As of this week, I’ve been publishing DOGE IS FOUR LETTERS for a month. Four weeks of stories from federal workers (whether still employed or not), four times a week. Nearly 14,000 words. All of these stories have helped to make me better informed about the work federal workers do on our behalf, why they do it, why they believe in the work, and what it means to them, and I’m grateful to each and every person I’ve talked to. I intend to continue publishing these stories, there’s nothing changing here, I just thought it was worth noting this small mile marker along what I expect, unfortunately, will be a very long road.
I’m pretty close to finally getting caught up on the large backlog I had for a couple of weeks, and I’ve ironed out a somewhat more efficient workflow, so if you — or someone you know — would be interested in talking to me about experience as a federal worker under DOGE, I’d love to hear from you.
My own professional situation is no less grim; I’m unemployed for the first time since covid, and while I have a few small freelance irons in the fire, I’m having a lot of difficulty getting so much as a screening interview, even for positions I’m significantly overqualified for. Other journalists have covered this, most recently in The Atlantic, but the job market seems frozen solid at the moment. It’s getting slower, too; the Fed announced this week that January hiring slowed and has revised job growth downward. People who are currently employed are staying put, layoffs have slowed, and hiring’s frozen. Not stagflation, but, at a minimum, it seems like entering a period of stagnation. What that means for me, who knows? I’ll keep doing what I do, apply for work, and see what I can hustle up on my own. This strategy’s always worked for me before, and I expect it will until it doesn’t.
Not a particularly rosy outlook, I’ll admit, but I’m not panicked (yet). We’ll see where I’m at in a month or two.
As a result of that freelance work, I didn’t have as much time as I’d like to work on WORK IS FOUR LETTERS this week, but rest assured, I am working on it. Next week, I’ll have a new interview with a music archivist, and I’m really excited for you to read it.
At some point, as a result of aforementioned unemployment, I’m likely to initiate some kind of fundraiser for this site, to cover — at a bare minimum — the myriad hosting and software costs that go into keeping it up and running. It’s not expensive, necessarily, to run a WordPress site, but it’s also not free, and some of the tools I use to create graphics, conduct interviews and send newsletters have recurring subscription fees that I would, in all likelihood, rather not pay for, but I haven’t found a great way around them. I’m not terribly enthusiastic about the subscription model, since I know my own publishing can sometimes be inconsistent, so I’m exploring things like a once-per-year, or twice-per-year fundraiser. Maybe a telethon. I’ll have more time to think about it and plan it starting next week, so if you’ve asked me how to give me your money, rest assured, I’m trying to find a way to make that easy for you.
Thus concludes another week; next week is the first full week of Spring, and I put together a new 10 Songs about it. Try to get out and get some sunshine.
GOLIKEHELLMACHINE
GOLIKEHELLMACHINE 