ndrosen

I began work at the U.S. Patent Office on August 31, 1998, so I have now completed twenty-six years, and have only fourteen years remaining, or possibly even less, until I can retire

Twenty-four years and about half an hour ago, I officially became a federal employee at the Patent Office in Crystal City. It’s been a long journey, and I’m now a part-time teleworker to the new facility in Carlyle. The job has had its stresses, but I became a primary examiner, managed to remain employed (there was one period when my then-supervisor and the then-group director were pretty much making things impossible for me), have made a good living, and have been able to provide for my own needs and make donations to causes I care about. Only sixteen years remain until I can retire.

And now to cross the room in my apartment, unlock the laptop computer I took home last night (together with a mouse, a keyboard, and some papers), and start my workday.

This is slightly belated, but I have finished twenty-one years at the Patent Office, and have only nineteen more to go before I retire.

Twenty-one years — that’s the time from being a newborn baby to being a graduate student in physics, living on my own in an efficiency apartment in Austin, Texas. I’ve had some fun and some accomplishments over the past twenty-one years, but things haven’t gone entirely as I hoped. I have enjoyed some success in my career, and become a primary examiner; I have attended Georgist conferences and served on the boards of Georgist organizations. Twenty-one years ago, I thought that I would find someone special, and that in two decades we’d have a home, likely a child or two, perhaps a beagle. Life doesn’t always go as planned.