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changes in the workplace
Thursday, May 5 2016
The big workplace news today, which came during a brief Google hangouts videoconference with the main HR guy while I was drinking a cup of kratom tea, was that Meerkat would be leaving The Organization at the end of the month. This meant a lot of things all at once. One was that the pattern of enjoyable work punctuated by grimly demeaning interactions would be coming to an end. The other was that I was going to have to take on a great deal of responsibility quickly. It was great news, in that the one thing that made the job suck had a imminent sunset. But it was also a little scary. Immediately after the videoconference, Da had me call him and so we could talk about what it meant for me. He said he'd known all this since day two, but had been sworn to secrecy. We talked about the holding pattern we'd be in for the next few weeks and then of things we'll be able to do on liberation day. Da was full of ideas, and I have a feeling I'll have to work to reign in his desire to throw babies out with bathwater. I come from the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school, but at least I can talk to Da and he's a fundamentally reasonable person.
By now, the combination of the kratom and the unexpected good news had me feeling euphoric. At about this time, the first hummingbird of the season arrived at the empty hummingbird feeder. It's been a cool, rainy week, and I'm still burning fires every day, but there are now plenty of flowers.
Gretchen returned home from running errands, and I told her what I'd just learned, which was pretty much the best case scenario from the several I'd discussed with her while I'd still been in California. She said we should celebrate by going out for pizza and fries. That sounded like a great idea to me.
Later this evening, Da called just to bitch some more about Meerkat and the cruel psychological games he's been playing on Ha. Evidently Meerkat has been testing (or perhaps burnishing) our mettle so we'll be better able to handle things when he vanishes. According to Da (and completely unbeknownst to me), Meerkat has actually been impressed with my abilities to work within his sprawling empire of code, though he has less faith in other members of the team, cruelly comparing their performance unfavorably to mine.
I quit work at 8:00pm and Gretchen and I (with all three dogs) drove to Catskill Mountain Pizza in Woodstock. Originally we were planning on having our pizza in the restaurant-style sit-down part of the sprawling pizzeria, but then the bartender/waitress ignored us for too long as she moved tables and chairs to make room for a band of 60-somethings who seemed poised to play blues-based folk with an electric mandolin, among other instruments. So we relocated to the more casual middle dining-room, with a brick wall between us and the music. There was a couple at the next table who were making a showy display of their twin infants, but we completely ignored them. I had a mediocre IPA from the tap, but at least the pizza was piping hot and good (at least by the standards of this pizzeria).
When we returned to the car, Gretchen soon discovered that Neville the Dog had chewed up the car's MP3 player. Later when I looked at the damage, I was astounded by how complete it was. He'd smashed the OLED screen into an even jumble of cracks, and poked holes into the case in a random pattern, lancing the lithium battery, which issued a clear viscous goo. He'd even managed to chip off the corner of the 8 GB microSD card, exposing a shiny silvery micro-city and destroying that tiny (and mostly shielded) target as well. What sucks about this is that the MP3 player in question was a Sansa Clip Zip, a player that is no longer manufactured. It is one of the best MP3 players for installing the open-source Rockbox firmware, so their prices on eBay and Amazon are inflated. I was forced to replace it with a Sansa Clip Sport, which has a bigger screen and is less buggy, but is not Rockbox-compatible.
On drive back from the Woodstock, we pulled into the gated entrance of the West Hurley Park, let out our dogs, and took them for a brief stroll on the darkened grounds (though they were lit by the harsh bluish light of a single pole-mounted lamp). All three dogs came, though at the end we lost Eleanor, who was evidently too deaf to hear us calling for her. The moment I came out with a flashlight, though, I saw the dual bluish disks of her eyes trotting my way.
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