. In the also-ran category for the #200 place of honor was Senior Advisor to the Treasurer of the United States. If you think the Joint Staff is vague, try figuring out what a “Senior Advisor” is supposed to spend their day doing. I read the job announcement twice and still didn’t really figure it out… but apparently the Treasurer needs two of them.

Winning the creepiest job announcement of the day is Army Intelligence, with a position that called for, among other things, background checks, urinalysis, polygraphs, credit checks, and psych evaluations. Those things aren’t really a problem, but when I came across a “condition of employment” that read: 7.) Must be willing to work unusual extended hours and forego conveniences normally afforded to civilian employees in CONUS/OCONUS, I decided that foregoing normal conveniences probably wasn’t something I was going to be interested in. That ones’s a rare pass.