Unfun, Unfair | We 1/18

The morning was hectic since I had to prepare lunch then instead of last night, but I got it done and came into office. I wasn't able to meet with Nicole to discuss the responsibilities of being on-call, but Yumei walked me through them during stand-up, which was nice. I'm sitting pretty far from the team since the area we're in is crowded today and I'm a bit sad to be separated.

I also got to chat with Randy over lunch. He talked about the raise and also suspects that our entire cohort will be receiving it. He also expressed interest in coming to volleyball this Friday, but has some tentative plans for then so hopefully I get to see and introduce him to the friends.

The rest of the day was typical. I did get a lot out of an impromptu meeting with Gonzalo about the automation utility, specifically about how we should be writing the application to minimize long-term changes that need to be made as we add features. Afterwards there was a team meeting that no one showed up to, but I stayed on for a bit to make sure I wouldn't miss out on anything and had to leave for home late. Predictably traffic was rough, but I felt like I was oddly zen about having to slow down.

Actually even though I said that last part, I was losing my mind following someone up the floors of my building's parking garage. They must've been going <5mph on the speed bumps and having to go that slowly for every speed bump was agonizing. I also realized the contrast between people in cars as opposed to not when I remembered an incident in the parking garage at work right before I left.

As I was in an elevator with the door closing, someone just pressed the button and the doors reopened. She apologized when she realized what she did, but I told her it was no problem and meant it since it was only a matter of like 30 seconds at most. I lacked that patience for the person going slowly through the speed bumps and I wonder if the drive over had me agitated, but there were several factors at work (person was in a car, I was nearly home). I'm also not sure how much longer the drive up the parking garage actually was because of this person, but it felt like several minutes (which is pretty trivial now that I think about it). I guess driving makes me impatient and irritable, but now that I think about it I was the same with foot traffic when walking at school and dealing with people practically strolling and forcing me to slow down or go around.

I'm ashamed to say that I did the "snack and nap" like usual when I got home, but now I'm curious if that desire to relax was motivated by my terrible commute. I woke up around 7, did some more errands, and worked out. It's too bad I was so late in getting all that done. By the time I got out of the shower and packed for mom's house, it was past midnight and I realized that I keep arriving at her house later and later. It's gotten to the point where I had to ask myself what I'm getting out of driving over at night and I couldn't think of much.

This was certainly the question on my mind while driving tonight since despite there being few people on the road they somehow found a way to annoy me. They were setting screens and boxing me out like we were playing basketball and I had to ask myself if the drive really was better than the one from my place at 9 AM. I even caught myself feeling the "traffic stomach ache" like my body was tense from driving, which is never a good sign. I hate driving.

Also while in the shower I was listening to an Iron Culture episode about body image and how it seems to vary for people at varying levels of bodybuilding and one remark had me thinking about what I said about volleyball yesterday. The hosts mentioned how a coach/trainer's physique doesn't necessarily correlate to their coaching ability, but it certainly brings in more clients. They tied it to the ugly business side of fitness and how there will always be opportunities to be sponsored by some supplement since people will probably always buy into that marketing, but that comment had me thinking about how it isn't fair to coaches to be judged based on their physiques.

This parallels how I didn't think it was fair for volleyball players to be judged based on height. This had me think about what I specifically dislike about that judgement and I realized that I want to be rated highly as a player because I put the work in, not for things out of my control like genes. It makes me think that people tend to be shallow and only think about image to determine someone's worth or ability. I have so much respect for the volleyball players and strength athletes who perform well in spite of being dealt a bad hand because only hard work gets to shine through in their cases.

I thought about something similar when I saw a stray cat on the Katy Trail early in my bootcamp and I wondered if many people would stop to pet it if it wasn't cute. There simply doesn't seem to be much love for the unlucky, admittedly even from myself, and I hate how true it is. That in mind, I certainly live life on "easy mode" since I think I got dealt a good hand genetically and the imbalance may be even worse than I realize. I suppose I should have more compassion for people less fortunate and not assume that their difficulties are from a lack of character or ability.