Good morning. Hello. How are you? #934
Recovering from a funk, a CEO management book, some thankful things, where is Roy did he get outside?
Hello good morning what’s up hi how are you. Sorry about yesterday. I am not going to stop doing GMHHAY who am I kidding? What’s going on here you’d think I’m one of those YouTube vloggers who put really hyperbolic titles on their thumbnails like “I can’t do this anymore” when the entire video is them, like, petting kittens or something. One time a vlogger I watch had a thumbnail that said “MY LAST VIDEO” and made absolutely zero acknowledgment of it in the video and were back the next week as if nothing happened. Probably needed a few extra bucks that week for gas or something who knows.
Anyway I would not say I am “better” per se, but the trick about these funks is to remember that nothing causes them and there is nothing to be done. The risk of these funks is that you misinterpret whatever quirk of body chemistry as evidence that you’re doing something wrong in your life, that something needs to change. It really is one of the fundamental forces of being alive, isn’t it? “Something feels wrong. What is it? Let’s fix it.” Well, joke’s on you cuz nothing’s wrong, not really. Your serotonin levels are slightly out of alignment or you slept in a slightly weird position. In my case, I did a shit ton of outdoor work in 90 degree heat, drank a ton of fluids, absolutely a monstrous ton of fluids, to combat the dehydration and sweat, and somehow the whole affair made me gain four pounds and proceeded to make me feel like a giant blob perpetually at war with their body that hates them. And I was really really tired. Man I have been so tired lately. I get enough exercise. I eat generally well. I don’t drink. I get enough sleep. Why am I so freakin tired.
(Man the first single of the new Blur was so good I expected more from this really not bad but not amazing album.)
The urge to catalog everything bad going on in your life is powerful in these situations, but it is, of course, a red herring. My life is the way it is through consideration and thought. I choose my life to be this way because this is what I want in life at the moment. The fact that my brain screams DO SOMETHING ELSE RIGHT NOW is irrelevant. It screams that no matter what I do and a decade or so spent indulging that voice proved conclusively that it is full of shit.
(Hrm seems I left my office door open all night and Keely the Cat escaped and spent the evening outside and came running back in when I came into my office but where is Roy the Cat is he still out there why is Keely sitting here staring at me?)
But sometimes it is a bit too powerful to completely ignore. Sometimes you have a bit of a stomach ache and you start to become convinced that you have stomach cancer and it is a very bad time to have cancer right now. You spent all your money on a house you don’t need and if you die right now before you replace that money your wife will be very annoyed and she’ll have to sell that house so that she’s got some money for your daughter. It’s just bad timing. Plus you probably don’t have cancer. You’re lucky, stuff like that doesn’t happen to you. But your luck can’t last forever, can it? Luck is a myth. I mean, it’s not a myth but it’s also not, like, your constant companion. Besides, you did something akin to praying when your wife was pregnant and offered up some deal to some non-existent deity saying that if only your luck lasts long enough for your daughter to be born healthy, you will accept that it has to end sometime. So the bill is due, dude. Face it. Luck’s at an end. You have stomach cancer. Also when you cleared the brush for the greenhouse you found another septic cover which means the whole thing needs to move over another five feet and it’s just gonna fuck everything up my god its gonna be terrible why are you even trying to do things.
(Also you should move back to the city and go out drinking every night again because that was a totally fun, sustainable and productive way to live your entire life who needs to actually create or do things.)
Anyway I decided the best move was to call myself sick, which is basically the truth, and I passed on my wall of 1:1 meetings yesterday. I mean, I checked in with each person, and we addressed their most pressing issues in Slack, but I wasn’t functional enough to really have them. Then I ended the day with two more meetings. My god there are so many meetings.
(Oh and my trusty massage bed with the face-down head-hoop rest thing that I keep in my office for moments of existential crisis did its job admirably. My god that thing was a great purchase that keeps on giving.)
Oh my god I have six more meetings today.
I read this CEO book on how to be a CEO, thank you Scott for the recommendation. It wasn’t bad. I was pleasantly surprised to learn I was doing many things correctly in the book, like trying to pile all your meetings into two days so you have time to do other things. Unfortunately that doesn’t usually work for me, someone sticks a meeting on the other days and the entire day is ruined. The book has a lot of problems, like it definitely believes Silicon Valley is a place with smart managers, lol, and it keeps saying things like so-and-so from this smart company does this as a CEO and you’re like “yeah okay but that company sucks.” The absolutely unhinged part, though, is this belief that permeates the book that it’s only engineers who need undisturbed time to make work product. Of course — of course — they quote Paul Graham’s Maker’s Schedule Manager’s Schedule how could they not. But they swap out “engineer” for “maker” and it is so, so offensive and small-minded and really indicates a lack of comprehension at what a business does. And then you start to realize the rest of the book is like that. Like sure, it tackles marketing and sales and operations (maybe 10 pages each) but each and every time it is very clear that they just know that the CEO is an engineer, because what else would a CEO be, so they tackle each of these subjects as if its something that a very smart engineer can hack with a ten page guide. Notably, there is no commensurate ten page guide on what an engineer is or how to manage them, because of course you already know that because who would be in your position if you are not an engineer. Of course, at some point in the distant past century I was an engineer so I guess I shouldn't be so offended.
(Keely has wandered off boy I sure hope I didn’t lock Roy outside).
Having written a “management advice” book (god help me), I understand that the editors involved are going to make you “take a stand.” Editors fucking hate nuance and complexity and ambivalence. They want you to offer up concrete advice that is actionable and clear. So in this book’s case you end up with an author that recommends firing people a shocking amount, just an inhumane amount, a disturbing amount. And more to the point, an utterly impractical amount if you want to keep up morale, and an amount of dubious practicality depending on the macroeconomic hiring environment, which of course it does not mention, because apparently a great CEO does not need to worry too much about the macroeconomic environment.
I am being too mean. It’s not a bad book. I would even probably recommend it.
The greenhouse comes tomorrow. It is very stressful and I have no idea how it will go. Will the truck fit up the driveway? Will the various pallets fit on my truck? Are we gonna have to move them one-by-one from their truck to mine then drive em up the driveway? Good thing I bought that pallet jack on impulse.
(my god the two different spellings of “pallet” will be the death of me.”)
The neurodivergent-affirming pediatric speech therapist has taken possession of the rental unit at the new house I am very excited. Feel like we’re doing some good giving that woman and those kids a nice place to hone their craft at affordable rates.
Here I’ll end on some positive notes. One thing that has been interesting is that that CEO book did have an awareness about vibes and culture and manifesting and optimism, and I believe deeply in that at the workplace. It said that every day you should write down a few things you are feeling optimistic or grateful about. I believe in this habit in general so I’ve operationalized it, and every day in my (other) 750 words, I write five things I am thankful for in my personal life, and five things I’m thankful for at work, and no cheating and putting the same ones every day. It’s not even hard! Even in this funk! So I think that tells me something, right? It’s a shame that the forces of optimism are glacial — slow but strong, powerful but solid — for me. It’d be awesome if I could write ten optimistic things and then boom. I’m feeling great. But it doesn’t work that way. But it does work.
So. I will do it for you today: today I am grateful for:
Pretty Problems, my friend Kestrin’s hilarious romantic comedy that is currently on Hulu that Emma and I watched the other night. Strong recommend.
They Cloned Tyrone which was deeply satisfying and surreal and made me lol.
My daughter, who actually decided it was okay to give me a hug yesterday, even if she was still being difficult and willful about those miserable things we have to do in life like go to the bathroom and put on clothes. And even though she is in a book ripping phase. The drawing on walls phase seems to be dying down. And I guess we’re going to send her to Kindergarten? God, that’s probably the source of this entire moody episode. Emma and I are both very out of sorts about this whole thing and we can’t decide if it’s right to send her or not.
My wife, who does not think I’m crazy for constantly fretting about whether to send our daughter to Kindergarten or not and is, in fact, in perfect sympathy with her husband on this subject, even if that perfect sympathy manifests in ambivalence.
Some people brought back Smarter Child, the old IM Chatbot and it really brought me back to a specific place and time, especially with the IM chat sounds wowww talk about a Pavlovian response.
That the UPS workers got what they wanted. The “watch the world burn” part of me wanted the chaos of a strike but it is definitely better for “the movement” that the workers get an extra thirty billion dollars of wages. That is pretty rad.
And, finally, my neck is not perfect after the trigger point injections. But my neck is the best it’s been in twenty years. That is… mind-boggling. Just absolute insanity. Sure, I’ve had tennis elbow for like six months now, but… my neck! I can’t believe it. It’s not fixed but it is a lot better. Just phenomenal.
Okay let’s face this day. Shit. We can do it.
Here’s a moody and quiet playlist for you. It is great. This new First Aid Kit tune is great. Very into this Boston band I never knew about called The Burning Paris (thank you, Bill). Been listening to all the new Peter Gabriel singles in anticipation of the tour this fall and they are all pretty good! Two versions of each, too, which is strange but works. And I really do love the New Sigur Ros it’s my favorite from them in many years.
Okay until tomorrow thanks for this it helped I can feel things getting a smidge better. Onward.
i’m loving the new sigur rós