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morbaneI haven't been good at this lately or perhaps ever but some unexpected (ed: and completely unidentifiable) catalyst has spurred me on to make a record of some important things in the last two years.
March 2020-January 2021: My close friend P arrived back in the country as we went into lockdown and came to stay with me.
2020: Fortress New Zealand. Many lockdowns, many periods of relative normalcy except at the borders. My office started a writing group, which was great, but I mostly remember it now for the strange disconnect of meeting together in a room to critique each other's poetry when that would have been absolutely unthinkable for a lot of the rest of the world. I did a lot of work for the editing team that is adjacent to my own team, of which the absurd peak was possibly staying up all night on April 20 working on law relating to cannabis.
Mid-2020 to third quarter: A certain fandom-related obsession involving vindictiveness and spreadsheets. Don't ask, it really consumed me at the time. It did not make me better at spreadsheets. Or R.
November 2020: My grandmother, my last remaining grandparent, died. I am so grateful that she was not alone - my aunt was with her.
First quarter 2021: A small but significant wave of retirements at my job: three people left who had trained me since my start in 2015, and gave great depth to the team.
Mid-2021: Joel and I went on a holiday to Picton and Christchurch for our ten-year wedding anniversary, and it was lovely, especially Picton. My temporary manager tapped me to be the lead trainer to a new hire. That probably doesn't sound like a huge deal? But it was a huge deal to me. D, however, was an utterly delightful person and the easiest possible new person to train - smart, good-humoured, even-keeled, able to articulate when he was struggling so that we could look at other approaches.
Late 2021: My temporary manager finished his term. One of my other teammates stepped up to manage, thank goodness.
January 2022: Spent a week in Auckland and saw my parents for the first time in way too long. It was good.
February-March 2022: Brazenly asked my job if I could work remotely from Auckland for two weeks because, again, that had been too long without parental catch-up. Now it was my turn to stay with P, in her beautiful art deco flat in the shadow of beloved Mt Eden | Maungawhau. I want to write a longer post about that sometime but it was such a good and cherished time, even though Omicron was getting a terrifying grip on the country and Russia had just invaded Ukraine and there were antivaxxers besieging Parliament. I stayed up until stupid hours and spent all my free time not taken up with family in reading works in![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fffx & a friend's novel and it was a strange golden time. Also we still can't figure out how I lost my wallet.
May 2022: New temporary manager left to pursue his dream librarianship career. !!! No one at work wanted to do it.
You can probably see where this is going.
So less than a year elapsed between:
Me: oh wow, training a new person is such a big responsibility, I hope I don't let them down!
Me: expletive expletive expletive I guess if it's meant to be fixed term I can do a slightly better job in the next six months than someone external who has managing experience but no understanding of the team's work
So now I'm a manager. I immediately had to conduct performance reviews with 10 staff whom I thought of as peers. And conduct hiring interviews. And take part in the massive office change initiatives which started the same day as managing. And I suspect that all of my party talk will be MANAGING this year, which does not make me any more boring than I usually am at parties.
Also that delightful new person who gave me such a confidence boost last year - just left to pursue HIS dream job. Damnit.
June 2022: Coming back to quite a different tone... We had to put Ria down. She was acting more and more like a little old lady cat, but she was doing great until suddenly she wasn't. That hurt a lot - we were privileged to have her for almost ten years since we got her at ~6 years old from the shelter. She emanated more love than the sun emanates light. I know she knew she was loved, too.
August 2022: I want to remember this too: I had a really nice weekend away with my close friend S and a couple more of her friends on the shores of Lake Tarawera. That also could do with a post, but it won't get one.
I'm generally making a hash of this, but to anyone who's read this far, thanks for reading. I'm glad to connect with you. Tell me what colours you picture when you picture a sunset (more than one variety of sunset is welcome).
March 2020-January 2021: My close friend P arrived back in the country as we went into lockdown and came to stay with me.
2020: Fortress New Zealand. Many lockdowns, many periods of relative normalcy except at the borders. My office started a writing group, which was great, but I mostly remember it now for the strange disconnect of meeting together in a room to critique each other's poetry when that would have been absolutely unthinkable for a lot of the rest of the world. I did a lot of work for the editing team that is adjacent to my own team, of which the absurd peak was possibly staying up all night on April 20 working on law relating to cannabis.
Mid-2020 to third quarter: A certain fandom-related obsession involving vindictiveness and spreadsheets. Don't ask, it really consumed me at the time. It did not make me better at spreadsheets. Or R.
November 2020: My grandmother, my last remaining grandparent, died. I am so grateful that she was not alone - my aunt was with her.
First quarter 2021: A small but significant wave of retirements at my job: three people left who had trained me since my start in 2015, and gave great depth to the team.
Mid-2021: Joel and I went on a holiday to Picton and Christchurch for our ten-year wedding anniversary, and it was lovely, especially Picton. My temporary manager tapped me to be the lead trainer to a new hire. That probably doesn't sound like a huge deal? But it was a huge deal to me. D, however, was an utterly delightful person and the easiest possible new person to train - smart, good-humoured, even-keeled, able to articulate when he was struggling so that we could look at other approaches.
Late 2021: My temporary manager finished his term. One of my other teammates stepped up to manage, thank goodness.
January 2022: Spent a week in Auckland and saw my parents for the first time in way too long. It was good.
February-March 2022: Brazenly asked my job if I could work remotely from Auckland for two weeks because, again, that had been too long without parental catch-up. Now it was my turn to stay with P, in her beautiful art deco flat in the shadow of beloved Mt Eden | Maungawhau. I want to write a longer post about that sometime but it was such a good and cherished time, even though Omicron was getting a terrifying grip on the country and Russia had just invaded Ukraine and there were antivaxxers besieging Parliament. I stayed up until stupid hours and spent all my free time not taken up with family in reading works in
fffx & a friend's novel and it was a strange golden time. Also we still can't figure out how I lost my wallet.May 2022: New temporary manager left to pursue his dream librarianship career. !!! No one at work wanted to do it.
You can probably see where this is going.
So less than a year elapsed between:
Me: oh wow, training a new person is such a big responsibility, I hope I don't let them down!
Me: expletive expletive expletive I guess if it's meant to be fixed term I can do a slightly better job in the next six months than someone external who has managing experience but no understanding of the team's work
So now I'm a manager. I immediately had to conduct performance reviews with 10 staff whom I thought of as peers. And conduct hiring interviews. And take part in the massive office change initiatives which started the same day as managing. And I suspect that all of my party talk will be MANAGING this year, which does not make me any more boring than I usually am at parties.
Also that delightful new person who gave me such a confidence boost last year - just left to pursue HIS dream job. Damnit.
June 2022: Coming back to quite a different tone... We had to put Ria down. She was acting more and more like a little old lady cat, but she was doing great until suddenly she wasn't. That hurt a lot - we were privileged to have her for almost ten years since we got her at ~6 years old from the shelter. She emanated more love than the sun emanates light. I know she knew she was loved, too.
August 2022: I want to remember this too: I had a really nice weekend away with my close friend S and a couple more of her friends on the shores of Lake Tarawera. That also could do with a post, but it won't get one.
I'm generally making a hash of this, but to anyone who's read this far, thanks for reading. I'm glad to connect with you. Tell me what colours you picture when you picture a sunset (more than one variety of sunset is welcome).
no subject
Date: 2022-09-17 05:01 pm (UTC)My sunsets have a lot of red in them but then I'm picturing the highly changeable weather over England.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-18 06:30 am (UTC)