thank you notes 4/27
i'm thankful that today is administrative professionals' day, which meant that we had stale bagels and coffee in the office at 8:30am and i did not have time to write my notes this morning. i'm thankful for the cheery delivery person who brought in the bagels and coffee and assorted paraphernalia to the office, which i neatly arranged on the credenza opposite my desk (i'm thankful for the well-meaning but tiring conversations i had with three different faculty members about the irony of me setting up the spread for everyone for administrative professionals' day)(i'm thankful for when being thanked by someone doesn't require much emotional labor on my part, which unfortunately it sometimes does in my interactions with (well-meaning) faculty). i'm thankful to have thanked the delivery person and to have pondered how, for the problems i have with my job, i feel very thankful that i'm not a delivery driver and am thankful for the hard work of people who are. i'm thankful for the plastic tongs that are used to pick up bagel halves and thankful, since there are a lot of colds going around, that the bagels were halved in advance, even though that just emphasized their staleness.
i'm thankful for my manager, who is a great person. i'm thankful that she always speaks kindly and appreciatively toward me and that i feel supported by her always. i'm thankful for the funny faces and knowing glances and eye rolls we share in the hallways and while passing each other in the office. i'm thankful that she recently gave me a "task" that involves getting to have a nice walk across town and which she normally reserves as a treat for herself. i'm thankful for our discussion this morning about a recent boat maintenance fiasco, from which i learned that there is an important difference between wet sanding and dry sanding. i'm thankful for her love of her doberman puppy, who is graduating from obedience school today. i'm thankful for the conversation we had about problems she's been having with her husband's ex-wife (i'm thankful for how she sweetly termed the abusive and obscenity-laden text she received from the woman a "nastygram").
i'm thankful that later in the social event, when the accountant, who is very conservative, initiated a conversation about the presidential election that i was afraid of having, but thankful that through the magic of conversational jiu jitsu, i managed to guide us through it without either of us thinking the other was a horrible person. i'm thankful for the faculty member who i overheard talking about how inspired he is by a student of his who has been volunteering for bernie sanders in neighboring states on the weekends and who was going to get to meet him after bernie's speech on campus today. i'm thankful for the long conversation i had with the academic advisor about the election. i'm thankful that i volunteered that i had given money to bernie early on and felt that he shared more of my policy positions, but had recently been feeling myself shift toward hillary (i'm thankful for this powerful essay by sady doyle, a writer who i think i once condescendingly described as "shouty," which is a large part of what changed my mind). i'm thankful for the advisor's talk about the work she does with the anti-poverty group at her catholic church and for our discussion of how, regardless of who the nominee is, how happy we are that anti-capitalist ideas and critiques of structural inequity in all forms and entrenched racism and sexism have become part of the wider public discourse (especially among young people) in a way that they haven't been for a long time.
i'm thankful that after calling several times over two days without getting to talk to a person and, the final time, sitting on hold for 7.5 minutes, i finally got through to an admin at my doctor's office to make an appointment to discuss medication side effects and dosage changes. i'm thankful that i chose to reframe my annoyance and think of sitting on hold as an opportunity for meditation and thankful for how as i strolled the corridors, i was able to use the amount of glitching and tearing in the repetitive hold music to map out the dead spots for cell signal in our building. i'm thankful for how the admin i eventually talked to apologized for the delay and said that they were having trouble transitioning to a new computer system, and thankful that i said in a nice tone of voice that i understood (and thankful that i did understand, having been in that position myself before) and that it was no problem. i'm thankful that she thanked me for my patience and thankful that even though she couldn't get me an appointment for three weeks, because i was nice to her she taught me two tricks, one to possibly get an earlier appointment if there are cancellations and one for if i ever needed an urgent same-day appointment.
i'm thankful for the student who was in the office filling out his internship registration paperwork and who i heard making what i thought at first was a loud breathing sound, perhaps because of congestion. i'm thankful that i realized that he was in fact vaping in the office, which is the first time i'd experienced that phenomenon and which i found so entertaining i didn't even tell him to stop. i'm thankful for the gentle aroma of the cloud of vape juice he left in the office. i'm thankful that the department chair thanked me for hanging pictures on her walls, which i am technically not supposed to do. i'm thankful for this little browser game about shoveling snow, which is probably a better thing for me to keep in another tab than twitter. i'm thankful to remember the scene in the mad men episode "the suitcase" where peggy and don are working late on a campaign and peggy says, "you never say thank you" and don yells, "that's what the money is for!" i'm thankful for arbitrary holidays designed to remind people of invisible labor that's taken for granted, but i'm more thankful for the money, which i receive by direct deposit every two weeks.
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