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As a consultant, I assist other organizations with certain tasks and can confirm that dumpster fire management is common in my field. From what I've seen, organizations either promote the least competent know-it-alls internally or hire those same kind of people from other organizations.

People have been asking me that same question. When folks find out I'm no longer with my former employer, I tell them the truth: I run my own business, which gives me the time to do what I enjoy.

Congrats on your first year! I just celebrated mine as well. The hardest part of volunteering is simply showing up the first time. I've been volunteering with several organizations for quite a while. One nonprofit in particular, I've been volunteering with for over 15 years, mainly because it's...

I feel exactly the same way. Dumpster fire management still seems convinced that employees care about extinguishing the dumpster fires they create. Maybe some still do, but I don't.

Congrats on getting to FI! Your willingness to embrace FI puts you well ahead of most people I know outside this site. It's the reason I joined this site. While there are differences of opinion on the meaning and importance of the RE part, reaching FI provided me with the opportunity to...

Congratulations on a wonderful first year and thank you for sharing! We have a similar budget and the lack of motorized and glittery things makes it more than sufficient. For us, the expensive stuff is gear --bikes, skis, and camping-- and even that isn't particularly expensive.

Congrats and welcome! Everyone here has been incredibly helpful and supportive. I just celebrated a year transitioning away from the "full-time" and have found no end to the freelance consulting opportunities available.

The Chrysler Pacifica. Barely a year ago they were selling over sticker. Now you can get them with low-miles off-lease for around $30k.

We drove a Subaru Forester for a decade as our only vehicle. When it met its fate one evening, along with a deer, we purchased the least expensive 4x4 available on the market new. That was nearly 7 years ago and it's performed great as our only vehicle. Now that it's getting older, I'm looking...

Whatever people reading this want to call it, I recently turned 53 and this year went flying by. Some highs and a few lows, but overall wonderful! My former employer offered me a half-time remote role, which ended up being about 10/hr a week. The contract wrapped on a bit of a sour note that I...

My better half placed a pair of adorable looking overalls in the cart of an outdoor gear website we sometimes check. They're made out of a super light but durable tech fabric like hiking pants, which she thinks will be great for yard work and they were 70% off. Then I received a $20 off $100...

The week is over, which means my year of remote half-time at the dumpster fire is done! No news from the dumpster fire. In Outlook the away message is visible before sending an email, and so I assume nobody wanted to send an email to me knowing it's getting forwarded back to themselves. All...

It's not how much they're increasing the offer. It's that each increased offer includes additional expectations added to the offer. Half of my previous annual salary for just over 400h of my time this past year worked out to a bit less than my rate as a contractor. However, once health...

No surprise, but they did send me another low ball offer, this one came with a Friday deadline, and I recycled parts of my previous reply. "Thanks for your message. I agree that opening the bidding process will help the organization to better understand both the scope of the work and that my...

Not sure if this belong here but I recently updated my home office. It's a great space, but the Herman Miller chair I had bought simply wasn't comfortable and I never got around to upgrading my other seating from the Ikea Poang. So last week my better-half sat down with me and helped to pick...

It would be a high paying gig: Hourly, it would be around 160% of the rate of my most lucrative contracts. That said, they responded this morning with another lowball offer (well below my usual rate) and my response was the following: "Thanks for your message. It seems that we are unable to...

Thanks. As satisfying as it sounds to say, "Take this job and shove it!" Or, "When hell freezes over," keeping a level head has served me well in business. I responded earlier today to reaffirm that my rate is competitive and gave them until Friday to accept the offer. I'm fine either way, so...

Update: True to form, "dumpster fire" management (DFM) followed up early last week asking for a timeline on a response. I responded to them last Friday by attaching a proposal from my consulting company with an itemization of the project requirements and deliverables along with the costs. That...

I can relate. My parent got sick while I was in college and died shortly after, leaving me to care for two elderly grandparents while finishing my education. My grandfather lived a few more years and my grandmother lived another decade with Alzheimer's disease. As an only child of an only child...

Totally agree! If you have enough to support the lifestyle you're happy with, then you have enough. Many friends seem to have much higher retirement numbers than we do, but they didn't buy a duplex like we did or build an ADU like we added. So, they're not living expense free in their own...

I love Smartwool light compression socks. They offer two levels of compression, but I found their full compression socks to be too much for me (20-30 range). I have used orthopedic level compression socks in other brands previously, and while I like them, the poly smells. The wool socks can go...

I just returned home from a short solo trip, so we slept in as late as our dogs would allow this morning before slowly making our way to the ski resort to take a few runs. Conditions were variable with an inch or two of fresh powder, but we met up with some friends and the place was empty otherwise.

While I don't work on mainframes, I'm in a similar situation in my field. There are many techniques for completing certain types of projects, and it's not surprising that younger folks use more modern techniques. However, there are reasons to apply more traditional techniques in certain...

The last message they received from me ended with, "but I don't work here anymore." It would be easy to feel insulted by their offer, but the person who sent the message doesn't even understand what they're asking me to do. I'm not planning on responding to the latest offer from "dumpster fire"...

Update: I received another email with another offer. The new offer is for most of what they asked for in their previous message but for 60% of my salary instead of 100%. It's roughly double the work I've been doing this past year as half-time, but for 10% more money, which is apparently their...