I’m Neurotic and So Am I – Page 4

Silver Linings

March 8, 2012 BobbieLeave a comment

The last 24 hours have unquestionably been a series of Silver Linings. (Note: I’m on a plane – leg 3 of a 3 leg sojourn to Heathrow – so I finally get to blog).

My day started on Monday, March 5^th at about 4:30am. That’s when the eyeballs snapped open and steadfastly refused to close. Not being able to sleep is, I think we can all agree, a bad thing; but if it happens on a Monday morning you can at least attend to the deluge of email that Europe’s and Asia’s Monday morning delivered. Silver lining number one, then: clean(ish) email inbox before I hit the office.

I got the boy to school to discover he was the recipient of a C-slip on Friday afternoon but due to the last-minute nature of it the C-slip would not be sent home until Monday (a C-slip is a “Communication slip” – if you have inferred the communication is rarely positive you are correct. Typically C-slips are to indicate behaviors the school would like to stop, now, please. For example: chasing one’s classmate with a pencil). I spent the day agonizing that I had let the boy child have TV on Sunday night because I didn’t know of the infraction, only to discover (when I finally had a chance to talk to him) that he had already ‘fessed up at his father’s house and punishment had been delivered. Silver lining number two: he didn’t attempt to hide it and instead demonstrated true remorse and honesty.

At the point I entered the office I was 3 conference calls in, with no coffee; I stepped into the office of a colleague to discover she was leaving the company (she is a wonderful asset to the company and she’s been around for years and years). She is doing this to spend more time with her family – not because of any real dissatisfaction. Fair enough: silver lining number three – she made the right choice for herself and there is no argument with Family First.

The workday was about on-par for a Monday (which is saying both a lot and very little), and I went to retrieve the boy child so we could go hang up Science Fair posters at the school. I thought this would take a long time, but it turns out the opportunity to spend time with him NOT doing homework or study or projects was incredibly welcome, and he took great pride in his taping skills. Plus, we finished early (and hello Silver lining number four).

We got to karate where he has steadfastly opined that he dislikes all Sempais and only wishes to train with the Sensei. Sensei is travelling back home so we had a Sempai: Silver lining number five was that my son has now declared that “THAT Sempai is okay. I like him.”

Dinner cooked mercifully in short time, I actually got to spend time with my son before I left (technically after his bed time). I rolled into SeaTac feeling especially reticent to fly and discovered that my flight was delayed 3 hours, meaning I would MISS my connecting flight at Dulles. I was rebooked to a flight that left at the same time for O’Hare, which would then meet up with a second flight for Dulles, to catch my third to Heathrow. At this point, all restaurants (even the Starbucks and the bars) at the airports are closed, and I have just enough time to get through security (where I got the complete feel-up even though I went through the perv machine) and catch my new flight.

I know what you’re thinking…. Where’s the silver lining there?

It’s here: my flight to Chicago was practically empty and I didn’t share a seat with anyone; I could stretch out and sleep.

My flight to Dulles was also practically empty and I could stretch out (across 3 seats!) and sleep.

And I type this now from my flight to Heathrow. Incidentally it’s the same flight the Seattle folks were trying to make and wouldn’t have; as a result I have changed my window seat for a middle/middle… with no one on either side of me. I have three seats to sleep in, work at, eat at, and I can watch 3 different TV programs if I was so inclined (I am not, however).

There are a lot of things of late that have me deliberately looking for silver linings: continued adventures in civil court, an overactive volunteering gland resulting in a very intricate Outlook calendar, the increasing realization that time moves much more quickly than it did when I was younger and there’s a definite crest to this hill. I am very glad, then, that I can still find them.

The Hazards of Knowing Not Enough

January 21, 2012 BobbieLeave a comment

Every year, I go through this work frenzy as the holidays arrive, and every year, I unreasonably think that things will be magically calm and collected come 1 January. It’s a pipe dream, and it’s been a consistent one of mine for the last 8 years. It never, ever works out that way. If insanity is doing the same things over again and expecting a different result, then I’m clearly insane. This year the frenzy is exacerbated by bold new initiatives and moves within the company, a couple of reorganizational moves, a shift in focus, and the realization that I will never, every clear out my email queue. It was not helped by 3 days of snow, one of which without internet. This is all by way of explanation to the extremely weird mood I was in today, and what it resulted in, which has left me most thoughtful, if not slightly irritated at the time I wasted.

As the snow is melting I’m back in the office, with a quick trip to run errands, and one of those was the post office. At said post office there were two warmly-dressed folks, mid-30’s, with posters of our President, with a Hitler moustache. Now, I’ve seen these before, when I went down to Olympia for Focus Day last year (and will be there again this year!), and at a couple of grocery stores. I get that they are exercising their Free Speech* rights and that’s cool — democracy is the celebration of all of the freedoms, not just the ones you like.

As I went in to the Post Office I realized I had left my phone in the car, so I went back to the car to retrieve it. Upon opening the door the man said, “We’re over here!” to me, and I looked up and said, “Yes, I know”, and proceeded to rummage through my car for my phone (it wasn’t there, I had left it at home, which is a frustrating thing). “They’re trying to kill us,” he said, and I made a very big mistake here. I asked, “Who?”

Man: “Obama and the Republicans. They got together with the banks and are trying to kill us!”

Me: “So, a Democrat president and a Republican congress got together with the banks to… kill us?”

Man: “Yeah!”

Me: “The government can’t even deliver the mail properly.”

Man: “That doesn’t matter. They’re trying to kill us!”

Me: “…”

Man: “The Russians are putting up a colony on the moon. They’ve announced it.”

Me: “Okay, how is *that* a bad thing?”

Man: “It isn’t!”

Me: “I don’t understand where you’re going with this? Kennedy said in ’62 we’d get to the Moon and did, now the Russians are going to build a colony — wouldn’t that drive innovation? Isn’t that a good thing?”

Man: “It’s not about that!”

Me: “Did you vote?”

Man: “It’s not about that!”

Me: “Yes it is. There are two ways to change things in this country. You vote, or you vote with your feet.”

Man: “Politics is not about personalities.”

Me: (Internally: WTF?)

Me: “You just said politics is not about personalities…”

Man: “Yeah!”

Me: “You’ve pasted a Hitler moustache on the President… aren’t you evoking a personality for that?”

Man: “No, it’s because he’s trying to kill us!”

Me: “I think you need to work on your message.”

Man: (sarcastically) “Oh you win!”

From here I walked into the post office thinking that aside from opening my mouth (mistake one) was that I thought this person wanted to actually engage in any sort of discussion or debate. He’s mad, he’s pissed, and he’s probably got just enough information to be dangerous but not effective (like most of the rest of us). Spending any amount of time discussing it with him was leaving me lost, and clearly leaving him frustrated. A waste of time for both of us, and that’s a shame.

I got my stamps, exited, and his female companion (compatriot? Colleague?) smiled at me. She asked if I wanted a flyer and I said No, indicating I think she probably already knew that. She said she didn’t.

I’m not sure if there’s training around this sort of communication technique but it can’t be one of persuasion — only confusion. Which is quite ironic, as that appears to be part of their chief complaint.

*ME: big fan of Free Speech, and *all* that it entails. But there’s a certain amount of explanation that goes with Free Speech — it means people can say all kinds of things that you don’t like. Now, if they say stuff about YOU and it isn’t true then it’s slander and you can prosecute (Obscenity and Libel make the cut, too). But Free Speech means they can scream at the top of their lungs about something you don’t like or agree with, and you have to deal, and vice-versa. If someone wants to paste the facial hair of a bloody mass murderer on a photo of the President — and this is not the first President to get that treatment — then I can’t do anything to stop them. It’s their right. There is no compulsion on my part, however, to agree with them, and I should’ve simply ignored them. That’ll learn me.

Winning, Losing, and Persuasion: Getting Spock and your Proto Human in Line

December 21, 2011December 22, 2011 Bobbie1 Comment

No one likes to lose. This is one of those things that someone actually did a scientific study on, and the rest of us are sitting here wondering who got a grant funded for that. But it’s true: no one likes to lose; and our fear of losing is GREATER than our joy in winning.

To wit: Let’s say I have you pick a coin out of your pocket; a quarter or a euro or a shilling. It’s your coin, so it’s your choice. Now let’s say I propose the following bet: every time that coin flips to “heads”, I pay you $10. Every time it flips to “tails”, you pay me $1. You will take that bet (statistically speaking, that is, most people will).

Now let’s say I keep your potential win still at $10, but your loss at $2. You’ll like it less, but you’ll still take the bet. Most people drop off when the potential loss is $4. Their rationale is this: $4 is a significant percentage of their potential win. This makes sense.

Until you realize a coin toss is a 50-50 chance, each time.

For example, let’s say you take the $4 version of the bet (you’re brave like that). We flip the coin 10 times, each time with a 50% chance of hitting “heads”. Over a large enough data set that means chances are pretty decent that you will have 5 wins and 5 losses; so you’d “win” $50 and “lose” $20. In short, you’d net positive just for playing, by $30.

In theory, it’s a good bet up to values of $10 on win and $9 on lose (you’d still be ahead $5). However, people do not behave this way. The urge to *avoid losing* will actually lead people to make unwise economic decisions. (Actually, this goes far beyond economy – some people will make unwise OTHER decisions just to avoid their notion of what “losing” is).

Evolutionarily speaking this makes sense: say you’re a proto-human and you’re ambling about in the jungles/desert/savannah/etc. You see a flock of birds take off in the distance with no audible warning. You either : 1. Bet they got a wild hair and just decided to up and fly, or 2. Bet there’s a predator nearby and amble your way to the nearest tree, just in case.

The person who bet #1 would likely DIE each time they bet wrongly. The person betting #2 would still live if they bet right or wrong. And so we learn that “losing” – betting wrong, making poor decisions, whatever tag you want to give it – has a cost. And over the millennia, this is drilled into our little proto-human bit of our brain.

The logic-driven, numbers-based sides of our brain can argue all we want with the proto human side of our brain, but proto human will not give in (or not give in easily). This is especially true if we’re not paying attention. The same gut instinct to avoid losing is why people fall for the “sale” that’s on the end caps in a store (try checking those prices against those in-line some time), why they rush to sell (or buy) a house without doing enough of their homework (guilty!), and why, despite all logical evidence, they will race ahead of you on the freeway at 80mph only in order to be sitting at the traffic light ahead that much longer than you, when your car ambles up.

A lot of the job of a change manager – one managing change for themselves or others – is to manage this proto-human angst over losing. People don’t like to “lose” what they are good at/familiar with over the unknown new stuff, they don’t like to “lose” control over where a project or team is going, they don’t like to “lose” the path they’ve envisioned for themselves.

In the book ‘Switch’ by Chip Heath, the idea presented is that when instituting change you have to convince the Rider (the logical part of the human brain you’re working with, let’s call it “Spock”), convince the Elephant (the proto-human), and give them a path to go down (here’s what I want you to do). This sort of change-management can work internally too.

Say you want to lose weight. You need to convince your Rider (this is the part of your brain that goes to purchase nonfat yogurt and lean cuisines and makes you order the salad at dinner), your Elephant (this is the part of your brain that sees someone brought in doughnuts so you’ll be “good” and only have half – well, a whole one, but you skipped breakfast – maybe one and a half because you’re going to the gym – oh what the hell your diet’s busted may as well eat two), and show them the path (I will be able to wear these jeans/this bikini/see my cholesterol go down).

The great part of the above example is you already know what appeals to your proto human and your Spock human (forgive the oxymoron). (Just because your proto human wins out more often than not doesn’t mean you don’t know how to do it, it just means your Spock human is not paying attention).

Management gets tricky when you have to convince other people’s proto humans and Spocks.

(By the way, by “management” we’re not necessarily talking people who work for you. “Management” means managing other people – by design or by proxy – and can extend to family/friends/acquaintances/etc. You just don’t notice it, because you will tend to hang around people who require very little “management” – their Spock and proto-human already align with yours, pretty much).

The best way, then, to appeal to a Spock is lots of shiny charts and graphs, statistics, quoted sources, approved, sound, logic (theirs). The traditional best way to appeal to the proto-human is to turn the loss into a gain: what is in it for THEM, why is this worth their time, how will life be better/easier once it’s done. Alternatively, though, it is better to demonstrate how their life/work stream/issue will be worse if it is NOT done (again, losing is more important than winning, in a sense).

Let’s Do the Time Warp Again

August 11, 2011August 11, 2011 BobbieLeave a comment

If you think of “warp” not as in Rocky Horror Picture Show, but as in “Star Trek”, it’s the ability to warp space to get from A to B faster. Extrapolated, you can create temporal shifts with enough warp, and then Harrison Ford’s comment “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage” are more accurate than anything he said as Han Solo. I find it funny that there’s more science in Indiana Jones than there is in Star Wars. Ergo, Star Wars = Fantasy, but Star Trek = Science Fiction. And we can put that to bed.

Now that this pop culture mashup has been burned indelibly to your brain, much like a Katy Perry song, for which I should but won’t apologize, I can get to the actual point:

I am suffering from both old age and recidivist youth.

Two weeks ago I had my high school reunion. It was interesting to see how everyone had changed (or not) since high school: the age ranges looked far beyond the purported year we all shared. Some people gained weight, some did not. Some got bald, some did not. The universal take seemed to be, “It’s great to see you all, regardless of how much we liked or disliked high school, or each other for that matter”. I will note that I wasn’t all that enamored of high school, and it was less enamored of me; I just assumed that had to do with my ranking on the social totem pole (somewhere near the bottom). After a few conversations with those I had perceived were at the top, I arrived at the conclusion that no one was really enamored of the ego bruising experience that high school dishes out. At one point or another you’re on the receiving end of it, and we all agreed it sucked.

Studies have shown (is there a more self-important phrase in the English Language?) that people who share a traumatic event are linked at that level for life, like those who survive a car accident or war. I’m not akining high school to war, although there were times it felt like it.

Fast forward twenty years when parts of me seem to be doing very well (I’ve been reassured I have very good skin) and most of me is not doing well. Trips back to the Sport MD for a busted knee have me on anti inflammatory drops (40 each knee, 4x day, 2 weeks), a nitrogen patch (take it off if you feel like you’re having a heart attack, the paperwork says), and more workouts. I have arthritis. A trip to my regular doc tells me it’s time to actually watch my cholesterol, and no that doesn’t mean watch it go up. A trip to my dentist tells me it’s time for braces.

Braces. At 37.

Granted, they are “bottom only” braces, and it’s completely elective, but when I am told it’s my teeth that will age my appearance faster than my skin or hair (which is dyed), off to the orthodontist I go. And so, at 37, I will have little metal boxes on my lower set of teeth, and it will feel like the one damning high school experience I never had.

Please, please do not bring the acne back.

Unlikely Happenings

April 6, 2011 Bobbie1 Comment

Last week I was in Chicago and Phoenix (aside from weather extremes, both were lovely) and this week my world is upside down.

It is April 6, and it is snowing in Sammamish. Big, fat flakes are falling from the sky, and they’re STICKING. I have no doubt they’ll be rained away or melted away by morning, but it shows a fundamental lack of temporal observance on the part of the Sammamish sky.

I am waiting for a cat to come out.

My boyfriend’s cat.

We are cohabiting. Officially. He has no other house to go hide in, or for me to ask him to go to.

Now, this wasn’t a surprise (to me). I knew, leaving for Chicago, that when I got home 9 days later that I would have acquired some new furniture pieces, a third grocery consumer, and a catbox. Nothing here was unplanned, nothing without a spreadsheet rationale. I will say that he (and the cat) tolerated my post-trip typical cleaning frenzy quite well.

As much as we’ve all settled into a groove– there’s been a slow progression/dress rehearsal for this many times in the last year — the only one to whom this circumstance is completely new is the cat. The cat doesn’t like people much. Correction: the cat doesn’t like people. She likes *him*, but that’s about it. So here she is, ensconced in a rambler (no stairs to deal with) but with far more windows and wider ledges than she’s been privy to previously. She is not sure about the Boy Child.

Tonight is our first official night alone together. The Man is off Doing Things, and will not be back tonight. I know, here we are more than three years into acquaintance and yet I find myself wondering what she will do: will she hide under the bed all night? Will she come out now that the Boy Child is asleep? Will I find her asleep on his bed? Will we suddenly become fast friends, with me officially adopting her as my cat? An unending string of improbabilities floats before us…

Then again, it’s snowing in Sammamish on April 6. Stranger things have happened.

Plus One To Self Worth

January 24, 2011 Bobbie2 Comments

In Dungeons and Dragons (yes, I used to play D&D, get over it) the very first thing you do, once your DM has declared the arena in which you are playing (or RIFTS — we did that too), is you wrote up your Character Sheet. Inevitably a piece of Xeroxed paper, it had check boxes and blank spaces for you to detail your character’s physical appearance, social abilities, physical, mental, and emotional abilities/proclivities, as well as a back story. It was not uncommon for everyone’s character to be a fantastically good-looking crack-shot nuclear physicist and ace-pro lover, ala Buckaroo Banzai, but there would be the “fatal flaw” they’d introduce in their character: you know, to remain interesting.

Life doesn’t hand you a character sheet. You are given the looks you inherit genetically, you are alloted the IQ points that amass themselves in your grey matter. Your character, however, is something you can develop and change. (Yes, you can “train your brain”. Yes, you can use surgery to enhance your physical appearance. But really, your character is something both easier and harder to manipulate, and it’s what we’re discussing here, so let’s ignore the caveats and nota benes, shall we?)

One of the best speeches in recent movie history was in The American President, where Michael Douglas’ president makes the statement that a the upcoming presidential race would be *entirely* about character. Any race: presidential, rat, or otherwise, is about character.

I’ve spent some time evaluating the things about myself I don’t like: I send emails too quickly, I take things to heart too easily, I spend too much time worrying about others opinions, I continue to not have the discipline to have the physique I’d like. Some of these are correctable via self-direction, some of these I will have to run into a brick wall or two in order to acquire the necessary mental note. Others seem doomed to compromise: my weight being one of them.

I’ve known a few people who have taken stock of their life completely, and turned it around in a fashion amazing to those who knew them well and those who knew them casually. One good friend lost nearly a hundred pounds, got divorced, acquired all sorts of new hobbies (including running, triathlons, and barhopping); another lost a significant amount of weight (she is not telling, nor should she), stayed married, took control over her education and career and is literally living the dream in Hawaii. Some friends have made changes not so sweeping: leaving an unsatisfying job, taking on new hobbies, reinvesting in their health; I think part of the human condition is to self-evaluate and, for some of us, to target improvements.

I have no idea how much of this is driven by the checklist mentality or the presumptive dopamine rush that comes from living this way. I do know that I have a few things I’d like to change, and maybe if I’m open and outward about them, and write them down, and profess them, if not in a character sheet with 8 or 12 friends and a 20-sided dice but in a blog with 8 or 12 readers and a 20-sided life, maybe then, I can upgrade my character.

New Beginnings

January 7, 2011 Bobbie1 Comment

There are a *lot* of changes I have on the horizon this year, most of which I’m not going to go in to. This is good project management from a “managing up” perspective: if I don’t tell you exactly what I’m planning, you can’t snipe at me that I didn’t quite do what I said I was going to do when I change my way halfway through the year based on the newer data. But trust me, when we get to the end of the year, you’re totally going to be amazed at all of the changes.

Seriously, I don’t do that in my work life. In my work life, I typically have the goal-promising restraint of say, Superman, and the social skills of say, Batman, and the subtlety of say, the Thing. I have no idea if they all belong to DC comics or Marvel or if I’ve mixed superheroes who oughtn’t. That’s your job, I’m just metamorphizing here.

At any rate, many things planned! Many goals to achieve! They are not resolutions, though, because that would be stifling. One of them includes increased fitness and banishment of the three (3) lbs gained over the holidays. Please note I am not blaming my mother. This is not just because she reads my blog; this is because the actual weight gain was realized *after* Christmas and I can only assume we lay the blame squarely at Top Pot’s door. However, please do note that I was attending my gym spin classes 2x-3x per week and Group Cyntergy the other day of the week (so that’s 3-4 times per week, got me, kiddo?) that I was going regularly pre-Christmas.

Oh My Goodness, the Resoluters are in. Spin Class (Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday) and Group Cardio (weightlifting) Monday, and the Pool yesterday? All completely packed. The parking lot? Packed. The gym is full of Resoluters, and the office has a waiting group of people eager to sign over what amounts to four figures per year to attend. I do not blame them, I do the same thing. But I’ve been doing it longer, and somehow that entitles me to all of the self-satisfied snobbery a person can develop. I don’t mind Resoluters, per se. I mind that they all come at ONCE.

If you think about it, New Years Day is an abstract day. There is no logical reason (with exception of the break between December and January as provided by the Romans, who by the way went from 10 months to 12 by shoving in 2 more months (one for Julius and one for Augustus Caesars, guess which months those are?)). Most Asian cultures celebrate a different day for New Year, as did the Mayans and Aztecs. The fact that we choose Jan 1 is completely arbitrary; to my way of thinking we would be better off to choose December 21 or March 21 or June 21 or September 21 (and if you want to know why look up “solstice” and “equinox” — although to my way of thinking Dec 21 makes the most sense). However, I am not yet the Dictator and I do not get to choose, so stuck with January 1 am I.

It would be ever so much nicer, though, if we took the extra — call it 100? 200? — people who come in for the New Year, throughout the year. My spin class would go from say, 10-12 in December to 12-14 in January to 14-16 in February, etc. Not from 10-12 in December to 30-32 in January. That causes consternation, awkward bike positioning, and massive delays while we have the instructor take time to set up all the newbies properly on their bikes. Tuesday’s class started 10 minutes late courtesy of the new folks. Again, wouldn’t mind so much if they came early. Or spaced themselves out. But please, not all at once. I give it four more weeks before the real bleed off happens (I hope).

I am totally caffeinated by the way, and we will blame my new CoHort at work. His floor has no shiny coffee maker and so there is no decaf to be had.

Pajama Party

December 18, 2010December 18, 2010 BobbieLeave a comment

Today at work, I gathered the fruits of my labor. That labor was a hastily one-week planned pajama party.

OK, let me back up.

A week ago yesterday, I was severely inebriated. That’s ok, because I was severely inebriated with 2000 other people at the XS club at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. It was fantastic — flowing booze, good music, yes I did find myself dancing on a table. The fact that I originally planned to come in, make a one-or-two drink round, and leave was lost halfway through drink one: some Work Fun events are more Work than Fun, this was not one of them. Everyone shucked off the stress of the previous days/weeks/months and kicked in to have fun.

So partway through the fun an idea that Alison* (person at work, not Ali of Doug and Ali) came up with: wouldn’t it be great to come to work in our PJ’s. I got sign off from the boss, and got sign off from a few other VP’s. And then continued to enjoy myself.

Hungover I flew home on Friday.

On Saturday I emailed a few more work folks to ensure we weren’t expecting clients on the Chosen Day.

On Sunday I emailed the last few people and got sign-off.

On Monday I emailed the entire floor and gave them the prospect: come to work in your jammies. Get a doughnut (From Top Pot — Thank You Top Pot!). Give a kid a gift from the HopeLink tree: the day after the company Holiday party.

Today we had twelve people bring in gifts, and another 20+ provide what amounted to substantial cash for kids who otherwise wouldn’t have got much of anything for the holiday. We had slightly more than that show up in jammies or sweats. And we left about a dozen doughnuts behind (apparently the excesses of last night got to some). Next year: fewer doughnuts, and maybe adopt a family instead of kids off of the tree. Or maybe both. All I know is the planning will be better done than one-week and starting at a massive party.

It’s weird to come home and not have to change *out* of my clothes and *into* PJ’s.

Black Friday

November 27, 2010 Bobbie1 Comment

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.