i guess what really gets under my skin is the fact that they (unofficially) promoted me to lead a team that i completely overestimated, and in addition to a tough quarter in that position, getting a terrible review and going through the awkwardness of stepping down, i'm being punished for my team's lousy performance so far; to pile insult on top of insult, i've been informed that i have yet to prove myself technically and that i shouldn't be making suggestions until i've demonstrated my skills to the entire team's satisfaction.
i really need to get out of there as fast as i can.
of *course* i'll run into nox when dressed nicely for a job interview... and of course there'd be a woman filing her nails on the metro right across from me - for me that's the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
polyester shirt + hot metro + wrong street at the right time - thanks google maps for showing me "east" when i wrote "west" - a seemingly positive interview, but should i have explained that the reason for not sharing my salary expectations is that i'm a bad negotiator? i wonder if that's why they never got back to me.
diaper service fail, exhaustion, heavy shopping, good microwave vegan burgers,
saturday 12th:
midnight feed and change turning into a pest hunt and nature watch (good catch, spider next to our bed!), not sleeping as my pinched nerve got progressively worse. temporary painkiller relief, a mission in the rain for formula, becoming really tired calming the baby and almost falling asleep so responsibly putting him in his bassinet which woke us all up and sent me on another mission...
i like to think of french fries as my "guilty pleasure", but the ones i bought were so bad that each bite punished the guilt right out of them. of course i finished them, but i didn't *enjoy* them. and it was such perfect french fry weather too...
a long afternoon turning into a horrible evening, finally getting some sleep
sunday 13th:
and then waking up around 3am to deal with a mouse that we'd caught that wasn't dead. what an ugly, ugly business... i drowned the poor bugger, because the alternatives were worse, and spent the next day seeing its little face in my mind's eye.
some sleep, cartoons and coffee
double shopping day, almost losing my umbrella to the metro butterfly doors
daddy daycare while gd put together an excellent experimental dinner, doing the traditional jewish new year's thing and enjoying it for the first time in a long time
a tough cleanup with mr smear
monday 14th:
two night wakeups but otherwise a good night's rest, feeding, chatting with mom, getting to work on time, being unpleasantly surprised to find that my team had continued to miss the point and made no progress in the five weeks that i was away, in spite of their apparent efforts. suddenly in a position to be providing pregnancy / parenting counselling, exploding kittens satisfaction, the unfortunately unnecessarily candid discussion with nem (his choice of words led me to believe that nox had talked), designing the correct "quick fix", home for dinner (and fatherly responsibilities), the surrealization of really being a parent in every sense
tuesday 15th:
a rough night, in addition to getting up early to return the diaper service equipment and have my fingerprints taken. everything was fine until i arrived and realized that in my hurry i'd forgotten my passport at home and of course gd was in the shower and my call woke up mr smear so that was a bit of a disaster.
getting stuff done, including baby clothes shopping, offending my manager, managing nifty
the joy of holding my son at the end of the day turning into weariness after five hours of not being able to put him down
wednesday 16th:
apple music playlist curation and heavy miscommunications
...
the first notary wanted $50 to provide a certified copy. the second wanted $40. i went to the third, who wanted $25.
huh. a cash only notary. she accepted twenty when i looked like i'd struggle to find the other 5, perhaps i could've gotten away with paying her only $10 per minute instead...
...
what felt like productive paired programming with nox, leaving early and missioning to a fedex / dhl store that led to the discovery that that would cost about $100 to mail a piece of paper to my mother...
shopping, chores, leftovers, an early night
thursday 17th:
mid-night counting, quantifying and measuring
struggling to wake up at 5.45am with an uncomfortable baby on my shoulder, managing to tidy up the kitchen and brush my teeth before leaving almost ten minutes late
thought for the day: the pop genre is the musical equivalent of soda pop: it tastes good to an unrefined palette and is full of artificial shit that will ultimately cause parts of you to rot
there's nothing like starting your day with a questionnaire and then peeing on command. aside from some disappointment with my right eye's performance during the eye exam, everything seems to be in order and none of the physical exercises bothered me in spite of the fact that my nerves are still pinching enough for me to be losing sleep.
grabbing a quick cup of coffee and wandering a bit until i found a post office, then off to work reading treasure island
more progress, learning about some surprisingly demotivating behaviour from the executives on down, overeating at pushap and back at my desk, a little bit of nerf
a popeye's mission and back home to carry and change and clean and feed and eat
friday 18th (last week!):
midnight clawspiration
surprising recruiter timing
a slow morning wasting formula, practicing french with duolingo
remembering that i needed to leave early when i was already leaving late with a significantly drained battery
a long, humourless morning; great fluxx, a slow but positive afternoon being taken by surprise when nox actually admitted that he was unable to wrap his head around what we were doing: i'd spent most of the week explaining, drawing diagrams, writing pseudocode on the board, writing code scaffolding to make his life easier...
leaving early to take care of mr smear so that gd could make an appointment. becoming progressively more traditional for shabbat and holidays.
saturday 19th:
not an easy night, followed by a morning invested in the ideas of crowdsourcing low-quality in-copyright audiobooks and shaving gd's head. french lessons, hangry baby, hunter x hunter (the 2011 remake, omg it's amazing and it covers a lot of the manga!)
a quick shopping mall run to discuss my laser treatment disappointment, pick up gd's glasses and buy a safer diaper bin, then back for baby care before a family outing inspired by our new favourite tongue twister: "she has an unprecedented passion for pasta" (try that one ten times fast)
light rain, heavy shopping, coming home with a bubbly boy and exhaustion
late night discomfort, followed by
sunday 20th:
early morning discomfort, a 6am wakeup and a suddenly sore throat
private parts is an excellent movie!
blackfish is horrifying and i only watched a few minutes of it
hunter x hunter and gd hitting a pressure point that resulted in my headache disappearing to the sound of shattering glass
a kind-of-restful afternoon, then some shopping on a cool evening (14 degrees in montreal feels like a cool summer night in cape town) followed by a chat with my mom and some online debating and kitchen cleaning before getting ready for bed.
which involved almost an hour of waiting for mr smear to be ready to feed, about fifteen minutes of feeding and burping, putting him down on the changing table and getting his little trousers halfway down his little legs before he projectile vomited straight up into the air so that it landed right back down on his face. my panicked response wasn't bad but it wasn't ideal either...
monday 21st:
from a 4am wakeup to finally returning to sleep around 6 because i kept waiting for his discomfort to turn into hunger cries.
some days it's tough saying goodbye to him when going to work, even if half the weekend was spent wishing i could just put him down already :P
sweater weather, ultimate demotivation, ios9 installation and doing good work in spite of the monkeys flying around me
coming home after a long day to a little boy who's only calm when he's being held and with a serious need to vent. hunter x hunter, cheers and a rough session of rls.
tuesday 22nd:
a few hours' rest, a busy hour, then some more rest. a relaxed start to the day, getting back on the right foot with my manager while simultaneously reinforcing (more tactfully) my previous sentiment, a solid day of work which would have been more successful had i not gotten stuck with some really stupid external issues
wednesday 23rd:
a rough night... you know you're exhausted when even yawning tires you out
it's nice to have a nurse come into your home, check out your kid and tell you you're doing a good job and that your kid's development's quite advanced for his age
a serious family outing via metro, great copper branch burger, and the woman who helps with mr smear arriving just fifteen minutes too early to be comfortable.
sleeping like the dead, fatherly responsibilities, the great chocolate distrust, two hours of struggle, heavy shopping, general hostility and an identity crisis (well, the same one i've been struggling with for months), getting mr smear to sleep very late
yesterday:
one relatively easy night session followed by waking up early to take care of mr smear alone for a couple of hours - he was either asleep or angry - with gd returning late due to another 20+ minute taxi wait
a little bit of work and then an hour having it out with nifty (see the beginning of this post)
a long afternoon of hard work resulting in beautiful code that really works well, leaving late but having done enough hours to take advantage of the last "summer hours" and feel a big "fuck you" today at lunchtime.
a calmer evening and some good sleep
today:
and a pre-6am wakeup (the thought that i love him so much in spite of these hours amazes me), chatting with my sister, gd's client offering us a steal of a great apartment (for next year), much cooler weather and a very awkward non-greeting to someone who seemed to be certain he recognized me (one of gd's clients)
...
i really need to not raise my voice no matter how stupid my coworkers are being. and i couldn't be more offended by nox's sarcastic tone when referring to me spending ten minutes identifying legacy / test code and removing it instead of wasting at least half an hour rewriting the same code in multiple (irrelevant) locations. i left at 1pm, and now that i've got all this out of my system it's time to get in touch with the recruiter for a company that would actually appreciate me if they'll have me.
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