A Little Uplift
At work today I had one of my few truly positive experiences of the last several days of my life, when my boss came in and we chatted about the recently-completed development cycle. It was one of those frank, "just the facts" discussions which made me feel at ease about what I feel was one of my less-exemplary periods in my job. I think my boss has more sympathy for and understanding of my position as the longest-standing programmer on my team than I do, since he seems to perceive challenges that I grapple with that seem to me like amorphous elements of a General State of Anxiety.
For the rest of the morning, I felt more positive about where I stand at work. My boss and I go back and forth about a lot of things on which we disagree - lately, a lot of it has to do with time management, both the team's and my own - which gets to be a real drag after a while. It's always a lot nicer when we can speak frankly in situations like this, without a deadline breathing down our neck, and joke around as necessary. (Our senses of humor play off each other nicely.)
The only downers during the work day were going to a restaurant for lunch and find it's closed on Mondays, and going to the gaming store to get some primer and finding that there's some sort of "national primer shortage", apparently due to the popularity of miniatures games like Warhammer and the sluggishness of paint companies to keep up. Ah, well.
I usually don't go to the coffee shop during the week, but I've felt the urge to go this week, for whatever reason. Getting a table is challenging at this time of year, but I've lucked out each of the last two nights; I even got one right beneath a light, tonight! Two of the most attractive staff members were working tonight, too (oink, oink).
I've made a good dent in The Uplift War as a result of this. I like it a lot better than Startide Rising, so far; the characters are more vivid, the cultural issues far more interesting, and the neo-chimps are a lot more entertaining than those tiresome dolphins. I'm not convinced it will turn out to be any more consequential than its predecessor, but the ride is more fun.
If I keep this up, I'll soon be back on my book-a-week reading pace!
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