June 30th, 2025: Final day of June, I woke up at 6:30am today because my alarm yet again failed me. I got up and had more cereal for breakfast without any coffee so I just decided to get my joe fix at work. I wrote in my blog some more before I got dressed in these fancy dark grey dress pants that were almost like jeans and this plaid button-up which was colored blue, light blue, white, and tan, so I looked like a country bumpkin wearing his finest outfit for the barnyard dance rather than an urban guy dressed up for his unpaid office job. I hopped on the bus over to my volunteer work and got in super early at 8:12am. The door that usually is open but shouldn’t be cracked open so I got in there and got in. The first order of business was turning on all the lights in the office before grabbing my stuff from the other office, I went over and the childcare lady let me in, I grabbed my computer, the card printer, and some cords from Seth M’s desk and he came in to give me a key fob. I made my way to the meeting room and sat down in the corner waiting for the meeting to start at 9:00am. The CEO wasn’t there when we got started so we started without him. Seth M’s friend announced to us that he was getting married July 4th and we all burst into a round of applause. The others went through their standard announcements. Elon wasn’t wearing his glasses. I didn’t have anything planned for today so I just stated that my job for today was to help Seth M’s friend with getting laptops distributed. I was the last one to finish and just then the CEO came in, I was able to subtly record his entirety of what he said. He spoke for 10 minutes and 20 seconds as recorded by my phone:
“...regular medical appointments Mondays sometimes go a little long. I'm doing really well with those appointments. I say that I feel like I'm in my 30s again, although my knees remind me how old I am, and I watch everybody play the soccer game, which really reminded me of how old I am…”
There was an bit of laughter
“... but we had Speedy Gonzalez here, you know, over place. There was this one goal that got done, I think he had an assist with Zach A. I got the full chain from one side of the field to the other, so I'll make sure that video gets out. That was an exciting thing to watch. Lots of teamwork that was going on there. Everyone respected each other's abilities too. That was the other thing. It really shows when you do these things. So it was really cool. I really had a lot of fun. I couldn't keep up with the video. I was constantly futzeling with my phone and trying to make sure I got some good shots. So I think between the Ukrainian man and I think we might have some pretty good shots this year.”
The Ukrainian man said:
“Yeah, I have some good shots!
“Yeah, yeah. So I'm really looking forward to our next event to figure out some other ones too. Did you talk about [Acronym 1] coming last week?”
A girl said:
“Yeah!”
“So my take on that visit was that it was in stark contrast from two and a half years ago. And what do I mean by that is that before we were resetting and rebuilding, we were very observant of what their corrective actions were for us. But the biggest turn of events when I was doing some speaking there was we had to discussion about [company] going out [15 words censored] So they actually got excited about that and had been talking about that for the last six months, but last week's meeting, it really came about to some excitement with the deputy director. So I think we're in really good shape in that regard. We just got to continue to follow through. [Director] mentioned that they’re doing auditing. They're doing a deep dive on us. Anytime we get a new auditor, they do really detailed looks at things, which is really good for us. We'll find any gaps and we'll be able to follow through on them immediately and also put things in place so that the next time we're around it goes through even more quickly. They're a very good firm, [Name of banking company] and I'm expecting that we'll have some really good information from them that's really solid to move forward. On the funding front, I just wanted to be transparent with everybody. depending on what comes down the pipe for [Acronym] and also with [Acronym] in the coming months of July, August, September, that's usually when we hear about things, and they mentioned that at the state meeting that they're eminent to give us some contract news. With the verbally. I'll be making a decision on when we take over another space and not based on our growth that we're doing. what it might entail, though, is if the funding is less than what we anticipate or there is additional reductions, especially from [Acronym] we might end up replaying some of the shuffling that we did before, before we had our growth spurt, which is we might end up having some people double up a little bit. We have enough space to do that. We'll have a discussion with those affected. It'll be on a case by case basis and also department needs. We'll talk to the directors first and then include the managers, but then we'll talk to each person who is affected just to let you know what's going on. I don't want us to work on the floor again. We're not going to go that far. I really appreciate those that did do work on the floor before that was really amazing to watch the people work and having so much fun…”
[Laughter]
“...I'm looking at one of our managers. They had a lot of fun, but, you know, it's not healthy, but so we won't go that far, we don't have to. I think they all look for us as good as I’m cautious, but I think I'm optimistic, uhh things going forward. I think [Director] you share the same sentiment. We just have to be very cautious and. But we're not gonna be so cautious that we don't, that we don't move forward with our growth ideas. We have to do that to continue on. So we're heading in the right direction. If you have any questions about that, or if you have any concerns, make sure you talk to your supervisor about it, and we'll try to answer any questions or concerns we have individually. I think the most significant thing you can do when it comes to that regard is trying not to speculate in groups. It's okay to talk to each other, but if you're trying to speculate, make sure you talk to your supervisor uhh beforehand. It's okay to speculate and whatnot, but I find it very useful that if you have concerns as a group, instead of trying to come up with an answer, formulate your questions, and then give that to your supervisor. What's even better is if you have suggestions, too. If you have a question and I have a potential solution, that's always better, too. So our answers moving forward for the next three years are in this room already. So we just got to tap into it. And I think we'll be fine, but keep it in mind that we have to pay attention to what's going on. So far, the policies that we see in the news and whatnot, it's I would actually say more the same, so to speak. and also there's been some resolutions on things that are beneficial to us, but it takes time for resolution to be put in place. For example, [Acronym] has been. They've been instructed to reinstate [Acronym], but the [Acronym] process has been totally dismantled, so the embassies are doing assignments, which is not the normal way…”
[Ambulance sounds in the background]
“..One of the benefits I mentioned. I think last week is that they were able to push through the population in 30 days, which is kind of unusual. So now they've got a precedent so that we once they turn a faucet back on, we should have more of a threeput and we get assignments. That's my thought. But we'll have to see, you know, how it goes. do the best you can, keep the quality up, collect your questions and then give it to your supervisor. Uhh try not to uhh focus on the negative stuff out there. When you see something negative out there, you look at it as an opportunity … A challenge. And that'll help you get through, and then focus on what you can do. And if there's nothing you can do and it's out of your control, switch your focus onto things you do out of control over as we do our part, there are people who can actually take on the things that are out of our control. So we continue [Director] and myself, continue to have our contacts in [Big city]. We're headed out to [Big city]. at the end of July. We're going to be talking to [Acronym], so we'll have some more news. Our efforts for [Small event] continue into the summer as well. And then for my schedule, I'm taking some of the [Acronym] access to some [Big event] and going to be trying to do some networking and taking some people there and see if I can get them to donate. So I'll be doing that on a third, so the afternoon I'll be out. So if you need any things signed by me, try to get to me on Wednesday, early morning, Thursday if possible. That would be good. So if you need something signed by Thursday morning, you really need to get your supervisor into running to [Director] by Wednesday morning, so they give you time to actually work on things. So there's a lot of normal things we're doing, so if there's anything special trying to do Tuesday, Wednesday. Any questions? You guys are doing great!”
I replied:
“Nope!”
He finished off with:
“Thank you.”
[MESSAGE CUT IN HALF DUE TO CHARACTER LIMIT]