I just went through my year-end review with my boss-boss (as I refer to a senior manager who doesn't really directly manage me). Someone got promoted today...ME! Well, it's just a title change up to the next level Business Analyst II, nothing too major (business cards aren't changing, and just more assignments in the future), but I'm super glad that I've been meeting expectations at work even exceeding them at some points...since these have been murky at best. Apparently, I'm doing pretty well, and I love the people I work with. I kinda lucked out in terms of project assignments.
Allow me to write about this one guy. Joel is Jewish and has a wife and kids and lives in Brooklyn. He leaves early on Fridays so that he can get home by sunset. His wife probably calls him at minimum 5 times a day. I know because he has a normal ringtone on his cell phone and I can hear his wife yelling (or that's really just how she talks) in that Brooklyn accent even from over the cubicle wall. I can also hear when his children are on the phone, so really I think he just sets his volume too high. He answers his phone EVERY TIME, like for real EVERY TIME it rings. He could be on the phone with someone else or even talking to a client, or in someone else's office and he freaking answers that phone even just to say "I gotta call you back" and immediately hanging up. He rarely brings his phone to meetings, but if it's a meeting with just our immediate team, he accidently brings it sometimes and he ANSWERS it! Not to mention, this dude is really freaking smart. He sits right by me and I ask him questions over the wall all the time. Sometimes project related, sometimes just random. I've definitely asked him "When are you doing your taxes?", "Is my tax allowance too low?", "How do I open a Roth IRA?", "What's going on with the market?", "What's the difference between client side and firm side rebates?" and he's given me detailed answers and took the time to tell me everything, even freaking offered to look over my tax return. I've even asked him "Why are you coming in on Monday?" and he doesn't just shrug me off, he gives a full explanation like I'm a normal human being...a lot of people don't do this, or don't give me a feeling that it's safe for me to ask them questions. All of these questions are out of the blue and totally spontaneous, btw. Anyway, this man is definitely not perfect, but I'm a big fan.
Btw, I really think A.O. Scott is a genius. Look at this review on the new Biggie Smalls movie "Notorious" partly produced by P. Diddy and Biggie Smalls's mom. I just love it: "'We can’t change the world unless we change ourselves.' That line occurs twice in 'Notorious,' and it’s not entirely clear what is meant, other than that the characters aspire to be better as well as richer and more famous. At times the movie seems to lump all those things together, to imply that celebrity, money, clothes and boundless sexual opportunity are not just the rewards reaped by talent but also visible signs of righteousness." Man, who write like that about a rapper movie? I like him becuase he sincerely has no boundaries in terms of reviewing films. He'll review things as stupid as Superbad and as frou-frou as Benjamin Button. What I find interesting about reading reviews in the NY times is that I more often just enjoy the critique more than I would probably enjoy the movie. I think it inspires me to strive to see the beautiful nuance within the work, whether it was intended or not. Kinda like it's acknowledging a work of a sovereign Creator instead of the individual director or actor or whomever.
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