Assume Noble Intent

I went to bed last night at around midnight. I scrolled on my phone for another 90 min, chatted with my boss who was committed to staying online until a certain update came through. He gave up shortly after I set my phone down. That update wasn't happening yet. He figured he'd check in later.

At about 4:30 I got up to go to the bathroom and sometime between 1:30 and then, the thing happened and worked, and then lots of things broke. Absolutely broke. I took my phone and laptop to the guest room, read all the updates and knew there wasn't anything I could do to impact change but I at least knew what was happening. 

My colleague T was coming online at 6am. He would step in to see what the update was, and I knew he's carry it. 

My plan was to go back to sleep and see if I could sleep until 9:45, get up, do my steps, do my check-in with my boss at 10, and then dive into the day. 

I couldn't sleep past 8:30, got up, checked the messages, said "ooooof" and got up and ready for the day. 

I was pretty exhausted today. My check-in was canceled, and I was making an english muffin when I was supposed to be jumping into a team meeting. Oops. 

Lots of movement, action, monitoring the slack channels, giving support to colleagues, jumping in meetings to help write emails to notify the clients of the broken things. 

A couple of the devs were absolutely on top of it all, and watching the speed with which they were answering user questions, and fixing things. I was impressed. 

It made me think of a colleague who left our workplace after his contract ended and he didn't want to stay when they offered him a different role. 

He was always so good at giving compliments when we were all off the chain doing our jobs fast and furiously. When the dust would clear, he often would say things like "You were so clutch in there today."

Clutch. 

I think of him often, and I'm thinking of him today. I'm thinking of how he would have been right on top of this, as a scrum master and project leader. He was always so good at careful thought and execution. He was an excellent planner. 

Part of me wonders if the things we went through (or I watched other people going through) in the last 24 or so hours would have gone quite like this if he was still with us on the job. That's neither here nor there. But I'm sure we would have heard "You are so clutch," a couple times. 

Tonight I went into the group slack channel to just say that. I hear Alex's voice in my head tonight, and y'all are clutch. 

Alex once told me that I have the most uncanny ability to read a room. When so many people are tone deaf, and just talk to fill the time with words, even remotely, on zoom, I can read other people. 

And tonight, I think everyone is exhausted, and I can read that room. I'm thankful for the people I work with. I'm sure there has been stress and swearing, not everyone has been as loving as they can. Our training team lead, she's super clutch. She's the clutchiest clutch. She put on the slack channel "Have patience and assume noble intent."

Assume noble intent. 

Everything that is being done right now is not designed to ruin your life. It is not designed to be bad - it is in the long run going to be super awesome. Today, right now, it might not feel that way. But. Just stop for a minute and ... assume noble intent. And I love that. 

Going to bed tonight, thinking of the people who have worked so hard for months/years to bring us to this point, and the people who are living through this big change on day one. 

Digits, below.

digits 

exercise: 12/12 hours; 23 minute indoor walk. 6500+ steps by bedtime

blood glucose:

9am: 160
5pm: 151
10pm: 131

food:
coffee/water
10:30am: english muffin w/pb and a little bonnie maman's cherry preserves
12:30pm: metformin
6:30pm: baked stuff chicken w/broccoli and cheese (from Aldi. Really tasty) broccoli mixed veg. White wine
7:30pm: metformin+jardiance
2 small ramekins of fritos