Sheltering-in-place in Trichotomy

Um... Hi?

It’s weird. 3 years is a long time, but as I’d written before, I feel like life had come to a standstill.

Even though OD reopened, I see no reason to go back. And how I’m writing for the sake of writing.

Not much has changed since last time I wrote here, nothing of interest happened in my life and thus I saw no need to write here. We still have music parties with friends, still giving concerts, living in the same house, working at the same New Hip Company, same commute.

Trying to think what had happened that was of interest…

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Money Makes the World Go Round

I switched teams 1 1/2 years ago and working in technical infrastructure now. Much more interesting project. Though, the upper management is now much more focused on making money as its own motivator, which does not sit right with me. My old team was working on a Maps product, and our VP always relate the work she does with the organisation’s mission - to make people’s lives easier, to help them find directions, or places to go. And we see the benefits because we all use and know people who use our product. But my current VP, he relates everything we do with how much money New Hip Company were going to make.

This change in focus is probably company-wide; some of my old teammates are relating that even my old organisation is focused on getting revenue now. I suppose when a company goes IPO, it shifts its focus from ‘change the world’ to ‘fill my pocket’.

Not something the motivates me - but at least the problems I’m working on is interesting. The co-workers I work with are also more technical… I think half my team has PhDs now.

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Responsibility

I joined the Board of Director at the non-proft performance organisation. I’m in charge of running their website now. The Organiser has moved to Florida but hasn’t relinquished official power. He’d tapped the ENT doctor to take over “day-to-day” activities (which actually is everything), but retained the title of “Music Director”. The New Organiser is much more sensible (he is not gunning for a Stern Auditorium performance), and much better at delegating (read: does not micro-manage), so I’m much happier working for him. The membership participation - as in concert attendance and donation revenue - jumped appreciably since he got in charge.

So, funny story. One of the board members was both the web-designer and web-master for our web-site. Her design looks like - and this is from multiple independent sources - it was designed in the 90s, with sharp colour and flashing pop-ups. People say it hurt their eyes. When asked about it, she said it is her preference - she wanted to make the site “pop”. Everyone asked her to change the design, but she felt protective.

Fast forward to last summer when New Organiser took over, and he made it a priority we change the design. He recruited Retired Professional Mezzo, who works as a professional web designer now, to design a new site, which she did in a week. The new site is brilliant. But Original Web Master refused to publish it and threatened to quit. The nominal reason was the she would have to use a different web hosting service for the site (the old version was on wix, which doesn’t allow you to upload your own site), which she claimed was too much work to learn. I think she doesn’t want her design to be replaced and threw a tantrum. So New Organiser replaced her, with me. When the new design was launched, we got many compliments on it, almost invariably saying how it looks more “modern” and “up-to-date”.

And that is how I ended up being their Digital Director.

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Last updated March 26, 2020