August 4th, 2025: Back to volunteering for today, I woke up at 6:00am but only got out of bed at 6:45am. I finished off my gallon of milk with some cereal and went on my laptop for a good amount of time before getting dressed in my black dress pants with the almost too small belt and the long sleeved blue and white plaid button-up. While getting up from the couch, I accidentally knocked my coffee over and it spilled on the carpet, meaning I had to wipe it out a couple of times. I got on the bus at 8:02am and took it to where I volunteered. Portia let me into the place I needed to get my laptop and the card printer. I brewed the coffee at 8:35am and then had some while I waited for the Monday office meeting to start. I sat in the corner where the CEO would be and the Latinx lady told us:
“We’re ordering fruit bouquets for when the CEO comes back, and when he walks in I’m gonna play this song.”
It was the “We Did It” song from Dora the Explorer. There was a new employee with us whom I will be calling Joy. We had to introduce ourselves to her when we spoke. A few people in the CEO arrived and the Latinx lady played the song. I transcribed his conversation here:
“...So we're walking and I was like 95° and the CEO is like noting that rehab is going to be mean.” - Latinx Lady
“Yeah, it was really good to be here. I'm really thankful. Today it was a little longer 'cause I had to fill paperwork workouts so the Sandy D board could meet and suck me free. And so we filled the paperwork out and I only have two more sessions, uhm but they warned me. He said: no, we're going to test you beyond your prescription just to see where I'm at. So a transition: they're going to beat me up on Tuesday and Thursday. They're a really good crew. It's where you taught me to be grateful this whole time. All the work I did prior to all that because of family history and whatnot. It really does pay, so if your doctor tells you to do something, you know, I'm trying to do it. It's what quality of your life and so it worked out really well. Every day I get more and more grateful. Uhm and part of it, a large part of it actually is all you guys. This is the first crew. that I've taken over to reset and rebuild, where I have not had to bring anybody from my own network. No nobody, no friends, no network, no nothing. We had what, 15 went down the 9, and we up to what, 41. So it's all of you guys, really. You know that cliche that you make your boss look good? It is actually true. Do you guys make us look really good? I'll tell you a contrast. I was trying to think about what I could actually tell you guys today about transparency, about Washington DC, so I'm gonna take just a little extra minutes here just to talk about this. I thought about the biggest contrast we had two and a half years ago when I went to DC. And we were at the same hotel in the same location. And everybody was wondering, what the heck is going on with [company]? And this time we're around, two things happened that made me realize how good you guys are. And as the first thing was, the president of [5 letter acronym] is [name], he came up to me and he said: ‘Yeilxáak, we really want you to say something.’ And I go: ‘What do you want?’ He goes: ‘You just say something.’ say something, me? They didn’t even tell me what? Because they knew whatever I would say is probably something good. And so I waited for an opportunity and I talked about it. We have an obligation to be stewards with the money that we've been given. And it's the same thing with the community and the board here, they are giving us resources, and we're doing a really good job. This table is not big enough for us. and other places are letting people go, and that's because the hard work you guys are doing. The ideas you guys are giving me. I mean, I could come up with a bunch of ideas, but it's not as sreal womang as a solution that's in this room. So keep the ideas coming. And then also the refinement of it, like Zach A I'm going to pick on you a little bit here. We were discussing just before I left, that we really need to figure out when we should activate the [program] and the first thing Zach A said: ’well, we can't do any of the [program] for the grants that are continuing.’ Because we thought some of the grants were going to go away and they didn't go away, so, some got expanded. But that's really for fun, coming from the group instead of me saying that, we're talking about compliance. We can't really have conflict adventures. So although our f first service ideas like [job thing] are really good, we got [3 letter acronym], we got MG. So [job thing] is probably not going to occur the way we thought. There might be some gaps that we could fill there, but I think we're going to be busy with gaps in [3 letter acronym], especially [3 letter acronym], because [3 letter acronym] is going to continue going until 2027 when they're going to decide a new funding regime, which I think is probably going to be okay, it's just my thoughts. It's just speculation. But why everything's dependent on what the government wants to say. But that is a really good indication that we're actually participating, that all of your ideas filter up through Zach A and Lillehammer and [name] and [name] and Latinx lady. So keep those ideas coming. We can't rest on that. We just need to keep on pushing forward. So and then the second thing that was really significant was. And these are little gestures, but they mean a lot. For example, when [Star Wars character last name lol], one of the top financial people from [3 letter acronym] here, I came here to drill me personally to find out where I was at with financial management knowledge and whatnot. He had given an admonishment saying that when people come and audit, they're not your friend. They may act friendly, but they're not your friend. volunteering information, you don't need to, just to answer what they ask and it's good advice. But when you do get some true gestures of friendship from those type of people that says a lot, and when you get to the level that where I'm at and where the Latinx Lady is entering into, you start to understand when somebody's just being friendly to do their job, to try to find out things, and you find out when they're actually being friendly, because they have a relationship with you. And so there were indications of that between us and [5 letter acronym for government program], [company], and us. And it usually goes through leadership, once again, to Skinder and the crew, we're talking to other people. And while they had to go, let's say they had to talk to Halloween, they would come by me, but they would actually put their arm on my shoulder and just give a tap. While they're talking to somebody else. That is not in a monitoring mode, and that gesture says a lot, because there's other presidents and other executives, there are presidents watching. I’m like: ‘Wow, you know there's something going on there's something nice.’ And so, just keep in mind those words, I said, we have an obligation to be stewards, so money was given to us. So where does that translate here? I don't just keep on doing what you're doing. Fill out your time cards truthfully. Make sure when you work remotely, you produce an artifact so that we can actually prove that we actually did the work that we're billing for. And then when your managers ask, what did you do during this day and this week and whatnot? That is not a personal thing. That's a compliance thing, because how it works is, you do the work personally, you fill your time cards, you're being truthful and honest. And then your managers have to verify they do oversight and have to do function, ask certain questions and document. And then those get reviewed by the higher ups of the directors. And then when all of that gets done and we do a bill, I actually take a look at it from a whole standpoint and approve all the things that are going on. So there's a lot of stuff on my screen that I look at a lot, a lot of things I have to look at at night. So it makes it quicker when you guys have everything in a row. It makes it reviews for a really quick. So it's nothing personal. You guys are doing really good there. I'm really glad that we have an opportunity. I think we still have, you and I have still unpacked all the news, we have from [2 letter acronym]. So probably when I get back from my time off, I'm going to be in Alaska for two weeks. I starting on the 10th. I want to come back for the first Monday. I'll probably have had some interactions with the Latinx Lady and the other directors to try to give a really, as much as possible to move methodical resolve or funding. It's looking pretty good. I mean, there's nothing scary going on right now. It's typical. But it's going to cause us to shift people around and make sure that we utilize everybody that we have as much as possible. So I'll remind you, as a closer for what I'm saying today, and that is all my decisions so far are based on performance and alignment, which means if you want to be here or not. And then, of course, funding, most of the other RAs, the uhh priority switches just funding and nothing else. So, we're a really good spot. The [program] stuff, especially for [process of client] and [endgoal of client] that looks promising. I think [5 letter acronym for government program], a little bit of tidbit I can give there, there, looking to expand things there. So they want to be a resource for all the RAs doing legal services, like a clearing house. I can’t give cheers, but more out on a national level, so they want to do that. They used to do it, but now they're returning to it, so that's a good sign. How many people do they have back? Four?” - CEO
“They hired four people back.” - Latinx Lady
[POST SPLIT INTO MULTIPLE PARTS DUE TO CHARACTER LIMIT]
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