from Hacker News

A disgruntled federal employee's 1980s desk calendar (2018)

by jfax on 4/13/24, 12:27 PM with 78 comments

  • by Spooky23 on 4/13/24, 1:19 PM

    This is great, but this person is 4/10 on the disgruntled scale.

    A truly miserable government worker has a daily countdown to retirement. At extreme levels, down to the hour.

  • by Aloha on 4/13/24, 8:44 PM

  • by raheemm on 4/13/24, 5:53 PM

    He is far from disgruntled. He seems like someone who enjoyed his work and his life. Clickbait article but I guess it worked.

  • by JKCalhoun on 4/13/24, 2:20 PM

    They would be better gruntled two years later since K.U. would win the NCAAA Tournament in 1987.

  • by seattle_spring on 4/13/24, 9:56 PM

    Looks like the page is currently being hugged to death so I’m not sure if this is actually related to OP, but…

    My father was very much in the category of “disgruntled federal employee” during his employment with the USGS. I’ll spare most of the details, but the most ridiculous thing I remember was his screensaver showing the countdown, in days, until retirement. He had this going for at least 15 years prior to his retirement.

    Can you imagine going into work every day and seeing a countdown with nearly 5000 days on it? Absolutely nuts to me.

  • by nateroling on 4/14/24, 4:16 AM

    Software calendars are so poor compared to this. There’s no concept of importance, of impact, of life. Just times and titles, every one equivalent. Digital calendars have hardly evolved since the palm pilot.

  • by cobbaut on 4/13/24, 2:41 PM

    January 13 1984 he switched to using Debian :)

  • by mytailorisrich on 4/13/24, 5:08 PM

    This is not disgruntled but bored.

  • by theodric on 4/14/24, 9:02 AM

    "During the eighties, a nameless Cold Warrior grew frustrated in his job"

    And now we know he got his period on the 15th, as well. Did the author not read each cell systematically?

  • by andrelaszlo on 4/14/24, 9:02 AM

    I'm curious about the two numbers recorded every second Saturday:

    242/119, 246/85, 183/78, 187/84, 207/76, 115/197, 121/201, ...

    Maybe it's obvious to Americans? Is it related to sports? I sure hope it's not their blood pressure!

  • by pimlottc on 4/13/24, 4:48 PM

    Is there a particular reason to believe that the unnamed employee was male? The article refers to them as "he" multiple times and compares them to a monk (traditionally male):

    > Like a monk, he labored over his document every day, adding carefully crafted letters and elaborate drawings to what became, over nine years, a remarkably full chronicle of the decade.

  • by mc32 on 4/14/24, 12:05 PM

    There is something odd about this persons numbers. It’s the 80s and on occasion the number zero is written with a slash through it, but most of the time not. I’m not sure there was a prevalence to distinguish 0s from Os in type back then.

    Maybe it was some one else later who wrote that.

  • by mike-the-mikado on 4/14/24, 10:17 AM

    In the 1980s, I would doodle at work when my mind was taking a break. A helpful diagram might get embellished.

    Nowadays, I would be finding some excuse to check the internet. And I'm less likely to have scrap paper to hand.

  • by susiecambria on 4/14/24, 12:03 AM

    > First class postage increased to 18¢

    Wish we had that now!

  • by hmottestad on 4/13/24, 1:14 PM

  • by lolinder on 4/13/24, 5:12 PM

    Hugged to death, archive here:

    https://archive.ph/REbFy

  • by Ajay-p on 4/13/24, 1:51 PM

    I am struggling to believe all of this. It feels like a calendar that was used but then someone later filed it in with all of this artwork, and commentary after the fact. Recording events that already happened. If this was a desk calendar, someone would have noticed, and noticed the content.

    If it's true, it's a glimpse into the past and thinking of someone in a very important position during a very difficult time in the world.

    But I can't quell this nagging doubt