panelism

— पाँच हजार पाँच सौ चौहत्तर — I had my 1x1 meeting with Gabby yesterday afternoon, because she's got another commitment all morning on Friday, when we usually have them. Wednesday is also the day most of the Merchandising department is asked to come work in the office, so we had the meeting in person. We had a surprising lot to discuss, especially after the weekly Wednesday Team Meeting with her and Amy in the morning ended after only about 15 minutes, for lack of things to cover. One of the things she brought up was having me take part in the interview panel for Shelley's replacement. This wasn't the first time she brought it up, and when she initially asked if I'd want to be a part of it, I gave a pretty casual "No," because, frankly I'm not that emotionally invested in it. Gabby gave a very "Why not?" response, and asked me to think it over. She asked yesterday if I had thought it over, and I hadn't much really, but she was so encouraging that I do it that I was finally kind of like, "Okay fine." I got an email from her this morning, CCing Justine, which began with, I spoke with Justine yesterday and she thinks it’s a great idea for you to be involved in the interviews for the open Grocery Merchandiser position. I mean, I'm not that surprised Justine thought it was a great idea, although I have no idea whether Gabby told her about my reticence or if she kind of let Justine assume it was my idea. I feel like the former is more likely, but whatever. Over the past year in particular, I really seem to have shifted into a position of respect around here—not that that has included any change in title or salary—and to be honest, I have struggled to embrace it. This isn't false modesty, either. It's really a resistance to the potential for new challenges I don't particularly want, but whatever I can envision those challenges to be is pretty nebulous so I can't say I have a very strong basis for it. Gabby, I think, is very interested in pushing me toward it, whatever it might entail. Given the turnover over the past decade or so, I really am left with more insight about certain things than most others left. It's happened by default, because I am what's left after others fall away. It's like, actual evolution. I wonder if that last fish with legs left after all the ones with nubs died off was like, "Oh great. Now I have to walk for everyone who comes after me. Fuck." Anyway. The interview process won't likely start until April. And now I'll have to work that into my work schedule. It will be a new, valuable learning experience. I suppose. I have long been walking around here saying I have no ambition, and until now the general response has been for others to keep a hands-off approach to ideas regarding any kind of job advancement for me. In a way, Gabby is taking the initiative to be ambitious for me. I'm okay with that, so long as what boundaries I still have remai clear. You could not pay me enough to be a Merchandiser, for example. — पाँच हजार पाँच सौ चौहत्तर — — पाँच हजार पाँच सौ चौहत्तर — Shobhit worked unusually late last night, until 10:00. I had no movie to go see, so I spent the evening at home, and I wound up watching two movies. I had a library DVD copy of Like Water for Chocolate, which I checked out because of a recent conversation with Gabriel. It came up while I was telling him about seeing The Taste of Things, which, incidentally, is a far better film. I really felt like a lot of Like Water for Chocolate, a Mexican film made in 1992, did not age well (the main character's mother being a nearly unrepentant bitch; a scene very much suggesting her sister is about to be raped, with no follow-up whatsoever about the ramifications; the main character's lover marrying her sister "just to be near her" and how blithely the movie regards that sister's honestly innocent position in all this, but she gets treated like shit anyway . . . honestly I could go on). But hey, there are two scenes where sexual passion results in spontaneous combustion, so that's fun! I wound up watching a second movie spontaneously, just because, after finishing the latest Rory Scovel comedy special on HBO, I noticed it as an option and had heard a few references to it on podcasts I listen to: Albert Brooks: Defending My Life. It was, I guess I'd say, good enough. I am noticing something about the way I track movie watching on Letterboxd. Before I went all-in with that website, the only thing I tracked carefully was movies I reviewed, which were always first-run films. With Letterboxd, I track every single movie I watch, or rewatch, whether in the theater or at home, whether new or old. And I watch a shit ton of movies. We are 60 days into the year 2024, and I have watched a movie 49 times in that span. That's an average of one movie every 1.22 days. To put it more succinctly, I watch a movie on most days. In fact, my current average cadence is very close to watching a movie 5 out of every 6 days. That's a lot, right? — पाँच हजार पाँच सौ चौहत्तर — [posted 12:32 pm]