TLDR - RTO, I’ve gotten to like most of the people I work with but reekris, this new Aunt Gayle woman thinks I am a blind idiot and that feathers are highly contagious disease vectors that need to be contains and handled like bio-hazardous material.
I have been working in a shared office space for about 18 months now, having been forced to go to the office because Capt. K-Hole the Space Karen thought it would be funny. Or russel vought thought it was be extra annoying.
So, I have been coming to the office, and thankfully I got my duty station changed to a science center that is a lot closer than where my actual center is. It’s had its ups and down, annoyances, and whatnot, but I have made friends, and the center is still my Agency, and while most of the folks are biologists, and while I am a geologist, I don’t even really do geology anymore, and we all get along. But it is weird sometimes being the only (well, it used to be but we got a few more now), being the only geologist in a USGS facility full of biologists. Eh. It’s still a good natural science. Fissssss.
So, I’ve been in this spot for 18 months or so, since we all got forced back. I came back on the official first day, on Feb. 24, 2025. I did what I was supposed to, like a good little dumbass. I came to the place I had sort of pre-arranged with the facility guy there. Aaaaaand that first day was a fucking joke. I got there, and no one knew I was supposed to be showing up. I couldn’t get in. I forget how I got into what I call the hut, but no one was there. There are two guys who work out of there, and even since the RTO, I hardly see those dudes. Well, There was a large conference like table (more realistically a long dining room table from who knows way back when) and the plan, originally was to set up there. But wait! There’s no wifi. And I have no idea who to contact. Woo. I call my supervisor and try to make light of the situation while also airing my frustrations and I am met with a stern warning/question worded in a way to say “You need to think if you still want to work here”.
Point taken. Fine. I go back and have to be buzzed in (which requires one of the admin people to come all the way down stairs and open the door - this will continue for at least 4 months, every fucking day until they finally, begrudgingly give me a key (that’s on a different facilities guy)). I decide to set up in this other space I was shown that is (and at the time also was) completely empty. It’s a sizable room if it were empty, but it is a shared office with four cubicles separated by typical office type carpet walls around 5’ tall. If someone is standing, especially with a standing desk, one can easily see over. I set up there, and I was the only one. And it was this way for a little while.
Then I get some new cave dwellers. They were cool, but eventually moved to their own office. I am still in the cave. I call it a cave, despite it have four massive windows, two on the east wall, and two on the south wall, but one wall is old limestone field stone blocks. I started calling it the peasant pit.
I tried moving offices because one was left empty with this one guy, we’ll call him Kim John Yung, retired. I was evicted by the guy who wouldn’t give me a key. He wouldn’t actually say why, and he did ask why I was there, and it’s because I don’t work as well in an office environment, especially when there are four in there. I need to be able to focus. And at the time a woman from the NIH, was co-locating. I did not like this woman, and she kept coming around to ask me if she was annoying me.
It turned out that that office just had to stay empty
because said retired emeritus guy was coming back, and he said
he would come in every Tirsdaeg. He doesn’t. It’s June, and he ‘came
back’ in January. I’ve seen this dude all of maybe 5 times. One of his
colleagues, who has been there a long time even told him he doesn’t need
to come in at all. He’s retired. At my main center, according to my
openly other fellow geologist, you retire, you give up your premium
space. You can have a closet if you wanna be emeritus, but you don’t get
to command and demand to keep a space, especially if
you aren’t even going to come in regularly. Fuck that
guy.
So back to the peasant pit it was. I had given up my good chair to
the woman I was not a fan of, because I erroneously thought I wouldn’t
be coming back. Literally not a single other person cared except
facilities guy who isn’t my supervisor, not at all in my chain of
command, and as far as I know, doesn’t really have anything to do with
any of this. Fuck that guy too.
Anyway, Panopticon came and went, Y was nice and took the DRP (and rightly so, I’m glad for her to have escaped this place and retired. I really hope she is enjoying her retirement). no julia child started and talks incessantly (on calls, which often sound like gossip sessions) and coughs up a constant storm. I don’t know how she isn’t hoarse or coughing blood at this point, it’s been since last November. A replaced Panopticon, but Ar is cool.
not julia child is always on a call, always talking. For what I do, I just can’t focus, and I need to if I want to get anything done. When I was in grad school, I was cool with my office mates, but when I needed to get thesis stuff done, like a sane person, I left and went somewhere else. This isn’t a crazy concept.
The previous NIH woman, who eventually got moved, or asked to move, I dunno, left, but she would always turn on the lights. There’s no need, and they’re harsh. But she turned em on, like it was habit. Myself and the previous occupants never did. There happens to be this thing in the sky. Some call it the sun or something. I dunno. It provides plenty of light. But no, we turn these stupid lights on because. Like it’s just what we do, don’t think about it. not julia child takes up that torch and continues. Blazing sun out, bright sunny morning. Lights are on anyway.
I often come in and she isn’t there, but A is, neither of us bother turning on the lights. She turns them on. Why? I’m not one to be confrontational, so I’ve said nothing and hated it.
And so I was gone for a week, astral projecting, while taking care of the new tiny cat. I come back, and it’s a mostly quiet day. No one is in the cave. Or Call Center as I’ve taken to calling it. But it’s all quiet. No lights on. Nice. All is well for once, but this should lead to suspicion. And so, by the end of the day, a new person has moved in after I left.
And so the next day, they introduce themselves. Also, NIH. Now mind you, I often don’t introduce myself right away. I take a ‘wait and see’ approach. If they’re cool, we’ll talk; if they’re not, I will politely no engage and go about my business and not interact. I see no reason I should have any obligation to interact if I don’t directly work with them. I won’t be antagonistic, but I have no obligation to do anything more than completely leave you alone. Well, new NIH woman introduces herself. I often give people fake names before I actually get fully introduced. I was calling her Phyllis for the resemblance to the character from The Office. She is now Aunt Gayle instead. So, I am a geologist, not a biologist, but I’ve taken biology, I didn’t get a PhD, and I like to think I am kind of a jack of all trades; I’ve been told I know a few things. Eh.
So, for the past year myself and a couple of others go on walks. The place we’re at has some trails and open areas, and being we’re all scientist folks, we all also enjoy birds, and plants, and rocks. MY buddy collects various different nature things like skulls and feathers. It’s been a very low level competition between us to find the best feathers. There are herons, geese, kill deer, cardinals, robins, gold finches, some other finches, dsfsdf vario, wood ducks, and yes even Bald Eagles. So we pick up feathers. And I’ve been picking them up both as a cool collectible, a thing to stick in these tiny magnetic pots T put on everyone’s door frames (that has an office unlike the trademark), and they’re just neat. Also, if you can ever find a blue jay’s feather, which we have, look at it under fluorescent light, and then under natural sun light. Look at it from the underside, you’ll be able to see that the feather isn’t dyed, the color comes from light refraction. It’s less noticeable under fluorescent light because it isn’t truly full spectrum. Neat! And so, I have also been collecting them to make quill pens from. The geese have very recently molted and I have been amassing a pile of feathers. I just threw them on the back corner of my desk. This has been going on a while and literally no one has ever had an issue with this. Half are wild life biologists, or have worked as such in the past. I used to do field work too, so I’m also familiar with this thing called “outside” and what to worry about (or not).
And so, (Aunt) Gayle introduces herself and tells me her name. When not julia child started she did the same but caught me completely off guard and I just said ‘okay’ and never said my name. I never saw any reason afterwards to change that, so I didn’t. This woman I tried to give a little more benefit of the doubt. I did. I told my co-workers that. And so Aunt Gayle asks me if I am a ‘conservationist’ given the feathers. I said no, a bit perplexed. She asked me if they carry mites. I said, while I wasn’t sure, I would guess no. I can’t imagine a mite, which is a parasite, sticking around on a feather after the bird has molted, leaving the feather behind, which is of no nutritional value, or nutritional theft value to a mite. It just doesn’t make sense. For some reason, and I don’t know where from, or why, she is convinced they do. She also mentioned chiggers. Okay. Yeah, they’re a thing. Then ticks. I guess she thinks a feather can be a transport medium for a tick. And it could, but so could literally anything at that rate, including yourself. Soooooooo.
I think basically nothing of this because it just isn’t a thing. No one in this office, no one in grad school, no one in the various jobs I have had that worked extensively in the field (lots of time in the woods), never at this current place where people do field work, where we go for walks, where our Agency has sent out reminders about tick, has even talked about the dangers or risks or anything related to bird mites and / or the dangers of picking up feathers. Because, assuming general common sense, there isn’t any. Sure, an internet search will probably validate your opinion if you think it is true just like a lawyer will try to convince you a guilty man is innocent. However, never in any field course, biology class, or working with all of these biologists (part of this center has bird banders, people who regularly deal with all manner of birds) has even said anything about bird mites being a hazard, problem, thing to worry about. Nothing. Nobody is worried about bringing feathers inside to make a cool display, or collection for quill pens, or fletching, or to fill a deer skull.
Oh, but not aunt Gayle. She brought a gigantic bag just for me because she is concern about bird mites. She wanted me to put them all in this bag, and it is a gigantic Ziploc, no joke something like 0.67 meters by 0.67 meters (~2x2’). This thing is absurdly huge. And I stupidly, completely just went along with this utterly stupid idea. And the most I thought about it, the more it pissed me off that I went along with this. This woman comes in here, not from the USGS, not from Forestry, not from Fish and Wildlife, not even from DOI, but from NIH. So, most of the rest of us co-locators are from the USGS, and those who aren’t are at least DOI, and most of use have overlapping work. These NIH folks are not from anything even related. They’re just there because they need space. Thus I find it galling that she comes here, spent time in a different part of the building, but it was too hot, so she takes up residence next to me, and almost immediately starts imploring me to change my office space, stop doing things I am doing that have 0 impact on anyone, all based on essentially misinformation.
Fun fact: bird mites evolved to prey on bird. Weird, huh? They don’t climb around in fur like ticks. Their little feets evolves to move around in feathers. Okay. And so while they CAN bite humans, they generally don’t. They’re small, but not so small that you can’t see them. So, if there were mites on them, I would have noticed, and if they were biting I would have noticed. And if there were ticks on them, I really would have noticed. I am definitely not blind. So, I find it rather insulting to basically be asked to changed my own office space, pack up these feathers based on what is at best an assumption based on misinformation. These are not disease vectors, or bio-hazards. They’re feathers. Reekris. How did people survive in antiquity? Quill pens? Scribes were itchy, Thomas Jefferson was bitten up apparently. Native American head dresses? Packed full of ticks and mites. Fletchers making arrows? Bio-warfare. You get shot with an arrow and the mites do the rest of the killing. For fucks sake.
I felt really stupid having gone along with this shit. So, I picked up more feathers, not to be passive aggressive, per se, but because I am collecting them to make pens. I don’t expect to get it right the first time and I plan to make some for my co-workers as well. Well, not Aunt Gayle. I had to ask around if it sounded crazy about feathers and mites and literally no one went that route or thought it made any sense. I put my pile of feathers on my desk as they were yesterday. And when I left I took my grocery bags of feathers (grocery bag for carrying) and took them out, left that gigantic stupid bag behind. She had said I could keep it. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I don’t need an evidence bag big enough to hold an entire set of clothing. It’s like a travel or moving bag used to vacuum seal a week’s worth of clothes.
All for some goose feathers.