(no subject)

I am very much enjoying the fact that my new job is 100% remote during this pandemic. My previous job had... various compromises... to deal with the fact that it is for the most part not the kind of thing that can be done remotely, some better than others. but I am still amazed we made it all the way to the end of 2020 without me or any of my co-workers getting the plague.

(plenty of people who had my same job did. people who had my same job and worked in the same building did).

Other neat things about this job:

It's the first time I can genuinely claim I was hired for my skills rather than because of blatant nepotism. I was certainly qualified for my previous job, because approximately every literate person is; I was even, I think, reasonably good at it, and I brought some useful skills to it my co-workers lacked; I was more or less the entirety of our IT department for most of my time there. Yet if I'd had none of that comparative advantage I would still have gotten the job on account of who I am related to, and it's nice to know I am employable without that.

I am pretty sure being obviously trans did not count against me in the hiring process. (the alternate hypotheses "I am so obviously great they just had to have me" and "they somehow failed to notice" seem, uh, unlikely)

Related to the above nepotism thing, I am every once in a while vividly aware of the extent to which multiple members of my family working at the same place means various possible negative economic downturns are correlated, in a way that means we might be unable to offer mutual support because e.g. we all lost our jobs at the same time. But now at least my edge of that correlation is broken!