11/22

i'm thankful that though last thursday and friday were very hard days at work (i'm thankful that d, while listening to me vent, said again that i can quit if i want to), monday was a better day. i'm thankful that during our all hands meeting on mondays, a member of each department provides updates for everyone else on his/her team. i'm thankful that it was my weekend to deliver this and am thankful that on friday afternoon, exhausted and disillusioned, as a joke, i wrote "very tired" as the first entry beside everyone's name in the shared doc where they provide their updates, adding some specific jokes for certain people (for my coworker who just had a child, i wrote "very tired (also because of fatherhood)" and for the one who isn't full time, i wrote "very tired (on a part-time basis)."

i'm thankful that everyone got a good laugh at the end of a long week (i'm thankful for dark humor) out of this and that most of them left the "very tired" in their entries along with the actual updates they needed to share about bugs and customers and documentation. i'm thankful that on monday at the all hands meeting, when it was time for me to turn on my webcam and provide my team's updates, i decided to include every instance of "very tired" in the notes, hitting the punchline of "very tired" over and over again. i'm thankful that this read as funny and that people laughed, but i'm thankful that i think it also made some people slightly uncomfortable and effectively communicated how worn out my team feels to the larger organization. i'm thankful to have had the opportunity to do that and to know i at least said something, even if it having done so actually make a difference. i'm thankful for the other time i made people laugh at the all hands meeting, which is when i shared a parody i wrote of "say my name" mocking our competitors. 

i'm thankful after thursday and friday were so hard that things went well yesterday and i was able to break through the wall of some difficult tickets i felt stuck in. i'm thankful to have been able to help other coworkers with difficult tickets they felt stuck in. i'm thankful for my memory, which i think is a pretty good memory, and for how that helps me both in work and life. i'm thankful for the moment when, stuck in a problem, you see something (or someone shows you something) that opens the whole thing up again, that makes solving feel possible. i'm thankful for when i can find that something myself, but also thankful when other people give me that something or i give it to them.