ice water and ocicats

This last week: pushed forward as much as I could on the initiatives I started on my business trip. It was a "no meeting week" at work, which isn't observed 100% but does help. Spent a lot of time gathering and organizing documentation related to stuff I care about, mostly written by a streak of three or four people I miss who are now gone, and that was a downer.

Thursday I woke up to snow on the ground, on April 4. I couldn't avoid the weather -- I was going to see the bug playing cello in a concert in the planetarium at the Museum of Science (and also return some headphones to the REI store because they shipped the wrong thing; I'm not doing well with splurges). Then Friday morning I felt an earthquake! It took a while for the internet to confirm that it was indeed an earthquake, a 4.8 centered in New Jersey. Most folks in my area who were on the first floor didn't feel it, but it was quite pronounced up here on the 3rd floor of the relatively skinny building I live in.

So you could say things are getting pretty serious, out there in the natural world.

Perse can't come with us to the eclipse, but the bug and I hung out with her on Friday for dinner before (ironically?) coming back to continue with The Three Body Problem on Netflix. Now we go to observe a different three-body event, which is not a problem, but would be a problem if anyone wanted it to not happen. Humanity has no control over this thing.

Sooooo, one of the crazy-intense things I did this last week was a three-day leadership training. Three full days, in NYC. There were team-building exercises, and talks and videos and telling of life stories, so this unpacking will be incomplete. Here, though, is Some Stuff.

( Read more... )

Probably most important, and therefore last and outside the cut, is that I'm more sure of what I want to do as a leader. While I want to get things done in my own individual work, when I'm leading the people are more important to me. I want them to be happy, supported, enabled and well-informed, so that they can make the right decisions for them about performance and where they want to be on the ladder. TRA LA! That is seriously it! Yay!

For various reasons including the fact that we did eventually do some work together this year, and because if I do ever go for promotion I'll need help from people 2 levels above me, I trepidatiously and awkwardly asked the Noid on Friday if he would peer-review me for the fall performance cycle. I said something like how I would normally say "do your worst", but in this case I was kind of hoping not actually. In the resultant conversation came The Quote:

I think you've proven yourself in Image Search. For many reasons Blogger was a bad situation. Sorry for my part in that.

~The Noid

Also, rather later:

me: While we're on this topic... independent of perf, it's been good working with you as an engineer and I have been trying to find a good time to say thanks. Thanks!

noid: Likewise, I've enjoyed working with you. And thanks for being willing to make a fresh start with me in the new role.

Blink... blink... will he really not slam me? It's been just over a year since he told me he wasn't sure I'd ever be able to do the job associated with my title, even given time to learn. If we hadn't then been unwillingly stuck together in the same group by an accident on the part of the Winemaker -- "Can you say AWKWARD TURTLE!? I was pretty dumbfounded" -- there's no way we'd have reached this complex relationship. He'd be on my shit list, and I'd never have spoken to him on purpose again, and I think I'd've been happy enough with that. An alternate universe, simpler and clearer, maybe less healthy.

I'm still not sure if this new guy is actually a pod person who hauled the old Noid under a porch and ate him, but I guess it doesn't matter. It's a quote and it's going on the record. I know that Galahad believes this one is the real Noid, and the old Noid was cracking up last fall just about as badly as I was.

Have I really not posted for over a week? I've been in a really strange and dreamy state lately... some of that is literal dreaming, as I have a cold (it got me eight days ago, Monday) and have been sleeping a lot. I'm way underexercised and undercaffeinated, generally not feeling like myself.

Which is not to say that I'm feeling awful. I've been sitting in sleepy amazement as great things happen on the world stage: President Obama is our president (and he can dance! and he fought to keep his Blackberry!), Guantanamo has been ordered closed, the FDA has approved the first human stem-cell experiments and the American ban on funding abortion abroad has been lifted.

Also with dramatic influence on my life, Zillian has decided to haul everyone's underwater stock options to the surface, which for the first time gives me a financial reason to stay there longer than this spring. (My strike price is 675, the current stock price is 327... so my options have been worthless since the beginning.) It's amazing. And this is why I can't seem to stick to a career plan -- Zillian changes things all the time, and not just little things, but big things too. Two months ago I wanted to take time off; now this job is going well and there's a really cool opportunity to work with friends in a building I was once very happy in. I'll have to keep my eye on that one and keep my mind open.



On the downside, raise your hand if you can believe 71,400 people lost their jobs yesterday. And these were manufacturing & services people -- average folks who just don't save much, or earn much unless they're in a quite high earning percentile. I read a number I didn't believe, the other night in Newsweek, about what percentile heisenbug and I are in... I guess I should have believed it. (And part of me wonders why that is and how long it can last.)

From wikipedia:


I am part of the economy's problem now, for the retail sector anyway. It's one more thing that makes me feel cut off from the world -- I've made the transition and am just not buying things right now. I was thinking lately about a daydream/daymare scenario I used to have when I was a kid (doubtless fueled by all that SF reading), the one in which I'm in a bunker or spacecraft, sometimes all alone, and surrounded by all the supplies I could need for the next X years but with no way to get anything else. Well, I looked around my house yesterday and realized I'm nearly in that situation. Not with respect to food and cold medicine, of course... but I have clothes, dishes, a stack of books I haven't read and hundreds more I wuld enjoy re-reading, yarn enough to knit for maybe a year or so before running out, video games I haven't played or have barely played that could keep me entertained for many hours apiece, exercise equipment (minimal, but I could stay fit at home if I had to), a computer that alone offers hundreds of possibilities. Huh. I practically have my bunker. Though they may be exciting, I don't need new physical objects. Sorry, retailers, I'll be more interactive after April.

I never posted about my last day at work before the long, long vacation I'm trying to recover from. It was a good day -- actually, it was a great day, I hesitate to admit just how scintillating I found it. In short:

• I was working with UI stuff
• I was hacking up a demo, and realized 2 of my tasks fit together really well, and so hacked up a double demo, by 1:30
• Social stuff -- got to sing carols in the lobby! Let's not forget the snowstorm.
• People were interested in my demo, so I spent the afternooon in a tight feedback loop responding to little requests for changes. I felt productive. It was awesome.

Now, hmm, well, after that delicious little reclusionfest I don't feel like working at all, but beyond that I have no idea how to feel. Emotionally I think I'm just coasting. I don't really understand why this team likes my work (so far) any more than I understand why my last team didn't. It seems all too random. I do my work, some people expect a lot, others expect less, or else they happen to value different things. I've gotten in the habit of feeling anxious and sad, but at the same time it's hard to even remain interested. I've got my resume and career website all updated, and 401(k) matching at its legal maximum, so I can be peaceful.

In other news, I finally understand how knitting can be an expensive hobby. You just have to buy hand-painted chunky baby alpaca and make really simple patterns using large needles. Yeah, not my usual thing at all, but I lost my scarf, so what was I supposed to do? :)

I saw a middle-aged woman on the train this morning whose bag said:

Do yoga. Jealousy works the opposite way you want it to.

I used the world's most popular search engine to see what the hell was up with this mangled motto. Turns out it's a small piece of lululemon's ridiculous manifesto, which is why yoga was mentioned, and I'm not the first to skewer it. Really though, "Children are the orgasm of life"? Well, could be, could be... my understanding is that when you're actually dealing with them you're all jittery, and once it's over you feel quite relaxed and remember the whole thing as being wonderful. There are similarities. I admit, though, I have no idea what this has to do with yoga.

* * *

I wrote that this morning. Tonight, I finally had the good workout I've been waiting to have for about the last two weeks. I could tell you all about my discouragement with gymnastics, and how much I wish it emphasized mindfulness the way yoga does, and how 2 weeks ago I was really thinking about quitting (and about crying in class, which I didn't do... quite), but that would be boring. Anyway, tonight I decided I didn't give a shit, and had more consistent kickups to handstand than I think I've ever had before. I even (almost) did a 180-degree pirouette, and had a couple of reasonable handstands that I straddled up to and held briefly. Go figure.

Anyway, I'm glad I went instead of doing the other thing I was tempted to do and staying horribly late at work. (My plan is to go in horribly early, instead. I am so overwhelmed). Because the universe likes to laugh at me, I got email from 23andme.com tonight saying my genetic profile is ready to look at. Very funny. :P I'm not remotely ready to look at it, not until I'm a lot more rested.

( For my lifting friends, a new adductor exercise to love ) 1:30 and 1:55 handstand holds today for the non-record. I did do a straddle-up when completely exhausted, though. That is good.

Such interesting things are stirring, career-wise: it looks like TBC and Dan the Cat and I may all be making separate bids to get into Google this year, for various reasons. Only TBC and I would be colocated in Cambridge since this would be the Cat's way of making a break for Manhattan, but still, they are probably the two people I would most like to work with again in any capacity, so if this were to work out it could be stellar. Bit of a shame we all have our sights set on a place that's wicked hard to get into. We're good, but going three for three is statistically not likely. Wish us luck... and heisenbug too, of course, for those tasty little referral bonuses.

I'm trying to imagine what I'd say to a young woman who came to me with my own current concerns about my job.

Fictional person: This fucking sucks! I'm working in a language I don't like, which nobody else around here is really an expert in either, and I'm working my ass off on software that probably won't ship to anyone, in sort of a guinea pig role, with no guidance, and more or less alone.

Me: So you're asking who moved your cheese? Get out there and find another job.

Fictional person: For fiscal reasons I've chosen to stay at least through August. It's not negotiable unless I get really really miserable.

Me: So, what I'm hearing is that you need to find or create some positives in the situation you're in.

FP: I knowwwwww, it's just so hard to feel motivated. *snivel*

Me: Enthusiasm must come from within, lazy thing. Seriously, what are the things you could do in this project that would make you feel useful?

FP: I could try harder to document things, and put together a talk that would help other people get through this crap more easily. I'm the first person going here, but probably not the last.

Me: Uh huh, and?

FP: I can focus on learning C++ better... that's the one thing I have sort of been doing right. And I can try to help nail down some decent interfaces so that future work of this type can go better. God help me with trying to make a real schedule for the upcoming project though. I don't think it's possible, much less by me. So I'm going to mess it up and keep looking bad in front of my boss until this stupid thing is over.

Me: But if you blow that part, while putting together a good interface and great documentation, and giving a talk on the topic that answers a bunch of people's questions and that you've actually done enough research to give confidently... would you have succeeded, in your own eyes?

FP: All that? Yes, that's more than I'm even asking of myself at the moment.

Me: Recharge in California for a few days. Then come back and ask for that.

FP: I hate you sometimes, you smug, annoying person.

Looking for further proof that people are irrational?

My work lipstick was gone from my desk this morning (I don't know whether to suspect foul play, or just me forgetting it in some bathroom somewhere). But I had a web conference at 1:00 I was stressed out about... mind now, we're talking phone call + shared desktop, no visuals. But I couldn't face it without my professional face. I ran across the street and bought more lipstick.*

*Raisin Rage by Revlon. Since there was a sale going on I got Black Cherry as well. Yes, everything that looks good on me has the name of a food.

I realize I've been posting a lot about workouts. A lot of the reason is that my day goes like this: work, work out, come home. I work out hard enough to get my mind off work (which is no accident) so that's what I'm thinking about by the time I hit the computer. Yesterday I just worked 12 hours instead, and until the moment I fell asleep my head was full of things I'd like to do for the group, and things I don't understand about the legacy code I've been reading (and have these people ever heard of comments, yo?) and the direction of the project I'm on.

A post by a friend reminded me to be glad I have my coworkers though. I like several of them so much! There's one that I basically have a secret IM language with. He says:

*$? _|^

and I know what it means and laugh and say "yes!" (It means: are you interested in going to Starbucks? I'm perking up and watching for your answer vigilantly, like a meerkat on guard duty! Starbucks is $* and _|^ is the best emoticon we could create for a meerkat.)