a quick recap:

my office does [y] with local tax [x]. [x] is commonly used for this purpose in [state]. but [x] is not technically for [y], so it has all these strings attached to it. my job is to distribute [x] to everyone who does [y]

i have to work with [x] office of local government to do so. they are notoriously hostile to ... everyone. we don't even have that good of [x] here so i don't know what their problem is. [x] has been going up, rising tide lifts all boats, etc. dealing with these people has been a huge problem from the first

[x] office randomly filed [motion] to take all of local tax [x] away from my job, as well as any extra money my office gets from the city. and the extra money is like, chump change to these people. they did this because various legislature creeping through [state government] threatens their pocketbooks. [x] office is notoriously dismissive of people who do [y], so the assumption is funding for [y] would be drastically reduced.

[x] office, who i interact with all the time, didn't tell anyone they were doing it, so i only found out when the motion was published. apparently this exact scenario has played out in multiple [local jurisdictions] so clearly this is not an individual situation either

with one week, i had to rally everyone who does [y] to attend [local government meeting] and speak. every impassioned output. three hours of testimony

[local government] chose to kick the can down the road

three weeks to prepare to eat that can

the update

my boss had to go testify in front of [local government] for like five hours

she was never going to get what she wanted (status quo) because they had clearly stacked the deck against her from the start.

that said, she did an absolutely horrible job. it was actually crazy to witness. they ran circles around her. and the nature of my job means i know everyone who does [y], which means they all called me and were like ....? what was that? so the whole city is abuzz talking about it i fear

kind of validating in a way. i don't have imposter syndrome because everything is that dumb and simple, and unless someone is giving you clearer instructions, they themselves don't know. but maybe she should have a little imposter syndrome, or maybe she does and this justified it. idk

local office [x] "compromised" what they were clearly after in the first place, which is more control over local tax [x] and more say in how it's distributed, including the ability to reduce the distribution if they see fit, which they clearly will do

bc my work specifically was under extreme scrutiny i had to work nights and weekends for those three weeks, under the direction of my boss who literally has no idea what's going on. took a bit of a toll on me tbh. my boss is kind of funny bc she's someone who's "always working," always sending teams messages at two in the morning, and she's also a person that wants to pressure you into working overtime and then is resistant to you then taking that time off. nonprofit problems. anyway i've worked so much overtime that she was like, we simply must get you some time off. and then kept listing possible times and was like, oh but deadline A ... deadline B ... deadline C ... like ok whatever. I worked extremely hard to deliver what i was supposed to deliver at the new, random and EXTREMELY unclear standards i was supposed to, but you still need to get idk. meeting minutes for the board out of me. ok!

my prize is that i get to work closer with this extremely hostile person. and witnessing my boss fuck it up so, so badly in front of literally everyone she works with, on top of the way she's been quietly fucking up in the background, is like. okay you're clearly not equipped to deal with this. and the little insult of massively overworking me AND ME DELIVERING and then being like great. so where are my meeting minutes for the board. and the fact that i've worked here for three years all means it's probably time to be moving on anyway

which is a shame because i actually love my job even though my boss is a complete moron. i love my coworkers. but they are also all applying to other jobs bc of this. and i think we'll still be friends after this