03/18/2025 - Rollercoaster
Today's Rating: 6/10
Song of the Day: Welcome to the Internet - Bo Burnham
Current Book: Revenge of the Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell
Yesterday was a rollercoaster of emotions for me due to two main things that happened and how they inter-played.
First, I woke up with a strange pain in my right elbow that while not major was very annoying to deal with (it mostly hurts when I rotate my forearm to the left or right extremities). It really surprised me since, to my knowledge, I had not done anything to actually injure it, but I guess I'm starting to get to that age. I got out of bed and got my coffee to start working for the day. I did not have a ton planned for the day at my actual job which was nice.
After logging on, I took care of a couple of service requests which I thought would be the extent of my day (more on this in a bit). Since my day was light, I started watching "Inside" by Bo Burnham on Netflix since I've been on a Bo Burnham kick the last few days. I'm not sure what it implies that I appreciate/enjoy the special so much more than when I originally watched it in 2021. However, about an hour into the special, I got interrupted by a mistake that past Austin had made (I really hate that guy). I had tried to be helpful.... For context, my project consists of many teams, and some of these teams manage products that are shared by other teams. In this case, a client was having issues with one of the shared products, and the engineer assigned to the ticket (not me or my team) needed some additional information. I figured I'd be helpful and give him some details. This was about a week ago, and I never heard anything more about it until yesterday. All of a sudden, I get pulled into a chat by another engineer about this "critical ticket" that I had "previously worked on". That same engineer who pulled me in proceeded to not say anything the rest of the time.
I ended up helping out some, but the actual issue was resolved (like so many of these "critical tickets") by the client itself. I then got pulled into another chat where nobody knew what the status of the overall effort was. One thing about me is that I take super detailed notes on stories/tickets so that I can reflect on them if needed. I've found this incredibly useful in the amnesiac environment that I work in as people will quickly try to do anything to avoid any work/responsibility. I checked my notes on the ticket and informed them we were waiting for them to get a new certificate, but they acted as if this was news to them. This conversation eventually devolved into that my team (aka me) should find a workaround so they don't need the cert. I guess I have that to look forward to tomorrow.
Around this time, I had an interview for a new job. I won't go into too many specifics here, but the job seems exciting and I think that the interview went well. I'm giving this the highest honor future events can have for me: tentatively hopeful. The interview was scheduled for 30 minutes but lasted for an hour which I've typically heard is a good sign. After the interview, I had a ton of nervous energy coursing through me, but I needed to catch back up on the work I'd missed over the last hour. I put in my time there until Maddie got home.
Unfortunately, this is where the "rollercoaster" started. I've noticed in myself that if I have too much nervous energy that I need a place to dispense of that. On any other day, I would have gone and played tennis to get rid of it. However, due to my elbow, I decided that was not the best idea. The next best solution was a walk, but I really wanted someone to talk to on that walk. Since Maddie is allergic to outside, I ended up calling my mom (who was already on the way to my house funnily enough).
We had a pleasant but short walk. After that, we decided to get dinner out a local Mexican restaurant. It was rather good. Unfortunately, they decided to go to Target after that for what felt like 6 hours.
Finally, we left Target and headed home for the night. I finished "Inside" while Maddie showered. I also finished my book last night. I really enjoyed it and the insights that it conveyed about how society shapes epidemics/pandemics of multiple kinds (not just diseases). I'm planning on reading the original book starting tomorrow.
Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow!