work

Happy hours

As part of my new job — which is actually my same old job, just done somewhat differently, for a different boss, and from a different seat — I have the option of working from home on Tuesdays. I have a laptop and VPN access, and because I also have a morning commute I’d be just as happy to skip, I plan to take advantage of the option whenever possible.

It wasn’t possible yesterday, however, since I wanted to be in the office at five, when we were heading to the bar around the corner to say goodbye to one of our colleagues, who’s leaving us for other opportunities. It was weird being in the office, since all of my immediate co-workers, the four other development team members who sit around me, were out, and it was weirdly (though not unpleasantly) quiet. It was pretty much just a normal Tuesday.

After work, we went to the bar, and a lot of people passed in and out. This particular co-worker has been with the company for ten years, longer than I’ve been there myself — has that really been eight years? — so there were a lot of people who wanted to stop by and wish him well. Including one of other co-workers who’d left (not by choice) a couple of weeks ago. I was glad to see him, since I’d been out sick with pneumonia when the team went out to say goodbye to him, and I wound up hanging around, talking to him and others and enjoying several drinks (four beers) until about nine o’clock.

I grabbed a slice of pretty terrible pizza at Penn Station — my father insists the only good pizza there is on the Amtrak level, one flight of stairs up — and bumped into a friend of my sister’s also getting pizza to go. We chatted for a couple of minutes, then split to catch our respective trains.

I got home a little before eleven. And while not super drunk, or even remarkably hung-over this morning — I’m a rare, social drinker, and I passed on the offer to do shots with a couple of people last night — I was pretty tired. Hence no post about yesterday until now.

Which is just as well, since today there wasn’t too much to write home about. I did wake up wishing we’d gone out Monday night, so I could have stayed home (and slept in a couple of hours) on Tuesday. But I felt pretty much okay by the time I got to the office. Where we had a breakfast spread of bagels and muffins and pastries, to celebrate our one-year anniversary in the building.

Then I did some work, went to a talk about author care — it can be tricky sometimes — did some more work, and went home. Not a single drop to drink.

Although I did have sushi for lunch again, which I find I’ve sort of been craving of late. So I don’t know what’s up with that.

How the other half of the office lives

I officially moved desks this morning, and it was kind of a weird experience. The job itself is the as what I’ve been doing, exactly the same as I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks, but it was like doing it in a slightly different office. Almost like a dream, where you recognize lots of things and people, but it’s all just weirdly different.

I was really busy, though, so I didn’t have time to really notice.

April fooling

March was kind of a weird month for me.

http://www.unreality.net/weblog/?p=8390″>got sick pretty early on, actually still nursing what I thought was a cold from February, and I spent the whole first full week of the month at home with pneumonia. While I was out, two of my co-workers were let go (“made redundant” in our UK office’s phrasing), and it was more than a little bit of a shock.

Shortly after I got back to work — the very day, in fact — eager to shake off the cabin fever that a week stuck at home will cause, I learned that I, too, would be leaving the group. I’m still working for the company, and in the same role, but as a part of our larger development group. In the short term, it’s meant a lot of changes and learning of new procedures, figuring out what I will (and will no longer) be responsible for, and that’s a process that’s still going on. I have a new boss, new colleagues, and while for the rest of the year at least I’ll continue to work on psychology and mental health titles, I’ll no longer even be sitting on the same side of the office as them.

On Friday, I moved most of my things to my new cubicle. My new computer — the one I got last Monday, when some malware basically destroyed the old one — will hopefully follow if it didn’t over the weekend. My work phone number is supposed to be staying the same — meaning, I guess, that my business cards aren’t completely out of date — but I’m sure I’ll have a couple of questions for IT before the week is out.

The good news, I guess, is I can see them now from where I sit.

I spent exactly one month in that first cubicle — from April 4, 2011, actually — and a lot longer working for the same team. I think this change will ultimately be good, though both for my own career and for the team. It’s been just one of many changes to have happened since the start of the new year, and the changes came especially fast and furious throughout March. (I didn’t even mention the fact that I turned thirty-five.) In some ways, quite honestly, I’m glad the month is over. I’m nervous about that’s to come, and what’s expected of me, but I’m also eager to start really working on developing books.

Speaking of books, that whole week at home really played havoc with the rhythm I had going up til then, reading about one book a day. A lot of them were (and continue to be) comics and graphic novels, but even those wound up going unread the week I was out. I seem to have spent most of my time doing little more than watching several seasons of 30 Rock. I’m trying to get caught back up, but my secret, in-my-sick-head-only goal of getting the total up to 366 titles may not be doable at this point.

I did listen to some music this month, though, and here’s my mix for March for whatever that’s worth:

  1. “Rivers and Roads” by the Head and the Heart
  2. “Les plus beaux” by Fránçois & the Atlas Mountains
  3. “History Book” by Dry the River
  4. “Lego” by Lady Leshurr
  5. “House of Circles” by Mr. Gnome
  6. “Landfill” by Daughter
  7. “Manchester” by Kishi Bashi
  8. “The Concept” by Teenage Fanclub
  9. “Tea for the Tillerman” by Cat Stevens
  10. “Houdini” by Foster the People
  11. “Helicopter” by Bloc Party
  12. “The Dreaming Moon” by the Magnetic Fields
  13. “Turn into Earth” by the Yardbirds
  14. “Skyscrapers” by OK Go

Beyond all that, there’s not a whole lot to report. I spent the rainy day cleaning and watching some TV (Fringe, Supernatural, Community) and doing the Sunday crossword. Regular stuff.

Time now, I think, for bed. I want to be at work early tomorrow.

Friday

Today was a pretty typical Friday, if you discount the part where I moved everything but my computer from one cubicle to another on the other side of the office. I officially start in the new work space on Monday, with lots to keep me occupied.

On the train home, I finished reading Georges Simenon’s The President, which I really liked quite a lot. It’s the third of the books in the Neversink Library (a gift from Heather) that I’ve read, and the second by Simenon. When I was done, I thought: well, I may just have to read more by him. Turns out, he’s one of the twentieth century’s most prolific writers, having written some 200 novels.

So, you know, there should be plenty more to choose from. Maybe one of the Maigret mysteries.

But first, I think, I’m going to re-read Watership Down, as part of my “re-read some books this year” project.

That was Friday.

Thirty-five and still alive

I got to the office early for a meeting I didn’t wind up attending.

I don’t want to claim that this was the closest today got to exciting. But unless you count research into critical thinking courses — of which there are many, across disciplines — or the textbooks designed for those courses, you may just have to settle for the big non-meeting. (Well, the meeting still happened. I just wound up having other work to do and not going.)

And that is all.