General Discussion

I have wondered over the few years I've retired WHAT I could have done or said differently to avoid taking early retirement. I could never come up with anything. I presented evidence of my high productivity while working at home in several different formats; some even trackable by the office's own IT systems.

My coworker and I still collaborated constantly, whether I was at home or in the office. We were the only two responsible for the work we did, so there was no one else to worry about collaborating with. And I swore I'd make it to the office for any administration and or coordination meetings.

Beyond all that, everything I did on my job was done on WiFi. It didn't go to the office's or DoD network; it went directly into Amazon Cloud Services, which hosted our Blackboard. While at home, my wifi was fast and efficient. The one at my DoD office was slow and unreliable; as more often than not, it would be down (along with the rest of the network!).

I didn't ask for all work for home; only a flexible, partial week. I have both lupus and fibromyalgia. Depending on which was hurting me the worse, I'd either not be able to drag myself out of bed, or I'd be in joint pain from feet up to neck. And that doesn't take into account the bathroom effects.

Reading this finally puts the last puzzle piece into place. *Of course* it was narcissistic personality managing it all behind the scenes. Add to that a direct supervisor who was conflict-averse (except with women, of course) and that's the ball of wax right there. The DoD, like so much of military still, is a man's world. Men would regularly come in late, work offsite, or get flexible hours. Women were NOT granted the same leeway, even though we were veterans (although we needed it more). The number of auto-immune diseases in my female coworkers were off the scale, and even the one who got a "terminal" diagnosis couldn't get our dept manager to okay even a hybrid situation for her.

HOW men ever got the status quo image of "manly, strong, stoic, and reasonable" is a wonder to me. So many I've found to be arrogant, bossy, and narcissistic... or just afraid of making waves. I often wonder how these retired military men ever made it through their wars alive!