Do you find yourselves longing for the good old days, or your version of same?

Maybe back to a time when candy bars were only a nickel or a dime, or when movies didn’t carry warnings that in some of the scenes people, like Gen. Ulysses S. Grant or Winston Churchill, might be depicted smoking? Or when kids went to school at actual schools, when only robbers went into banks wearing masks?

Back when some believed that the 2020 presidential race would see Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or Beto O’Rourke would square off against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) or Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente — look him up — or somebody else, as in anybody but the 2020 lineup of either, or both political parties.

It is amazing how something like a once-in-a-century pandemic can flip everything in your personal or work life. A year ago many feds were concerned — with very good reason — that teleworking was in trouble and would be whittled back if not decapitated in many agencies. Some of the agencies that were reducing work-from-home options and hours are now mostly teleworking, and therefore still functioning.

A year ago many feds were concerned that higher health premiums were coming in 2020. Now those same people wonder what impact the incredibly costly coronavirus care will do to their programs and coverage, and its impact on the relatively small portion of the total premium they pay.

Many government newcomers, politically innocent, were concerned that Congress would finally reduce the value of future retirement benefits, and make workers finance a bigger share of their retirement. And/or freeze benefits at current levels for many and reduce or eliminate future cost-of-living adjustments for many others currently working or retired. These were serious threats in the past, yet none of those threats were serious this year because politicians — most up for reelection — were looking for ways to save jobs (yours but primarily theirs) using your money.

The good news is that those threats, some pending for years, are no longer on your save-my-career radar scope. The not-so-good news is why they have disappeared. What a year!

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Amelia Brust

The first successful instant mashed potatoes were made using the “flake process” developed by the USDA’s Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania, in the 1950s and 1960s.

Source: American Chemical Society

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