Author Topic: Suck my dick and balls I'm working at NASA  (Read 1732 times)

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KoRo

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Suck my dick and balls I'm working at NASA
« on: March 16, 2022 02:01 am CDT »
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/nasa-internship-twitter-controversy

Shorty hit me up a while back and I was slow to respond, but in light of a very brief conversation I had with him today I figured here is as good a place to celebrate my own personal victories as any. You all may or may not remember me being a total dork (lets be real, who here wasn't) and I always wanted to work for NASA. Well I finally did it. Almost a year ago, actually. Got a job at the Jet Propulsion Lab after interning and working on the Mars rover Perseverance. Now I'm working on the next big project Mars Sample Return and it's pretty dope to be able to say that.

But it's also not all rainbows and unicorns, and honestly I think I may have hyped it up a little too much to myself. The pay sucks compared to private industry, and the administration is a lot slower to respond to changing work norms (i.e. the large shift to work-from-home we're seeing is slower to roll out), and where other companies could offer other incentives like stock options, etc., JPL doesn't have that option to give. There's a lot of old-guard aerospace practices mixed with a lot of bureaucracy that can get in the way of just-want-to-get-malarkey-done attitudes, but there's hope. Some changes on the horizon that might offer a better balance between flexibility and mission assurance.

All told though, the worst part is that I thought being 6 hrs away from home would be fine, but i might as well be half way across the country. I miss my family and friends back home something fierce. I do still talk to them all regularly, but i miss the option of being able to walk to their house, knock on their door, then walk downtown and grab a beer at 2pm (grad school was great like that). I miss the small-town vibe and all that. I'm not a fan of LA.

All in all, it's not as dreamy or amazing as I had hoped, but there are some incredibly talented and intelligent people here who are making me feel like an idiot child for just existing in their sphere. There's so much to learn and such a wide variety of tasks to do that it's hard to be bored. I'll definitely be sticking around for a few years at least. After that we'll see.

Anyway, i still think about you all. Hope you're all doing well. I still haven't uninstalled Tribes either. Can't bring myself to do it. Maybe one day I should hop on...


*Edit:* I also feel the need to add: the biggest discovery I've made through all this is that despite my best efforts, my happiness is still not derived from my work. In fact, some days I feel pretty forking miserable and useless. I honestly can't say I know what makes me happy or fulfilled. I tried to trick myself into thinking it was work, but that only made things worse. What a forking cruel trick of life is that. There are days where I just feel empty inside and emotionally dead, like every day is just gray overcast. The best days are full of melancholy, and the worst absolute despair at the prospective life I have ahead of me. I'm alone, and some days I'm miserable.

Take my advice, kids. Don't rely on your job to bring you happiness or fulfillment. They say "Do what you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life", but those people either 1) were born into wealth and could therefore do whatever-the-fork they wanted, or 2) extremely lucky to find what they love in the first place.

fork.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2022 02:08 am CDT by KoRo »

Adam6

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Re: Suck my dick and balls I'm working at NASA
« Reply #1 on: April 13, 2022 08:35 am CDT »
Congrats for 'making it'! Pretty funny meme, just another reason not to use your real name on twatter.

 I got into cyber security and am doing pretty well for myself. I definitely picked the right job market to be in. I definitely agree with you on the topic that work is 'work' but if you enjoy what you do, it makes it more bearable.

But damn that's quite the resume, 'interned and worked on the perseverance rover'. Maybe next you can help them create a rover to explore Saturn's moons? :D

I remember in high school physics class, we visited NASA at DC, was pretty cool and saw some cool experiments, but definitely could tell they're all just chill engineers that don't get paid enough.
 
But hey, if the government sector isn't for you, maybe you can apply at TESLA and get some of the private sector money ;)

KoRo

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Re: Suck my dick and balls I'm working at NASA
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2022 12:17 am CDT »
I got into cyber security and am doing pretty well for myself. I definitely picked the right job market to be in. I definitely agree with you on the topic that work is 'work' but if you enjoy what you do, it makes it more bearable.
I imagine the money's gotta be pretty nice :P me I'm just trying to come to grips with the fact that despite all the hard work i put in I'll never be able to afford a house in the area i currently reside.

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But damn that's quite the resume, 'interned and worked on the perseverance rover'. Maybe next you can help them create a rover to explore Saturn's moons? :D
Currently working on Mars Sample Return! APL will be doing Dragonfly though (The quadcopter that'll be flying around Titan). There's tons of good stuff to explore around Saturn. The decadal survey was just released last week and it is directing us to 1) continue Mars stuff, 2) do more New Frontiers and Discovery class missions, and 3) do more Moon stuff. So of those things, the Discovery class missions might take us to Saturn's moons! Dragonfly is actually considered a New Frontiers class mission since the vital technology has been proven with Mars Helicopter  8)

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I remember in high school physics class, we visited NASA at DC, was pretty cool and saw some cool experiments, but definitely could tell they're all just chill engineers that don't get paid enough.
Damn straight. Also, damn straight :( did i already mention never being able to afford a house in the area i reside in?
 
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But hey, if the government sector isn't for you, maybe you can apply at TESLA and get some of the private sector money ;)
Over my dead body! You couldn't pay me enough to work for Tesla. I could maybe do SpaceX since their work weeks are getting a little less crazy, but at the end of the day they're just building rockets -- personally I prefer the R&D bent of science missions. Blue Origin has some potential with Orbital Reef on the drawing board, but I won't be excited for them until they do something more substantial than launch a few people on sub-orbital trajectories. I heard a rumor that they're beginning to investigate in-space heavy industry (like mining rocky bodies). That would be very interesting to work on!

Vivaxx

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Re: Suck my dick and balls I'm working at NASA
« Reply #3 on: April 30, 2022 11:02 am CDT »
Congrats KoRo! That's awesome. I imagine it feels amazing to finally accomplish something you've dreamed about your whole life. On the flip side, it comes with the realization that usually the fantasy is better than the real thing. Hope you find happiness there or that you can move on to the next thing when it's right.

I never really dreamed about a specific career path. I ended up in Accounting and now I'm the Finance Director for a mid-size company. Pretty much the type of job you would think of when you think 'boring office job'. But it pays the bills and has a lot of flexibility and good benefits. Great work/life balance which I've realized is important to me.

In other news I logged on today and saw 12 people online. Now of course those 12 online are probably only 3 different people multiboxing but it's cool to see we've still got some players after 20 years...
Jonah, PCRPG player since 2002.

KoRo

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Re: Suck my dick and balls I'm working at NASA
« Reply #4 on: May 6, 2022 04:15 pm CDT »
Congrats KoRo! That's awesome. I imagine it feels amazing to finally accomplish something you've dreamed about your whole life. On the flip side, it comes with the realization that usually the fantasy is better than the real thing. Hope you find happiness there or that you can move on to the next thing when it's right.
You hit the nail on the head. Yeah it's been a mixed bag. It barely pays the bills because the COL is so high here. I have no chance to purchase a house here anytime in the future, so I'll likely not be sticking around forever. But hey it's a great learning experience, and I'm hoping it'll open a lot of doors in the future. At least some employers hold NASA in high regard still, lol.

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I never really dreamed about a specific career path. I ended up in Accounting and now I'm the Finance Director for a mid-size company. Pretty much the type of job you would think of when you think 'boring office job'. But it pays the bills and has a lot of flexibility and good benefits. Great work/life balance which I've realized is important to me.
Do what makes you happy. And if having money and work-life balance makes you happy, then do what you do! Personally I feel like accounting could be fun. I enjoy numbers and spreadsheets (i assume that's what your job entails). Congrats on finding stability!

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In other news I logged on today and saw 12 people online. Now of course those 12 online are probably only 3 different people multiboxing but it's cool to see we've still got some players after 20 years...
It's about 4 or 5 people, but yeah. And actually, we talk pretty regularly throughout the day, but we've migrated to the Tribes 1 RPG Discord. So...the game runs in the background while we all chat sans the You damaged Gar'Pero for 191 points of damage! messages spamming your chat window. You should drop by if you're interested! Particle, myself, Astal, Omnicide, bungle, Bovidi, rj, and a bunch of others who were on other RPG servers are all hanging out there and it's active daily. I gather they're sort of working on their own RPG side project together, otherwise the rest of us are just working on scripting stuff for TRPG, among other things. Pretty much like old times. That link won't expire so whenever you see this, drop by and say hi!

Particle

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Re: Suck my dick and balls I'm working at NASA
« Reply #5 on: May 14, 2022 07:46 pm CDT »
Congrats on achieving your professional target.  From my experience, I find that work itself doesn't lead to happiness but it can shape how you mentally define yourself.  It's that second part that leads to feeling a bit more fulfilled, but the job itself isn't the thing.  I don't know that that helps anything even if it's true, but I've yet to figure life out either.
As a point of history:  Our last server clear was on September 27, 2004.  That is 4963 days ago (13.6 years) as of today.

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If your character is from after the 2004 clear but appears to have been deleted or reset, chances are it was caught in one of the inactive account purges over the years.  Backups were made before such events, so try the support form.