My Last Wednesday at the Company, and Daffodils

Today was a little better.

I am writing up my teammates' last performance reviews, and I dislike the task. While there are plenty of agreeable things to say, I don't like being the 'voice of God,' judging the hard work of teammates and pointing out where they have not sufficiently set aside their personal struggles to deliver value to the company. Besides I want to start off everyone on an ideal footing with the new manager. And the performance reviews were a strong motive for me to leave the company anyway, because superimposed on every review I envision the faint outline of each teammate with a little dagger embedded in their back: in other words, it offends my sense of loyalty to my teammates. But the good thing is that it'll be over soon, at least for me.

That said, I was not feeling very well this morning. In the past weeks I've become disconcertingly woozy, short of breath, sleepy, and random other things at different points in the working day. Generally the source of the outbreak can be traced back to my work laptop and the stresses of the day, so at least there's no magic mystery there. This morning I was getting out of bed when I realized that my legs felt quite limp and heavy, thought 'I'm making a big mistake,' and felt like staying there and having a nice nap.

This is the usual drama-queen/lack-of-common-sense Venn diagram overlap where I'm thinking that while events make for a self-pitying blog post, maybe it would be wiser to make sure I don't have stuff like this to mention. Colleagues from the top management level through to anyone in my team would point out that maybe I should skip out the door faster or just take a sick day.

But... at this point there are only 16 working hours left and on Friday it'll probably be half that, so 12. In the interests of not having a weird reversal of expectations, I'd rather be working. What does make me feel bad is that given my physical state there was absolutely no way I wanted to cycle for 50 minutes to the office, even if people were hoping I'd show up at various points this week so we could say our goodbyes.

One meeting had a rather friendly outcome: I was flattered that my American manager said (in a hopeful tone) that the door was wide open if I'd like to re-join the company. It felt like a very concrete sign of professional approval. We also talked about forest fires on the Pacific Northwest coast, as a non-work-related topic that selfishly felt lighter to me.

That said, while I might rejoin the computer science field in a lower-stakes environment, the whole 'large stock-listed employer' phase of my life is definitely over, for the sakes both of sanity and of idealism.

In the evening, once the meetings were done, I had a lie-down. J. knocked at the door to kindly deliver a cup of coffee, however, so I decided to chat instead of nap. He told me that my pose reminded him of William Holden's character in Sabrina, during the inglorious recovery from the champagne glass incident.

Non-work things:

1. I'm watching the Canada Reads book competition.

2. On the piano, I'm playing a Bach cantata arranged by the German pianist Wilhelm Kempff. It's rather brooding and religious, but also satisfyingly straightforward and atmospheric. It was part of a Dussmann shopping spree after I made the fateful decision to change careers this year.

3. For lunch I cooked again: a type of failed egg foo yung with eggs, rice, green peas, and an onion.

4. Spring has sprung even more: Daffodils, the early tulips, an entire tree bedecked with tiny green leaves, crocuses even overblown, springy hyacinths. And the grocery store across the street had bundles of boxwood twigs, and bundles of forsythia branches, in the fruit and vegetable section.

5. For Friday, I've already bought vegan snacks to ensure that no one needs to be hungry at the team farewell party. Next up: Drinks, and on the day of, I'm hoping to put together a nice Italian cheese platter and to get cake. I think I'm still too exhausted to bake cake myself.

6. A job application to be social media coordinator for a non-governmental organization here in Berlin is pending.

7. I don't think I've mentioned on this blog yet that I'm hoping to freelance report on the Special Olympics Summer Games in Berlin this June. The ticket is purchased! Because I am not familiar with reporting on sports, or interviewing athletes and coaches, I've decided not to aim for a press pass.