I have lived in this condominium development for 25 years now. My unit was my mother's house, which I inherited and acquired in 2023 when she died.
At my age -- 77 + -- I look for volunteer opportunities to provide meaning and value to my life. That is, looking for engagement outside of my home, social interaction and so forth is a bigger priority for me now. But if I volunteer for something, I have to get from it a sense of intrinsic satisfaction.
I had a "federal" career inside the Capital Beltway, with experience in grants management, accounting and auditing, statistics and information systems. My early retirement was a personal choice, and if I'd been married with children, I would've suffered through the 30-year milestone. But an early retirement program was offered, and -- when I took it -- the alarms went off in my office, the HR division and beyond in my department. Suddenly, they posted about 25 job notices in position categories for which I would qualify, all offering a promotion to the next highest grade. I took copies home and stuck them on my wall. Then, I threw a dart at the general area of those postings to choose my "experimental application" effort.
Usually when you apply for a federal job, it may take several weeks before you get an interview, and several weeks after that if you actually get the job offer. This is a standard pattern. So within a couple days of submitting my application for the dart-selected job, I was called to interview. Walking the three blocks to the interview, I decided I was going to retire anyway. Half way through that interview, I was asked when I would like to come to work. I declined and apologized. Over the next several weeks, I was offered other opportunities which I declined. The HR employee processing my retirement papers tried to argue that federal jobs were a good deal, so I threw up my hands and told her "who cares!?" My own supervisor suggested that I could have his job when he retired, but I politely declined. I was getting satisfaction at every stage as I took action to terminate my career and take retirement.
Before I retired, I served on my condominium association board as director and elected Treasurer for 4 years in the 1990s and again when I relocated to California, serving as director and Treasurer for 4 more years using telephone, Skype or Zoom to attend meetings. I was also the Treasurer for a local PAC or political club, and that's a story by itself as we discovered that my predecessor had embezzled $5,000 or more. That story continued to a second embezzlement discovery, which I uncovered by insisting on bank statements from the accounting firm Kindee Durkee. This was major criminal news in California back in 2010, and the FBI froze all the PAC accounts. Diane Feinstein was robbed of $10 million. But because I persisted to see bank documents, the criminal-in-charge of the accounting firm kept her hands off our treasury account. But gratitude from the club seemed sparse.
Finally, I just settled down to take care of my aging mother. After she died, I was thinking to reconstruct what remains of my life. The HOA here -- as it usually and periodically does -- sent around a call for executive board nominations, so I submitted mine.
There were two positions, one incumbent, and they already had a second nomination. Attending that meeting when they were accepting the nominations, I sensed a management representative and board who seemed ill at ease: they seemed unbalanced by my submission. An outgoing board member had been influential in the association for the last two decades, and I already had an impression over the last few years that she just didn't like me. I began to suspect that the other candidate was her choice and proxy, but I let my own nomination go forward.
The other candidate was a local dentist who scrawled her nomination in cursive giving three lines of text: "I've owned several homes in my life, and I understand landscaping." she has lived here a total of two years -- from the year my mother died. At the annual meeting with announcement of election results, of some 40 votes (of 60 homeowners) cast, I only received 5. The longtime community influential was there, sitting next to the other candidate in jovial conversational exchange, so my suspicions received greater confirmation.
Contesting an election or other options offered by the California Association of HOAs would seem to become an embarrassment. I was merely hoping to be an "at-large" director, not intending to threaten elected officers or seeking to be elected Treasurer (or other officer).
Understandably, I'm not keen on offering my assistance with anything more in this association. I'm almost calculating to wait until someone asks or suggests I volunteer for something, so I can have my comeuppance. I can imagine myself making a reply like this: "Gee. I'm sorry, but I don't think I have either the skill-set or experience to assist you . . . "
This has not been a pleasant week. But in my previous experience, I had never seen an election as suspicious as last week's.
Anyone else with similar observations or experience?
At my age -- 77 + -- I look for volunteer opportunities to provide meaning and value to my life. That is, looking for engagement outside of my home, social interaction and so forth is a bigger priority for me now. But if I volunteer for something, I have to get from it a sense of intrinsic satisfaction.
I had a "federal" career inside the Capital Beltway, with experience in grants management, accounting and auditing, statistics and information systems. My early retirement was a personal choice, and if I'd been married with children, I would've suffered through the 30-year milestone. But an early retirement program was offered, and -- when I took it -- the alarms went off in my office, the HR division and beyond in my department. Suddenly, they posted about 25 job notices in position categories for which I would qualify, all offering a promotion to the next highest grade. I took copies home and stuck them on my wall. Then, I threw a dart at the general area of those postings to choose my "experimental application" effort.
Usually when you apply for a federal job, it may take several weeks before you get an interview, and several weeks after that if you actually get the job offer. This is a standard pattern. So within a couple days of submitting my application for the dart-selected job, I was called to interview. Walking the three blocks to the interview, I decided I was going to retire anyway. Half way through that interview, I was asked when I would like to come to work. I declined and apologized. Over the next several weeks, I was offered other opportunities which I declined. The HR employee processing my retirement papers tried to argue that federal jobs were a good deal, so I threw up my hands and told her "who cares!?" My own supervisor suggested that I could have his job when he retired, but I politely declined. I was getting satisfaction at every stage as I took action to terminate my career and take retirement.
Before I retired, I served on my condominium association board as director and elected Treasurer for 4 years in the 1990s and again when I relocated to California, serving as director and Treasurer for 4 more years using telephone, Skype or Zoom to attend meetings. I was also the Treasurer for a local PAC or political club, and that's a story by itself as we discovered that my predecessor had embezzled $5,000 or more. That story continued to a second embezzlement discovery, which I uncovered by insisting on bank statements from the accounting firm Kindee Durkee. This was major criminal news in California back in 2010, and the FBI froze all the PAC accounts. Diane Feinstein was robbed of $10 million. But because I persisted to see bank documents, the criminal-in-charge of the accounting firm kept her hands off our treasury account. But gratitude from the club seemed sparse.
Finally, I just settled down to take care of my aging mother. After she died, I was thinking to reconstruct what remains of my life. The HOA here -- as it usually and periodically does -- sent around a call for executive board nominations, so I submitted mine.
There were two positions, one incumbent, and they already had a second nomination. Attending that meeting when they were accepting the nominations, I sensed a management representative and board who seemed ill at ease: they seemed unbalanced by my submission. An outgoing board member had been influential in the association for the last two decades, and I already had an impression over the last few years that she just didn't like me. I began to suspect that the other candidate was her choice and proxy, but I let my own nomination go forward.
The other candidate was a local dentist who scrawled her nomination in cursive giving three lines of text: "I've owned several homes in my life, and I understand landscaping." she has lived here a total of two years -- from the year my mother died. At the annual meeting with announcement of election results, of some 40 votes (of 60 homeowners) cast, I only received 5. The longtime community influential was there, sitting next to the other candidate in jovial conversational exchange, so my suspicions received greater confirmation.
Contesting an election or other options offered by the California Association of HOAs would seem to become an embarrassment. I was merely hoping to be an "at-large" director, not intending to threaten elected officers or seeking to be elected Treasurer (or other officer).
Understandably, I'm not keen on offering my assistance with anything more in this association. I'm almost calculating to wait until someone asks or suggests I volunteer for something, so I can have my comeuppance. I can imagine myself making a reply like this: "Gee. I'm sorry, but I don't think I have either the skill-set or experience to assist you . . . "
This has not been a pleasant week. But in my previous experience, I had never seen an election as suspicious as last week's.
Anyone else with similar observations or experience?
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