Mrr.

It's nice to be back in my own space (inasmuch as corporate housing is ever one's own) but one real downer about the space between assignments is that we use this time to do the sorts of paperwork that make one want to go after one's own eyes with an icepick.

Over the next few days, for example, I've been asked to formalize an evaluation of the performance of one of the folk who worked with me during my last assignment. New, bright kid, fresh out of college and has no real idea how the world works. This wasn't his first assignment, but I think it was probably his first serious assignment. His first assignment with relatively high stakes.

He did OK for the most part, and I want to work with him again - just had the sort of hesitation issues that most folk have when they first begin to really internalize the fact that their team is relying on them to not only get their shit done, but to do so in a timely, competent fashion.

And he did OK, on that front. So I've spent the last little while (instead of sleeping) putting together an outline of what I want to say about this guy, and how he helped us out. I hope that my contribution isn't going toward some kind of disciplinary action, but of course that sort of conversation occurs several paygrades up from my perch - I only manage the team in the field; hiring and firing, etc.. is a completely different department.

When I got started as an engineer, we were still using slide rules. To my outdated way of thinking, there's something very comforting about pen and paper, but a couple of decades ago I had a "come to Jesus" sort of discussion with a good friend of mine who performs climate research at the institutional level, and decided that as much as I possibly could, I would avoid using paper, amongst other lifestyle changes.

Today, I am happy to report, I have a writing tablet that feels just like I'm writing with pen and paper, but transcribes what I've written either into a PDF to preserve hand-drawn diagrams, or simple text.

I know most of you reading this will have grown up with these sorts of things, so they are utterly transparent to you, but believe me when I say that to me, this is the sort of thing that makes me feel like I'm living well into the future. Once I'm finished hand-writing my inital draft of the evaluation, I'll convert it to simple text, proofread, and polish, and then send it along to The Powers That Be, never having sacrifcied a single tree along the way. Amazing.

---

This morning I am up early, not having ever made it to bed, drinking licorice tea out of my cat-shaped teapot and thinking about old friends.

Whenever I have to go dark for a few months due to work, I am always amazed at how much changes while I'm gone. I come back and at least one, usually more, of the people I love have undergone some foundational shift, and their lives don't look like they did before I went to work.

My own life never seems to do that. It's looked more or less the same for about the last 30 years, give or take. Sure, the name of the company on my business cards has changed a time or two, but the fundamental rhythm of my life is the same, the same, the same - travel, work, return. Travel, work, return.

Travel, work, return.

Now I'm reading back over this post and realizing I am starting to sound like the social media kids who are so far up their own asses that they're tasting bile, so I'm going to stop now. I hope everyone is making their way through the world safely, and that the Forces of Stupid are being thwarted, somewhere.

Hope springeth ever eternal.