I recently picked up a pipe. It has all the rituals and escapism of a cigar, without the hour-long commitment.

That being said, sometimes being”occupied” for an hour is part of the appeal. Each has their place ime.

Devops is a meaningful term

Adding - triple check / proofread / rephrase the ai output. Assume the words may be used against you. If your manager is close with whomever reads the feedback, they could ask for “evidence” of any claims. You either need strong evidence, or to avoid any concrete claims. More vague more better / more defensible.

When dealing with children, the “oreo cookie” method works well - start with something nice, offer a “suggestion for improvement”, and then finish with something nice as well.

You’ll want to submit the politically correct version through official channels for traceability. After it’s submitted there, you can give a copy over slack. Don’t let anyone make any claims about what you supposedly said over slack dm. Leave a paper trail.

You’ve already been PIPed, so they have reason to look at you. Play nice and check the boxes; I would do the feedback even if the submission is entirely “yeah it was fine” level bs.

All of the above is playing it safe. Offer to provide additional feedback / “discussion” over a voice call as well, and ask what they’re looking for. If they’re building a case against your former manager, you can be honest.

If they just want “general” feedback, or they want it over text (“no time for a call”), or there are multiple people in the room, or the call is being recorded, then fall back to the politically correct version you already submitted.

Your nuclear button is to claim the PIP was retaliation for (something; you can make this up, just make it realistic), but you don’t press that button unless you’re about to be fired. It makes things extremely complicated.

I really hate office politics, but half of being promoted is knowing how to play this stupid game :(

Wireguard creates a new network interface that accepts, encrypts, wraps, and ships packets out your typical network interface.

If you were to create a kernel network namespace and move the wireguard interface into that new namespace, the connection to your existing nic is not broken.

You can then use some custom systemd units to start your *rr software of choice in said namespace, rendering you immune to dns leaks, and any other such vpn failures.

If you throw bridge interfaces into the mix, you can create gateways to tor / i2p / ipfs / Yggdrasil / etc as desired. You’ll need a bridge anyway to get your requester software interface exposed to your reverse proxy.

Wireguard also allows multiple peers, so you could multi-nic a portable personal device, and access all your admin interfaces while traveling, with the same vpn-failure-free peace of mind.