Found Art
If your work is your muse, check out this call for submissions from Barrelhouse. I was thinking about submitting some haiku. For example: A meeting expands To fill the time available. Winter. My office.
Posts By Kate Yemelyanov
The Perfect Storm
My agency has been experiencing an e-mail storm for over a week now. Someone erroneously sent an e-mail message to almost everybody in the organization. Then everyone started replying to all to complain about receiving the message or to ask other people to quit hitting reply to all to complain about receiving the message. ThenRead… Read more »
They Walk Among Us
I don’t know how much time Mark Stelzner’s blog post about bad apples stayed on the front page here, but it wasn’t long enough. I like two things about it: it addresses the impact a single maladjusted individual can have on group performance, and it invites readers to take a look at how their ownRead… Read more »
Meeting
I like being able to call in to meetings. I dislike it when the first half of a meeting consists of reliving the prior meeting for the benefit of people who missed it. I like the mute feature on my phone.
Clearance News
Leaving aside the particular ax my homies have to grind with the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, this recent post on Dead Men Working offers some interesting news for those following security clearance issues. Take a look.
Federal Bloggers Unite
I had a federal worker blog once. It even got a shout-out from a real blog that covers federal government issues. But I shut it down because I was, well, too busy working being a federal worker. Plus I didn’t want to get in trouble should my urge to snark overwhelm my professional judgment. ThisRead… Read more »
Spam
My agency’s spam filters are pretty good. Now the only spam I get is high-concept; to wit: A proud look in the old man’s eyes as he said angel, courage! be comforted! Be patient! But other times, and restif such repose could be thus you? Poirot took both her hands in his. So, madame, howRead… Read more »
Twick or Tweet?
Alyssa Rosenberg at FedBlog made me want to step up my game by getting on Twitter with this post. (Speaking of which, I heart FedBlog, especially now that they seem to have hired a full-time blogger.) But I am resisting lest the temptation to live-tweet boring meetings overwhelm me. It feels kind of like aRead… Read more »
Who Needs Fantasy Football?
This NYT cabinet-picker sounds like a lot more fun to me. There again, I also think administration is fun. This makes me maybe not the best judge of popular taste. I also thought cool ranch doritos were a horrible idea, but look how well they turned out. I liked “The American Embassy,” too.
The Anger Of The Gods
Before I became Bureaucrates, Goddess of Bureaucracy, I was an alcolyte of Mediocrates, God of Mediocrity. Okay, I was actually a middle school kid studying Greek mythology in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in the 1980s, when the school district went on a tear about Achieving Excellence. Thus was Mediocrates born. His name is pronounced MEE-dee-o-crayts, of course.Read… Read more »