So, today was perhaps my least favorite day of the year when it comes to work. The day I have to get dressed up all pretty-like and stand before the agency senior leadership and beg for funding in order to keep the lights on and the analysts paid for another year. It sucks. It’s kind of humiliating. I do not like it; no sir.

Still, today, I asked for, and received, with a minimum of fuss, several million dollars.

I wish real money*, or all the other stuff I’d like to have in real, non-work life, was that easy to obtain. The actual process was trivial (I have a good story to tell, and there’s actually a big return on investment in terms of real savings involved in what I do that I can show with fancy spreadsheets and stuff), though the process of asking is really, really stressful, even though I understand that going before the executive folks in the fancy command conference room with the leather chairs and dark wood is mostly theater, and that if they weren’t going to approve the budget request, I would never have been added to the schedule in the first place. Also, I’ve got enough practice at public speaking/performance that I don’t get flustered by it any longer (thanks, year and change in the teaching trenches!).

Doesn’t change the fact that I was kind of in low-level agony/stress mode over this for the last few days. I think it’s the whole process of having to beg and to justify my existence. It just feels like an opportunity for unnecessary humiliation.

Anyway, I’m glad it’s over for another year.

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*- It’s “real money” in the sense that we all paid taxes to cover it, but it’s not “real” to me other than in the sense that I click a button indicating the work done on an invoice was received. Also, I’m not going to spend anywhere near the total budgeted value; I’m too responsible with our tax dollars to actually do that.