#Workforce 2

[isagrimorie]

Rewatching a few scenes from Star Trek Voyager's 2 part episode: Workforce. These episodes really did a number on Janeway; this is one of the times I did wish emotional arcs carried over from one episode to the next.

In the seven years in the Delta Quadrant, nothing has stopped Janeway's quest to bring home her crew back to the Alpha Quadrant.

And in the Delta Quadrant, for Captain Kathryn Janeway, the Voyager is home.

Janeway has faced off against the Borg Queen, the Hirogen, the Vidiians, and Species 8472 but no one has done as much damage to Janeway the way Dr Kadan did a number on Kathryn Janeway.

Because Kadan took away Janeway's certainty.

Kathryn Janeway can traverse any gulf, and jump to any fire as long as she has her iron-clad certainty and belief in her mission intact and that was what Kadan took from Kathryn Janeway.

He accidentally pinpointed the one thing she's been able to repress for so long, and that's her loneliness and how bone tired she is of being in Command.

More than any other Captain, Kathryn Janeway needed a sabbatical. She needed to reconnect with herself, and just be Kathryn.

This is the gift and curse Kadan gave to Kathryn Janeway. Because as plain ol' Kathryn Janeway, a factory worker she was happy, free of responsibility and burdens of Command.

She found friends, love, and comfort in Jaffen (a well-casted romantic lead. The actor had charisma and acting chops to make us believe Janeway Captain or just Kathryn would fall for him).

I don't think Janeway even knew how lonely she's become -- no one needed a long vacation from work than Janeway. I hope that she got that vacation Starfleet put her on the Flag Officer track.

Through the whole two-part episode we see them build up this vivacious and happy version of Kathryn, and then by part 2, the story slowly pulls that away from her.

Just as an example, the look on Kathryn's face when Harry addresed her as "Captain".

You can see how Harry addressing Kathryn as "Captain" struck a chord in her but it's also like someone threw cold water at her.

Kathryn immediately tells Harry to call her "Kathryn" instead:

Kathryn tries to still be in denial and tentatively brings up what Chakotay told her: "He said you had proof of who some of us really are."

She's trying to put distance between herself and this reality. She's conflicted-- she doesn't want to be Captain Janeway. There's even a hint of temptation there that she doesn't want to continue on helping her missing friends.

And yet, the moment Voyager and her crew were in trouble some part of herself reacted. And despite what she felt, she proceeded to bring down the shield knowing that doing so would tear her away from the life she's come to love.

This happens fast, once the shield grid is down, Kathryn disappears from Jaffen's side.

And the next time they see each other again, Kathryn Janeway is Captain Kathryn Janeway again with her uniform and Command back. And they might as well be a million miles away despite being in the same room:

Janeway allows herself to embrace Jaffen for one last time, and there's tears in her eyes, her grief is palpable. It's the way she's held herself apart from Jaffen, the way her hand twitches like she wants to reach out and touch him but can't.

Not in the uniform she's wearing, not in the position she's in.

You can see how much her experience in Quarren affected Janeway by the way she enters the Bridge:

In the turbo lift, she's faced away from the Bridge as if she can't bear being there. She has to steel herself.

Normally Janeway occupies the turbo lift like she owns that space. Because she DOES.

It’s so strange seeing Janeway occupy so little space in her own bridge, even when Voyager was hijacked she never looked out of place or so small.

The moment she steps out Harry, eager Ensign Harry, who missed the events in Quarren and how it might have affected her notices Captain Janeway immediately and announces her arrival.

She looks around at the bridge, still uncertain. Still picking up the pieces of the Captain.

Even when she sat on her Command chair,Janeway looked uncomfortable and for the first time, Captain Janeway doesn't look like she's larger than life.

She can't help but confide to Chakotay:

And. There. It. Is.

The biggest moment. Janeway admitted that Quarren felt like home. Even in The 37s, on a planet that's closest to Earth and home Janeway never even considered that home.

In the Delta Quadrant, Voyager is home.

The moment Janeway said this on the rewatch, I was bowled over because this is such a big moment for Janeway. A big thing for her to admit.

Chakotay asks her if Janeway is sorry he showed up and upended her comfortable life in Quarren?

There is a second's beat, but the beat tells all the story that needs to be said. Janeway rallies and lies: "Not for a second."

She's saying the right words but, at that moment, so near Quarren, after just losing Jaffen. Janeway says something she doesn't feel.

Janeway orders Tom to resume the course for home; but after she gives the order, Janeway's face falls.

And it's so damned sad and this, as I said above, is one of the moments I wish they continued this emotional throughline with Janeway.

Kadan did a number on her and I wish we get to see throughout a few episodes Janeway slowly get over the lie and find a measure of happiness.

Instead, season 7 loses its focus on Janeway and bizarrely have an episode with Q Jr and then a lot of focus on the EMH Doctor. It takes several episodes before Janeway gets the focus again, and that's the series finale.

If Voyager were written today, and the writers were allowed, this moment would be the emotional turning point for Janeway. It's the point where Janeway has to find a way home fast otherwise she's heading for a breakdown.

The center will not hold.

It's probably a good thing her future, alternate self decided to save Captain Janeway the heartbreak of a decade more of this life, and losing the people she loves the most.

And it kind of hurts that canonically, we don't know if Janeway was able to take that vacation. And if Janeway was able to get a measure of happiness and love, as I've mentioned after this episode and after Firewall I really don't care who Janeway ends up with anymore as long as Janeway is happy.

/Edited, March 13 2024, 10AM

[grimfigment]

the american healthcare system could fix the vast majority of its patient care problems if the education and training programs for healthcare workers were not brutally dehumanizing and crushing experiences across the board, but no one running them wants to hear that

[raurquiz]

#otd #startrek #voyager #Workforce #Part2 #janeway #chakotay #tuvok #kim #paris #belannatorres #7of9 #emh #neelix #jaffen #kadan #quarren #ambassador #yerid #ravoc #startrek57 @TrekMovie @TrekCore @StarTrek @StarTrekOnPPlus @TheKateMulgrew

[sparkleplatypuswriter]

She wonders what it cost him, what it cost his spirit – that unwavering optimism that is always in his eyes, always radiating off his chest, even in their darkest days – to see her like that, with another man, living in a way the two of them never could. 

Another Voyager fic because I have fallen down the rabbit hole with these two.

[whentherewerebicycles]

ok they said they would send me the prompt sometime today but did not specify when so i am still in PREPARE FOR ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING mode. i finished the first-gen programming book on the plane. there were a handful of very good case studies in there & a few ideas i would love to try implementing, but i feel like those edited collections with a million contributors are inevitably a little uneven and can get a bit repetitive by the end. on the whole though i’m glad i read it and i collected a handful of sources from the bibliography that i’m going to follow up on next.

one of the last case studies in the book was about career services and i found it really interesting... the writers were pointing out that university career services tend to focus a lot on the process of finding a job (resume and cover letter writing, navigating linkedin and job boards, interviewing, etc.) but most institutions don’t do a ton of work on teaching students career management skills - like, how to read a job posting to determine if it’s going to get you where you want to be, or how to proactively identify and develop specific skills in a role even if it’s not your dream job, or how to go back on the job market and find a better match for you if a job doesn’t seem to be aligned with your long-term goals, etc etc. i definitely notice this a lot in my first-gen kids who i do post-grad career support stuff with. like, the jobs they choose to apply to often confuse me because they don’t seem like a good fit for what the student is actually interested in doing, or they’ll stay in a job that isn’t a good fit for too long because they’re unsure about how to make the transition.

we did some work on this in my program -- i had this career trajectory mapping activity where they had to research organizations in their areas of interest, then find a high- or medium-ranking employee there in a leadership position they might interested in doing later in their careers, and then we had this in-class activity where we used people’s linked in profiles to trace their path from college to grad school (if relevant) through the early stages of their career. we made these big maps on the board where we wrote down the job titles the person had held, the way they described their responsibilities in each role, the amount of time they spent at each, the amount of time between promotions, and whether their experience was concentrated in one organization/program or not (and if they moved around if it was laterally within a company or to a new organization). we did a handful of these together in class and then as part of their research portfolios that semester they had to create more maps, one of which had to be for a person they’d set up an informational interview with (so they could use the map to ask more detailed questions about people’s trajectories and get insight into how professionals further along in their careers made decisions about what jobs to take, when to leave, etc.).

ANYWAY i think i could do a LOT more thinking/brainstorming around how to integrate those skills in managing your own career into different curricula... just something i’d be interested in returning to. ooh and also i learned about the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Career Readiness Competencies which i think will be a useful framework if i need to talk about prof dev at any point during the visit.

[socialpermadeath]

Star Trek Voyager was right, I do be suffering from Dysphoria Syndrome.

[ebonyslasher]

Don't know why rockstar didn't have Daniel with a PhD on his resume. Bro created a drug that was effective for memory recovery for people with amnesia. He deserves his PhD and a peace prize 😭

Also he was called DR. Lamb bruh what was y'all doing.

[yurious-george]

well. i just realized i absolutely can't work the shift i have later today bc i will be coughing until 3am at least and the shift starts at 10am. and then i couldn't give up the shift because of a rule violation (most likely? not showing up to previous shifts, not realizing i had them bc of inconsistent scheduling) and i was like well. that doesn't change that i'm not going.

so henceforth i will be running a social experiment to see how long i can no call, no show a shitty company before they actually get off their ass and fire me. we're at 1 week so far!

[nohkalikai]

me being a little rat in my little untidy rat hole feeling too exhausted to be doing anything

[demo-ness]

guess who’s household just lost their only source of income!!!

[orcelito]

Tho ex assistant manager aka miss bitch, her boyfriend came in. Or ex boyfriend at the time, except he used her rewards account & I had to see her name (ughhh), so I'm like. Are they back together? Who fuckin knows

Anyways I had to make a drink today that possibly went towards the person that holds the #3 spot for most hated in my personal life. I was Slightly tempted to spit in it, but I did not.

[aidenwaites]

Im now watching Jenny nicholson's video on evermore park and man. The management for the entire entertainment industry is just kind of Like That huh

[safetycourses2022]

[quitedisastrous]

life was so much easier three days ago when i was detaching myself from reality and spending all of my free time shiny hunting

[miamicommune]

keep seeing that thing where it's like 85% of games in development now are live service and im like oh boy the crash is Imminent huh!!

[rhsofttech2023]

A Guide to SAP HCM Online Training in India