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Compassion in the Workplace
I’m dealing with some really shitty stuff right now. Can’t talk about it, but my week has been–despite some beautiful bright spots–pretty fucking lousy. ‘Sokay. We’re dealing. In struggling to remain open to my own emotions and those of people around me, I found myself indirectly barraged this morning. Breakfast with my coworkers led to one of them going into this diatribe about another colleague that wasn’t there. It wasn’t the usual, “Oh, guess what so-and-so said in a meeting?” It was a harsh, personal attack, full of diagnoses of immaturity/stupidity/ignorance, analyses of personal business that wasn’t for us to know, and a one-upping on pain. A “my pain’s worse…
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Health Insurance Confounds Me
Whycome pricing out independent health insurance is so confusing? Seriously. I have a spreadsheet, and for each plan I look at, I end up with some new column that I then need to backfill for the plans I’ve already looked at. Whycome some don’t cover birth control? Or maternity? Take a stance, companies. You’re already charging more for women in childbearing years. Whycome a plan can have a $3000-$5000/per person deductible, but not be considered a high-deductible plan (and thus eligible for an HSA), and there still be a coinsurance after the damn deductible? Whycome some of them have documentation that mentions using an HSA for certain things, but the…
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Beginner Developer: Where to Start?
I have a friend who’s looking to become a marketable developer fairly quickly, but is essentially trying to go from zero to hero. Despite starting a project in Python to randomize wedding slideshows, he’s never really done development, nor does he understand its core concepts (classes vs. objects, for instance). He kinda just needs a job, plus the ability to make useful tools for himself. Folks are telling him Java and *.NET, and I (mostly) agree for the simple purposes of 1) easy desktop or web development, and 2) using keyword-heavy languages to reinforce programming concepts. Not strong reasons, no. If he just wanted a job, I’d recommend UI development.…
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Amanda Waller in the House
Happy post-Halloween! I’m increasingly sure that official trick-or-treating got moved to a night other than the 31st, because not one childish soul came to my door last night. Greg heard a rumor that it might have been Saturday, which sucks for them. I was out having a blast. A colleague/friend pleaded for me to come out to Sidelines and partake in the comic superhero costuming. I’m not so much on the comics (or the superheros), so I was kinda at a loss, because I was definitely not rocking a body suit or bikini. Greg suggested several folks including Amanda Waller, and I opted for a Pam Grier-esque version, since I…
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A Beautiful Birthday Weekend
What could be better than a trip to Crowders Mountain on a perfect Saturday afternoon? Both the weather and our camera this time was good enough–and we’d just finished our second photography class that morning–to get some vague shots of Charlotte. Out zoom lens (55-200 mm) isn’t quite zoomy enough to really compress the distance, but it was fun trying, especially when we needed to manually focus or do a focus lock. Instead of just doing the 0.75 mile trek to the top and back (which includes 300+ damn stairs), we decided to hike some of the back trails. All in all, I think we covered 5-ish miles, but my…