Black Friday

No, I didn’t go shopping. I worked. I worked yesterday too.

I’ll work tomorrow and Sunday. All of this is most unfortunate because I had a series of conference calls and email round-robins with folks as early as July, and yet no one figured out until about a week ago that *something* needed to be done, and apparently it’s me with a huge S on my chest, for “Super” or “Something” or “Silly”, because I’m doing it. By “it” I mean cramming about 7 days worth of work into a 3-day period.

In honor of this momentous occasion, and the fact that by virtue of working I completely missed the two things I was going to purchase on Black Friday (1, I’m in Arizona; 2, the online sales I was after were apparently on Eastern Standard Time and I just finished working for the day. It’s 11pm local), I give you optimism.

Or pessimism.

This all started with a fridge. I’m at my parents house in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they have two refrigerators. One in the kitchen, and one in an anteroom. This isn’t uncommon but what *is* is that both fridges are completely stocked. My mother could be Mormon if she wanted to be; the secondary fridge is stocked with flours and cereals and spare juice and all kinds of things. As we played Tetris to get the Thanksgiving leftovers put away, I remarked that most people’s fridges are only half-full.

Which started, in my head, all of the ways people look at things. I want you to know that between this and distributing a 10-figure sum I stayed up late last night with insomnia.

• Optimist: the glass is half full.
• Pessimist: the glass is half empty.
• Realist: it’s a glass of water.
• Engineer: the glass is too big for the water it contains.
• Project Manager: we overspec’d the glass, just in case.
• My counterpart in Europe: Over here, we say it differently, and we’ve been drinking longer.
• My counterpart in Asia Pacific: Our glasses are a bit more engineered than yours, you may want to stick with yours.
• QA Tester: hey, look, you told us to drink from it, but there is no use case for measuring how much water is in there.
• UAT Tester: so, just the one glass, then?
• End User: damn, it would’ve been great if the glass was pink.
• Trader Joe’s Employee: you know, I have a glass just like this at home, and I like to fill it with…
• My son’s Principal: I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the glass and its contents…
• My son: well, you see, I tried to make the glass out of Legos, but it couldn’t hold enough water, which is why there’s only what you see there, and if IronMan/Tony Stark made it, it would have had this cool gun on it…
• My stepmother: you should drink more water.
• My mother: that glass should be filled with wine.
• My dog: if the glass has water in it maybe she’ll go to the kitchen to put more water in it and bring me bacon.
• My postmaster: Are you sure this is your glass? (In reference to the question marks I often get appearing on letters to not-necessarily-me-but-people-I-traffic-mail-for)
• My stick-shift driving instructor: The important thing to note about the glass is how it sounds different as you drink from it.
• My best friend: I’m with your mom on the wine thing.
• My boyfriend: I’m with your best friend on that. Well, not *with* her, I mean honey, I’m really with you, and whatever you want is fine with me. It’s your glass and I support your choices.
• My boss: Water, huh? You may want to switch that to coffee after this next meeting.
• My skip level: Can I get a 3-or-4 slide deck, nothing big, with a complete analysis of the glass?
• TSA Agent: put the glass on the belt, walk through here, and yes there may be less water by the time we’re done.
• Alton Brown: Water is two hydrogens bonded to an oxygen at a 112 degree covalent bond angle, which explains why it boils/freezes/makes a good base/etc… blah blah blah science meets yummy food.
• Virtuous Person at Work: is that all the water you’re drinking? I have this 128 ounce BHA free stainless bottle that I tote while riding the bus and bringing in my lunch when not riding my bike the 25 miles in.

and lastly, I give you my father:

• Drink the goddamn glass of water already.