Sturm und Drang

[flexagon]

Early this week, I worked long hours -- spending my days in a grinding communication cascade to carefully tell people about my departure in just the right order, and nights on promotion writeups for three people. Those were due on Wednesday, and I also kept waking up at 4:30AM. By Weds night I was making stupid mistakes, feeling clumsy, and on the edge of crying from sheer tiredness. (The squirrel came over to my place to watch me eat takeout and rub my shoulders, and that was our midweek date. He asked if I was trying to burn out one more time while I still had the opportunity, which was a fair question). After that though... yeah, after that. On Thursday I did the last live announcement to a team, and wide email finally went out and now it's public. With sleep starting to improve at the same time, that was spectacular and on Friday I got a real dose of euphoria. It's half embarrassing, how beautiful the world can look to me when things are low-stress. And then I got my planned 90-minute massage.

I had been hesitating about whether to widely use the word "retiring" when talking to people, but it's proved to be very effective. It surprises them, and knocks the conversation off-track in a good way. People kept expecting me to say something corporate, and start working up a head of resentment, and then, no: witness the power of this fully operational human life plan. Some people are sad, but nobody seems angry or even seems to be considering moving teams over it. Which means I'm getting my most desired outcome on the good timeline: my teams will remain standing and they get to stay together, and I get my non-destructive exit. If being slightly gauche with the "I'm retiring" message is helping that happen, then very well: I will be slightly gauche. So I've been pretty public about it, and am now drowning in congrats / goodbye / we'll-miss-you messages, because I'm a minor celebrity at Zillian and I'd best just accept that and be gracious about it.

Oh and my promo writeup for my leading candidate? Came out stunning, if you ask me. It's crystalline -- forced to be, by the word count limits -- and still tells a great story, with straightforward answers to the concerns of the last promo committee 18 months ago. The candidate may not get the promo, due to the nature of the work and how it's different from what some of the folks in my new group are used to, but we're putting up a beautiful case and I can be proud of that.

My last day is now set for 4/4, with management responsibilities transferring to new parties on Monday 3/24. I've already made a custom LinkedIn frame for my user profile that says #CHILLING, using frame-generator.com, and will be deploying it as soon as it's accurate.

(I'm gonna need some kind of personal CRM system. I'm gonna want to buy an external computer monitor, when I give my existing one back to work. But ooh, how open and different might my desk look without one, for a few weeks?).

Outside the hallowed walls of corp, I made a junkberry pie for a party on Saturday and threw in a plum because six fruits wasn't quite enough. I got one full pie, and a half-pie-sized ugly galette made of an extra pie crust and extra filling, and it was quite good! The filling was the best part; I might just make it with a double crust next time, instead of the sour cream topping the recipe calls for.

And the bug and I dealt with an insane feline freakout, after one cat went to the vet and then the second cat decided, not just that he smelled weird or whatever, but that he was the literal devil. She was not just growling, hissing, and making drawn-out querulous noises, but also sometimes YELLING as if she'd gotten her tail stepped on. In the end we had to keep them separated for a day and a half, after which they chilled back out. So that's done and we've learned some very clever ways to separate the condo into two cat-spaces while allowing humans to traverse through a sort of airlock, but it was a pain. And the nice paper I'd just put on the office door got completely shredded by irate prisoners.

Comments

[nicki]

congrats on the progress toward a smooth exit.

[flexagon]

thank you -- it's certainly something that there are still three more weeks. But it is happening.

[motyl]

Only 3 weeks left! Almost there :-)

[flexagon]

Yep. Also I just told Jo K this morning about your leaving -- she hadn't realized, you were so stealth. :-)

[tactilemuse]

Oh friend, I am so so glad to hear that the announcement has gone well. A perfect welcome into spring and renewal and hope. Here's to a few weeks of weird days leading to a retirement!

[flexagon]

Thank you! The following week was suitably weird, as you can read (the biological daughter should be quite a fun plot twist)!

[tactilemuse]

A daughter! I did not know but I am delighted to find out. Are the two of you close?

[flexagon]

We are friends! She's the result of egg donation. I didn't raise her but now as a young adult, she has come sniffing around very very curiously. :D

[tactilemuse]

I love this!! How lovely and I'm not surprised. You're a very very interesting person, I'd want to know more about you too.

[fraterrisus]

on the "personal CRM" note: I used Monica for a while, but the server I was using was hosted by a friend with zero guarantees of uptime and one day it disappeared :} It's not a bad piece of software – worth looking into to see if it fits your needs.

[flexagon]

Thanks! I've heard of Monica and it's on my list. There also used to be a good friendship-oriented app for iOS that's gone now (Garden), and Clay claims to be useful for personal relationships although I'm not seeing many people using it that way.

The main thing I'd like is to basically write to someone every N days, with the someone coming from a rotation of people that I can add to or remove from without changing how much total work I put in. Can Monica do that? Most of the CRMs I'm seeing seem to assume I know how often I want to contact someone, without reference to the larger social scene or how much effort I might be putting in elsewhere. And that's only a question I can answer that way for my very closest intimates (2 people).

It actually seems to me that the personal CRM niche is still wide open to someone who really does a good job. https://danny.is/writing/personal-crms-clay-earth-is-not-what-i-need/

[fraterrisus]

My rough impression is that Monica didn't have any outgoing functionality, i.e. I don't think it will ping you in any way to say "hey you should write an email to ". It's mostly for capturing information so you can look it up later on. But I last used it several years ago, so it's not out of the question that things have changed.