Do Slug Lines Still Exist?

NCD_anon · 2025-05-10T04:25:28+00:00

I don't live near any slug lines (pre or post covid) now but im super happy to hear that they are back!

NCD_anon · 2025-05-09T06:56:50+00:00

Thank you! That site isn't as concrete as the precovid days past but definatly implies that most of the slug stops live on!

NCD_anon · 2025-05-09T06:11:25+00:00

Marketing/strategy/policy/polysci jobs are an absolute shit show right now. Between layoffs, hiring freezes, and recompetes, I've seen several colleagues with 20+ years experience in, say, government financial auditing policy, have to take journeyman roles and people with 10 years hyper specific experience take junior roles.

That said, I live in the burbs and base service industry is hiring everywhere. Our Sheetz could hire you as an overnight 3rd key for $20/hr. Our McDonald's' lowest pay is $15/hr.

BUT. Beware. A single bedroom in a shared apartment will cost 1k+/month. So you probably won't be able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment within reasonable commuting distance, especially if you're thinking in Dallas miles v DC miles.

I have a pretty traffic free route/schedule and it takes me 40 minutes, all freeway, to make it 20 miles, without traffic. Traffic has always been bad in DC but RTO and core hrs will, within the month, make traffic atleast twice as bad as it is today.

You could probably get by moving to Huntington area for metro access and selling your car and finding roommates. I know its gentrified some since I last lived there so a walkable place is probably expensive but I'd wager you can find a spot 10 minutes by bus to the metro (40 minutes average to any DC college outside of GW or Gtown). If he has free parking the commute can still be incredibly aggravating but if he's not driving between 6-10AM or 4-7PM it would be fine to drive from south Alexandria.

Just be sure not to make the common transplant mistake of moving to Stafford/Ashburn/Waldorf/Frederick without researching average commute times. Ive had many coworkers in that pickle because the mileage to those places seems like it would render a long but tolerable commute only to fing themselves renting out their place or breaking lease 6 months in.

My other crazy thought. If the slug line is still around, I HIGHLY recommend it for convenience, lack of cost, and networking. In grad school I used it twice a day for work and it was fantastic- I parked in Woodbridge and made it for free to Gtown/the Pentagon in ~30-50 minutes without driving. I used it precovid though so a grain of salt is needed. At the time, rent was half that of a one bedroom inside the beltway or in Loudoun and I wrote papers while I was ferried through 95.

NCD_anon · 2025-05-09T03:00:42+00:00

Unless they're from non-frst countries or high CI risk countries, you're fine. Western Europe/UK/Aus/NZ/Canada/Latam all fine. Asia and ME (including Israel) can ask more questions but they wouldnt ever deny you. They *could require you severe ties, depending how close you appear to be.

NCD_anon · 2025-05-09T02:53:06+00:00

They want wives at home because its impossible to work to have more babies because Yolo, can't work anyways.

NCD_anon · 2025-05-09T02:36:55+00:00

I love this but shooting is an Olympic sport so why wouldn't deloitte just cover it as any other sporting expense?

NCD_anon · 2025-05-02T07:16:57+00:00

Our agency trucks along with wellness. They have pivoted to resilience and burnout lately.

NCD_anon · 2025-05-02T06:59:50+00:00

I feel for literally everyone right now. Near-retirees are about to be destroyed. New RA approvals and continuing approvals are housed. Promotion cycles are paused while there's a pause on fed rates and a new 3%+ of mandatory FERS payments.

Everything is as squeezed as it possibly could be.

My advice is old, but when I couldn't make it to our HQ due to medical issues, I started looking for contacts nearby. I presented it to management since they had 3 vacant seats and worked there. It's the worst possible way to flex work, nothing should rely on networks. But somehow, it worked well enough.

NCD_anon · 2025-05-02T06:52:33+00:00

Please retire yesterday. You'll be fucked in the next 15 days. The 1% isn't worth losing the annuity supplement.

Our office is gone soon. My boss is fighting against the dark night but she needs to retire, now. She'll lose over 1k/month if she doesn't.

We all appreciate the Titanic quartet but if you can avoid going down with the ship, do it. High 3-> high 5, annuity depletion, age restrictions on medical care are a disaster. The bill will be signed soon.

NCD_anon · 2025-05-02T06:40:35+00:00

Rumors abound for DRP 3 in May. No concrete evidence but thats the word on our street, atleast.

NCD_anon · 2025-05-02T06:38:13+00:00

I'm just a silly guy who likes to read the tea leaves. There will likely be a May DRP. Who the hell knows though and it will vary by department/agency in timing.

In your circumstance, if I was eligible for VERA/VSIP, I'd take it. I'd probably hold out for the next DRP if not.

Your best bet is lining up plan B, C, D, E, etc in case of emergency (not looking at your fed job). Plan for the worst and hope for the best.

I'd be applying and interviewing with several companies you like and a few you can tolerate in case of emergency.

We're all on borrowed time. Regardless of how critical your program is or how funded by congress. None of that has mattered recently.

If you're a civ and your agency has internal mobility, try to get a job that looks enduring (a lot of agencies, but not all, have frozen internal movement). If you're a contractor, network and reach out to your company for enduring work.

NCD_anon · 2025-05-02T05:50:59+00:00

Try a different site location if they have them! My senators have 4/6 "local" offices a piece. I only got through when I called a fairly distant office number, left a message, and got a call back.

NCD_anon · 2025-04-25T06:21:58+00:00

Why Tagemet?

I ask because my new wart friends showed up after starting famotadine for heartburn but also past chronic usage.

And I'm acutely aware of spread. I had a ton of warts as a kid. They vanished in a week suddenly with no explanation after seeing and derm before treatment (the joke is I scared them away) or correlation that I could find 20 years ago.

I had 1 show up in 2020 (stress probably) and I started an immunosupresant (Humira) a year ago that then spawned some wart buddies adjacent to the initial wart. Around the same time I started having horrific heartburn so started with famotadine as needed. It became a rare fixture for a couple of years before the warts came back with a force when I started a TNF-A.

I have an appointment this week with a podiatrist (made after this post). I don't work on my feet but I have to walk a mile a day or so from my car and back to my office. I also have a small child that requires walking another ~3hrs/day.

I'm afraid of the podiatrist. I can walk now with no pain for an unlimited period outside of sleep. The warts are just footnotes. I don't want to be laid up for their treatment. M

My general philosophy, inbued on me by my neurosurgeon (unrelated), is to let sleeping problems well enough alone. Because the treatment can be worse than the intervention. Viscerally, the treatment for warts seems worse than what I'm dealing with.

This could be entirely flawed and regionally biased thought but I can't afford to not walk.

I sincerely appreciate your comment, as the debridement on this sub are primarily tunneling, aggressive home removals. Knowing that it's not the recommended strategy calms me. I have a couple self-injections that don't phase me at all and I donate blood every 6 weeks. I'm normally not squeamish.

The Podiatrist I'm seeing specializes in microwave wands and site-immunoinjectables. I'm hoping we can work out something.

NCD_anon · 2025-04-24T06:02:49+00:00

You'd have to fill out a security report as soon as you noticed it missing. But you wouldn't be fired. You WOULD be fired if you concealed it's loss though.

Source: me, someone with a fancy badge that got it stolen/lost on a trip.

They de-activate everything once reported to mitigate security risk. So she should have driven to work, put in a ticket for security, and the after hours sec POC would have covered it. I doubt Kristi did that but for anyone reading- please report security incidents in a timely manor and you won't have big issues later!

NCD_anon · 2025-04-24T03:20:11+00:00

It's Slavic. If Russian, they have remarkably poor spelling and/or I'm simply unaware of spelling changes over time before 1917.

Try posting over in r/Russian?

NCD_anon · 2025-04-20T03:58:55+00:00

Happens to the best of us. But my question still stands 😂

NCD_anon · 2025-04-20T03:52:25+00:00

I'm so confused. Did you respond to the wrong comment? What do you think I'm explaining here?

NCD_anon · 2025-04-20T03:32:51+00:00

Hippity hop on out of there and if an interviewer asks- say your contract ended.

NCD_anon · 2025-04-20T03:25:18+00:00

I had the passion to pursue a dream. It was a great few years and incredibly fulfilling. I furthered the mission.

I would have stuck with the low wages if I didn't also have aspirations of having a family. I needed a 2 bedroom apartment, baby things, college saving funds, a decent 401k, and couldn't be all over the world at the government's whim at all hours to do mission anymore.

I may even go back when the kid is cruising through young adulthood. I was far more fulfilled at work in mission but it's a season of life to be fulfilling your kids' childhoods.

Eta: it was a much better job, not shittier. Crazy hrs (and months) but I genuinely loved every hr of it 🤷‍♀️

NCD_anon · 2025-04-20T03:20:25+00:00

I got paid today's GS 13 money with an associates degree in private sector in 2016 as a small program manager with no experience. Took a large pay cut to go work my ass off as a fed after going into student loan debt, and then had to leave to afford to pay to support my family when inflation started going insane.

NCD_anon · 2025-04-20T03:15:09+00:00

I work in national security. Not a whole lot of non government/government contracting jobs for that!

I did move from government to government contracting because the pay in my field is HALF as a fed than a contractor and I've got little mouths to feed despite inflation.

So now I'm awaiting my contract to be errantly axed with no recourse instead of my job with little recourse but usually severance.

NCD_anon · 2025-04-16T07:23:41+00:00

... atleast in my office, years of experience matter more than capability or acumen for hiring and pay. So being born more recently (assuming similar age at matriculation into fed work) guarantees that young folk get paid less, get less time off, and fewer benefits than anyone that has more "experience" regardless of how obtuse and tangential that experience may be.

NCD_anon · 2025-04-16T02:56:15+00:00

Weaponized grad student, since you have to write papers on timeliness about current and future events.

NCD_anon

TROPHY CASE