Supporting two local businesses

On Saturday, a couple of cool things happened to me. Both deal with small local businesses.

For one business, it had a campaign that invited folks to suggest new flavours for teas and shakes that have no to low sugar. I suggested German chocolate cake. The business tested out the flavour suggestions, and names one tea and one shake after the person who suggested it. I now have a German chocolate cake shake named after me. It's on the place's permanent menu starting on Monday.

I am thrilled to bits to have a menu item named after me. 

The second business is closing its store and strictly operating online to save costs. Its last day is today before the store closes down for good. I went there to visit it one last time.

I am a loyal customer. It's to the point where the owner recognizes me when I walk in and knows my name. 

We had a good chat today. I bought a sugar cookie in the past and she asked me whether I enjoyed it. She also showed me a secret project that she's working on. It was lovely to get that inside scoop from her. I am excited for what she will be offering down the road.

Although I'll miss dropping by this store, I am happy that it's still in business and I can continue supporting it.

Trying out my Google Nest Mini

I have been chipping away at little projects around the house that I have put aside. It was a combination of not spending a lot of time at home and not being motivated.

Two months ago, I got a Google Nest Mini for free. I received in the mail and kept it in its box all this time.

Last night, I decided to give it a whirl. It plays my music fine. I can ask it to play my music and tell me what the weather forecast is. It works like my Alexa speaker.

It would be interesting to pit them together and see if they can converse with each other.

Good things came in threes for me

The year is winding down at work. I got a bunch of gifts on Thursday.

A project manager thanked me for my hard work recently. She got me a Belgian chocolate cake. I was feeling chilled and not the best yesterday, so I'll eat the cake when I am back to my normal self. I thanked her for the kind gesture.

A colleague got me chocolates. Yum!

Finally, my manager gave me a bunch of points towards anything at our online store. He thanked me for my efforts getting five software releases out the door within the last three weeks.

No wonder I felt under the weather yesterday. Work has just been weighing me down. Today is my last workday before I go on vacation. Yay!

Dreaming about my guy and being together

When I miss my guy, I dream about him. It happened to me last night.

I don't recall all the details. I just remember him saying that he loves me and lovingly holding me. I woke up happy and loved.

He's doing well. He's spending a ton of time on a new project. It's like my trying to figure out how new applications work. We simply need to find some time to see each other.

Change at work

It has been a week of change at work. To make an extremely long story short, a major project is coming to an end. It means that there are a ton of folks who are looking for projects to do.

On a good note, there is a new project. However, the company has far too many folks for it that layoffs are likely going to happen, which is sad.

I am fortunate to not be directly involved in this project that is going away. I am unaffected personally, but my team is impacted.

My boss had a talk with me on Thursday. He wants to let the newish incompetent woman go. There is now a colleague who is free to step in and replace her. We'll see if this change works out.

It's always sad to see a colleague go, but it's the best for everyone's mental health and sanity, including my own.

Attractive manager, and handjobs and blowjobs

I have a love-hate relationship with my current job position. I love training folks and working with students. I like research. I dislike incompetence and my huge workload. That's nothing new.

I was talking about it with my guy. We both don't exactly like the company's direction. We just grin and bear it.

My guy still urges me to continue finding employment elsewhere. I pointed out that I have not had a standard-of-living raise within the last two years. I have not received a bonus within the last three years.

I am currently dealing with a new project manager who thinks that she knows everything. Yet, she chimes into e-mails, which is irrelevant and adds more grief than necessary. She then flips it around to indicate that I seem unclear. Whatever. The proof is within the e-mail transcript that she is delusional.

She has set up a meeting for me to step through two documents for a final review with folks. I find it a waste of time, as we went through a first round of reviews. She can step people through it. After all, it's her meeting. I don't need to be there to walk folks through documents. People can read. She can handle this walk-through exercise, since she knows everything. Yes, read that last sentence with sarcasm.

She is a horrible communicator. I don't know where we get such incompetent project managers. Naturally, my manager just sits there and does nothing. It's probably because I have been handling everything well on my own.

Anyway, my guy and I had this chat about the situation.

"I think that it's great that you are looking for employment, as not getting any salary raise is not ideal," he sympathized.
"Yes, I haven't stopped. I just haven't found the right job," I noted.
"Fair enough. Once you find an attractive job, you can make your move," he agreed.
"If you were my attractive manager, I would definitely work for you. You'd have a job for me. A hand job, at least," I said.
"If I were your manager, we'd be doing a ton of jobs, like handjobs and blowjobs," he said.

It's nice when we incorporate some teasing and role-playing into our serious conversations.

Planning tasks - from a list to a spreadsheet

Last week, I was asked by my manager to put together a high-level project plan. I tend to be pretty good when it comes to providing a list of tasks (milestones) and planning work that needs to be done.

My manager does everything in an Excel spreadsheet. When I am gathering my thoughts, I prefer lists. OneNote is my friend. I do my lists there and use checkboxes indicating whether such tasks are completed or are ongoing.

He seemed fine with my list. It makes porting my tasks over to Excel much easier.

Even though I felt like I hadn't done a ton of work on this project plan, I actually did. He was pleased, which made me happy that I had pulled it off.

It's a good thing that I am a planner by nature. Otherwise, I would have been a nervous wreck having this discussion with him.