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Dec. 8th, 2021 10:30 am
I spoke with Mom's (regular) hospice nurse on the phone, and she's given Mom a week at most. She asked if I planned to visit Mom before she passed, and while I said yes I...don't know if that's the best move at this point.
Her nursing home is dealing with a COVID outbreak at the moment, so it's unclear if they're even accepting visitors right now. According to last Friday's email, six residents and one staff have had positive tests. In addition to that, I've had direct contact with someone who also came up with a positive test after MFF. I'm going in for a test myself this afternoon and I really should self-quarantine until I get the results.
Hopefully the results will come by Thursday and I'll know what's happening by then. I'll still need to make sure the family is properly updated on everything, so that's a bit of extra time. Honestly, my head is kind of spinning with everything that needs to happen around this, so it's probably best practice to write things down in some kind of centralized location while I have the space to do so.
Folks at the day job have been incredibly, wonderfully supportive about all of this. It shouldn't be a problem to take a few hours here or there to wrap my brain around this, and I'm incredibly grateful for the light touch my managers are using. It's the end of the year, and I think we've reached a point in the calendar where people are just wrapping up projects and keeping one eye on the holidays. It's mercifully quiet this time of year.
Last weekend R. and I went to MFF -- our first con since the pandemic hit in March 2020. It was a really fun time, but also overwhelming. MFF was the largest furry convention in the world before things shut down, and even with reduced attendance there were so many people. The convention made it a point to make sure everyone in attendance had vaccination records, and face-masks were required at all times within the convention space; we thought that was a fair standard of risk mitigation, and R. really wanted to be there since it was the first con he could attend after his book's release.
I ended up spending most of my con time behind the publisher's table, helping them with sales. I honestly forgot how much I love selling books and chatting up people who also like reading, so I was in heaven most of the time. Standing on concrete for 8 - 10 hours wearing nothing but Converse shoes may have not been the smartest idea for my 41-year-old body, so I'll definitely be investing in more comfortable shoes for FC.
R. had a pretty good time, though alas, he wasn't quite able to get to the room parties he wanted. Still, we met great friends old and new, and our best online friends helped us ring in his birthday at Fogo de Chao on Saturday. On Sunday, we mostly took it easy and played Mario Party with a couple friends that night.
Conventions are...increasingly different for me as I get older. I'm happy to meet new friends, of course, but I'm spending a lot less time in panels or public spaces. I don't go in for those mammoth group dinners. And I have no interest in room parties where 50 people are crammed into a room. I much rather have a more introverted social calendar, where I meet folks in a controlled setting (like a dealer's table) and hang out with a few folks at a time. It's so much easier to have good meaningful conversations that way. This con kind of proved that I'm mostly freed from the curse of FOMO. I can curate my own experience, and even though it's a bit slower than the typical congoer's dance card, I'm content with that.
I really don't know how far I want to go with this, but it feels like there's a bit of a gap in the furry book review/promotion space and I'd like to fill it. That means reading a LOT more furry fiction, which isn't bad in itself, but it also means cultivating relationships with a lot more furry writers, publishers, and critics. That's a bit trickier; furry writers are a notoriously idiosyncratic bunch and a lot of the personalities just rub me the wrong way. I think it's mostly the way folks mask insecurity and fear under this smarmy layer of self-aggrandizement. Writing is a very hard thing to do, especially in small and relatively tight-knit groups like this one. I wish people had a bit more grace with each other and trusted our community to be more supportive in the face of inexperience. But it's also possible that my sense of what's "good" might be slipping and younger generations just have a different framework for judging these things. Either way, it would be a good idea to engage with the space a bit more -- keeping mindful of being less judgemental and more open to whatever I find there.
So, my day job. A couple weeks ago my manager asked if I were still interested in a community manager position for our Scholarships team. A(nother) member of that team would be leaving and they would need to fill the position quickly. I indicated interest, and got the position in about a week! Another employee was fast-tracked to backfill my position in Student Support, so now suddenly I'm in a whole different space.
I'm excited because community management demands a skill-set I've always wanted to refine. I love the idea of fostering community and helping people find their own abilities through it. I can take the lessons learned here out into the rest of my hobbies -- tabletop gaming, furry writing, activism. It definitely feels like a chance to level myself up and get closer to my 'ikegai'. At the same time, it also feels inherently more risky.
Our Scholarships business unit feels especially volatile right now, and while there's a lot going for the space we could just as easily pivot in a different direction as a company. Depending on how well we do achieving the objectives of our business partners, we could provide a pretty big benefit for the company as whole. But there's also a high likelihood it'll end up being a position that's mostly invisible until something goes horribly wrong. Who knows?
The timing of the switch also affects my salary raise in Q1 of next year as well as my bonus payout. Chances are good that I'll receive less than I did last year due to the fact my job level is lower than before (IC1 instead of IC2), and the raise may be non-existent since I will have spent less than a month in my new position by the time the review comes around. Nevertheless, I'll be putting together a pretty strong 'best-of' package for the review this year. I know my worth, and I know the good I've done.
Her nursing home is dealing with a COVID outbreak at the moment, so it's unclear if they're even accepting visitors right now. According to last Friday's email, six residents and one staff have had positive tests. In addition to that, I've had direct contact with someone who also came up with a positive test after MFF. I'm going in for a test myself this afternoon and I really should self-quarantine until I get the results.
Hopefully the results will come by Thursday and I'll know what's happening by then. I'll still need to make sure the family is properly updated on everything, so that's a bit of extra time. Honestly, my head is kind of spinning with everything that needs to happen around this, so it's probably best practice to write things down in some kind of centralized location while I have the space to do so.
Folks at the day job have been incredibly, wonderfully supportive about all of this. It shouldn't be a problem to take a few hours here or there to wrap my brain around this, and I'm incredibly grateful for the light touch my managers are using. It's the end of the year, and I think we've reached a point in the calendar where people are just wrapping up projects and keeping one eye on the holidays. It's mercifully quiet this time of year.
Last weekend R. and I went to MFF -- our first con since the pandemic hit in March 2020. It was a really fun time, but also overwhelming. MFF was the largest furry convention in the world before things shut down, and even with reduced attendance there were so many people. The convention made it a point to make sure everyone in attendance had vaccination records, and face-masks were required at all times within the convention space; we thought that was a fair standard of risk mitigation, and R. really wanted to be there since it was the first con he could attend after his book's release.
I ended up spending most of my con time behind the publisher's table, helping them with sales. I honestly forgot how much I love selling books and chatting up people who also like reading, so I was in heaven most of the time. Standing on concrete for 8 - 10 hours wearing nothing but Converse shoes may have not been the smartest idea for my 41-year-old body, so I'll definitely be investing in more comfortable shoes for FC.
R. had a pretty good time, though alas, he wasn't quite able to get to the room parties he wanted. Still, we met great friends old and new, and our best online friends helped us ring in his birthday at Fogo de Chao on Saturday. On Sunday, we mostly took it easy and played Mario Party with a couple friends that night.
Conventions are...increasingly different for me as I get older. I'm happy to meet new friends, of course, but I'm spending a lot less time in panels or public spaces. I don't go in for those mammoth group dinners. And I have no interest in room parties where 50 people are crammed into a room. I much rather have a more introverted social calendar, where I meet folks in a controlled setting (like a dealer's table) and hang out with a few folks at a time. It's so much easier to have good meaningful conversations that way. This con kind of proved that I'm mostly freed from the curse of FOMO. I can curate my own experience, and even though it's a bit slower than the typical congoer's dance card, I'm content with that.
I really don't know how far I want to go with this, but it feels like there's a bit of a gap in the furry book review/promotion space and I'd like to fill it. That means reading a LOT more furry fiction, which isn't bad in itself, but it also means cultivating relationships with a lot more furry writers, publishers, and critics. That's a bit trickier; furry writers are a notoriously idiosyncratic bunch and a lot of the personalities just rub me the wrong way. I think it's mostly the way folks mask insecurity and fear under this smarmy layer of self-aggrandizement. Writing is a very hard thing to do, especially in small and relatively tight-knit groups like this one. I wish people had a bit more grace with each other and trusted our community to be more supportive in the face of inexperience. But it's also possible that my sense of what's "good" might be slipping and younger generations just have a different framework for judging these things. Either way, it would be a good idea to engage with the space a bit more -- keeping mindful of being less judgemental and more open to whatever I find there.
So, my day job. A couple weeks ago my manager asked if I were still interested in a community manager position for our Scholarships team. A(nother) member of that team would be leaving and they would need to fill the position quickly. I indicated interest, and got the position in about a week! Another employee was fast-tracked to backfill my position in Student Support, so now suddenly I'm in a whole different space.
I'm excited because community management demands a skill-set I've always wanted to refine. I love the idea of fostering community and helping people find their own abilities through it. I can take the lessons learned here out into the rest of my hobbies -- tabletop gaming, furry writing, activism. It definitely feels like a chance to level myself up and get closer to my 'ikegai'. At the same time, it also feels inherently more risky.
Our Scholarships business unit feels especially volatile right now, and while there's a lot going for the space we could just as easily pivot in a different direction as a company. Depending on how well we do achieving the objectives of our business partners, we could provide a pretty big benefit for the company as whole. But there's also a high likelihood it'll end up being a position that's mostly invisible until something goes horribly wrong. Who knows?
The timing of the switch also affects my salary raise in Q1 of next year as well as my bonus payout. Chances are good that I'll receive less than I did last year due to the fact my job level is lower than before (IC1 instead of IC2), and the raise may be non-existent since I will have spent less than a month in my new position by the time the review comes around. Nevertheless, I'll be putting together a pretty strong 'best-of' package for the review this year. I know my worth, and I know the good I've done.
