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I knew to expect a "big" announcement about staff and organizational changes at work today. It turns out, I really misunderstood what Gabby told Amy and me at "Miracle on 2nd" back in December, in a much vager way. She said our team was growing, and although today she said she thought she had said it would be other people already in Merchandising just moving to our team, I must have missed that part. All this time I thought we were hiring completely new people to grow the Pricing and Promotions team, which currently is just Gabby, Amy, and me. Hiring two new people would clearly have implications for work load, evolving roles, etc. Shobhit even theorized that I might be asked to manage some people, which I knew from the start was not a possibility. Everyone already knows that I would just as soon dive into a pool of acid.
Still, when Dave joined our weekly team meeting this morning to finally share the specifics of the news, my basic reaction amounted to:
Oh. That's it?
Cathryn, who is my counterpart in Deli; and Brandy, who focuses on ecommerce and delivery and demos, among other things, are both simply being shifted from where they are now, to the Pricing and Promotions team. Actually Gabby is herself getting an official promotion, to "Director," with a new title for the team, and I can't remember the full name off the top of my head. I know it's three Ps and still includes Pricing and Promotions. Products, Pricing and Promotions? Something like that. We've already had discussions about the shorthand we'll use for the team name, and seem to be leaning toward "P3." Because of the three "P" words.
I wish I could remember the full phrase. Dammit! I'll come in a reorganization remail announcement later today. [1:36pm EDIT: The title is
Pricing, Promotions, and Project Management.]
In any case, this is big news for Gabby, but not really that much for me, and certainly smaller news than I thought I understood it to be. I already know both Cathryn and Brandi and I know neither of them suck, so that eliminates that worry! Gabby did say she will be discussing our "merit increases" in our 1:1 meetings on Friday, and she said, "It's better than last year, at least." So even there, I'm expecting something apparently better, but probably nothing major. It has long been clear that, unlike the first ten years or so of my time here, I will never get another significant raise without some kind of notable change in position or title. And again: I have zero interest in being a manager.
We have a lot on the slate for the coming year, and again the year after that. This will be good for organization purposes for sure. It's just not nearly as monumental as I thought it might be.
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— पांच हजार सात सौ तैंतीस —
Tracy texted me yesterday to ask if I would be open to seeing
Babygirl again as she still hasn't seen it. She put pretty significant limitations on her availability, though: it could only be a weekday but not a Friday. I already have plans tonight and tomorrow night, which really just left last night and Monday next week at the soonest.
I was honestly looking forward to a rare, second chill night at home alone, so I kind of begged off going last night, even though she said she was "feeling spontaneous" and clearly would have gone then. I didn't want to alter my expectations of the evening that drastically on such short notice though, so assuming it's still playing and with workable showtimes (at least I have already written a review so won't have to do that), we'll go on Monday.
Thus, I had a leisurely and lovely walk home from work, made myself a Tandoori Chef Eggplant Naan Pizza for dinner, made some regular tea, and watched this week's episode of
Skeleton Crew on Disney+, getting me all caught up between last night and tonight. There's just next week's episode still left of the season.
Shobhit texted me a bunch more photos from India. The top and bottom shots are from that batch; the middle one is from his second trip to India in 2022. I have no idea where he was when he saw that clock, actually, but it's pretty.
He's really come through with the requested photos this trip, though.
The photo album already has 53 shots in it, and he'll be there another week and a half yet. He has a long layover in Doha again on his way back and will likely hang out with his sister there again.
We got on FaceTime for a while, and he told me about some of the photos. He walked to a mall called
Pacific Mall Ghaziabad that's relatively new and only two miles from his mom's apartment. It still had some Christmas decorations up that were very pretty, so Shobhit sent me some cool shots of the interior. I was shocked at how few people were inside, which Shobhit explained as being because of was a Monday afternoon.
Apparently Pacific Mall is a chain of malls; this is the Ghaziabad location—Ghaziabad being what Shobhit called a "satellite city" of Delhi, I guess in our understanding basically a suburb. It has a population of
1.7 million. This is the kind of stuff I love learning about, though, including mapping where Shobhit likely would have walked from his mom's place. There are more wooded areas than I expected. Not a lot, of course—Delhi is a vast slab of concrete—but still more than I thought. There's a nice looking park only a few blocks from the development where Shobhit's mom lives. I'd be all over exploring places like this if I were there.
Anyway. After a while I got off FaceTime with Shobhit. I watched an episode of
How to Die Alone on Hulu. Then I went to bed.
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[posted 12:40pm]
