a narcissist who will take any opportunity for autobiographical writing
writing a daily standup post at work in slack, which as a narcissist who will take any opportunity for autobiographical writing i (duh) love. it's something i've tried to do on my own in the past because i like the way it enumerates the things you have done on those days where it feels like you are overwhelmed with many things but not making progress, but is something i never had the discipline to keep up on my own (i have never in my life been interested in or consistent at private writing—if i'm writing something it is always with the thought that someone and hopefully a lot of someones are going to read it and sooner rather than later), so i'm thankful for the audience, and i'm thankful that i have a kind smart boss (we are supposed to call them "coaches" in the work idiolect but while i get the the idea of that and she definitely fits that role (she's not in any way "bossy") i have trouble making myself use this specialized tech vocabulary with a straight face) who didn't force this process on me and who is using this as a way to stay connected to what i'm doing rather than fault me for not doing enough.
the way that the new PM on one of the product teams i'm embedded on has, at the same time, introduced more structure and accountability to the working practices of the team, since while i think that can be a little intimidating and intense to start with and may have rustled some feathers a bit, i feel like (light, flexible, humane) structure and accountability are guard rails that will both help our team ship faster and will (after an adjustment period) be good for the individual psychological experience of our team members, because nobody feels good about not shipping good things quickly and yet without structure and accountability it can be easy for people to feel like they're on islands, alone with their problems, which is the worst way to be both for them individually and for the team.
i was doing QA on a big redesigned view yesterday that we're trying to get out by the end of the week and caught some gnarly lil bugs, which made me happy because even though i think the ideal state of QA is you do it and there are no bugs, that can honestly be kind of frustrating because it feels like you are doing pointless work! but then the QA person who was working late sent me some DMs where he was clearly kind of bummed he hadn't caught these himself before passing it on to me (he has recently described himself as the first line of defense for our team and me as the second) and i tried to express empathy and understanding.
we're having a hackathon in a couple of weeks and so far i have submitted 3 of 10 project pitches and have more on deck if i can find the time to write them up and submit them. also today i'm going to have a pairing teaching two of my coworkers on our escalations team to run node scripts to help remediate some customer data, which i think will be really fun and a good growth thing for them.
last night watching deborah, who has never switched on god mode in hades (whereas in my game currently the gods are eating 30% of the damage enemies send my way), play and just absolutely crush the shit out of the game and be 10000% better than i am or will ever be. then this morning on the treadmill, after several weeks of being in another weird purgatory (sorry) state with the game where i kept winning and nothing interesting was happening i hit the credits this morning and while that was not necessarily as satisfying as i wanted to be it was still something.
i woke up every hour last night and was very restless i thought it was because i had a stomach ache and maybe that contributed but also i saw this morning that i forgot to take my sleeping pill and while i'm never thankful to have forgotten that i'm also thankful because it is a clear explanation for an unpleasant thing rather than just my body hating me.
Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to thank you notes: