USA, Virginia: My county does not have municipal trash collection, so we either haul our own trash to convenience centers, or pay a private service to pick it up. The landfill and convenience centers are run by a private company and it seems to work pretty well, except for recycling. The county only recycles paper/carboard, metal, and #1 and #2 plastic, and for #2 plastic the opening of the container must be narrower than the container. We don’t recycle glass or any other plastics. Apparently my neanderthal neighbors couldn’t be arsed to rinse out the containers and the people whose job it was to sort it out refused to accept any more recycling from us until we made changes. And most of the county still just tosses everything in the trash compactors. I think our county-wide recycling rate is just under 25%.

I like the system better than when I lived in a city where we had trash pickup. I can go drop off when I need to instead of missing trash day, having trash pile up waiting for trash day, or having it not picked up because it was “too heavy,” or some other reason. It doesn’t cost me anything other than gas, and we can usually combine the drop off with grocery shopping or other errands. I just wish we were better at recycling. My daughter lives in a city with single-stream recycling - all the trash and recycling goes in the same container and it gets automatically sorted at a processing facility.

I could bore him to death with Teams meetings.

Who want-a some Wang?!

Breaking up a hamster fight.

made an awkward gesture forgot he wasn’t supposed to do the Nazi salute in public in a moment of enthusiasm…
FTFY

Reverse osmosis system under the sink. I’ve got a whoe house water softener, too, but it’s almost 30 years old and needs replaced. I’m on well water, and while it’s safe to drink, it has high manganese and calcium content. The calcium will gunk up my electric kettle pretty quickly, but as long as I fill it from the filter faucet it stays pristine.

I could never order the 10-inch Meat Feast without cracking up.

The answers to both of your questions are probably yes it’s okay, and yes you should probably be looking for another job.
Are you morally/ethically okay with your agency’s mission? With your role in it? If you are, then the new administration’s policies may not be reason enough to leave. You pretty much have to work somewhere. If the answer is no, you probably would have already been looking for another job.
Should you be looking for another job? Probably, depending on what your agency is and it’s mission. If TFG and Project2025 have their way, many federal government agencies will be defunded and/or privatized, and pretty much toothless when it comes to enforcement. We already saw what happened to the EPA under the first Trump administration. If yours is in danger of that you should be preparing a backup plan. I wouldn’t want to give up a government job, but I would want to be ready if I got RIF’d, or if I got fed up with the bullshit.

“That’s Oz-wee-pay.”

Don’t bug users to change passwords periodically. Only do it if there’s evidence of compromise.

About damn time. I log into my company laptop with a smart card and PIN or a PIN/authenticator code, computer autoconnects to the VPN, and I’m good to go. If there’s no internet available, the smart card will still get me into my computer. If I’m on my personal computer, I log in with the PIN/authenticator. This morning I tried really hard to find someplace where I had the option of entering a password and there is none, yet I have to change my password every 6 months. At least my IT department lets me use KeePass.

All of my machine names are related to Elvis Presley. Elvis has been my desktop PC for years, and I have or have had Priscilla, Lisa-Marie, ColonelParker, Blue-Hawaii, Hound Dog, Memphis, Tupelo, and Graceland. I want to rethink this a bit to have to flow better, maybe have Graceland as my network name, or maybe the router. Also thinking about changing to something space-related or Norse Mythology as the theme.

I got upgraded from my usual generic Mercedes C-Class rental car to a BMW 5-Series on one of my trips to Germany. I instantly felt 10% more assholish as soon as I got into it. I even managed to get a speeding ticket within the first 10km or so - camera caught me going 8km/h over the limit in a construction zone, I think on the A67. The fine was only something like €20.
I usually make a conscious effort to not drive like an asshole, especially when I’m traveling, although for some countires driving like an asshole is mandatory.