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What did you do this week (and weekend)?
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!
I hosted a backyard barbecue (being Canadian, that's what we call a summer get-together with a grill, distinct from Southern Barbecue) for my all my coworkers. We have a relatively small team, so we had lots of space. We've moved to an all-remote model of work - we sold our office, and a lot of our stuff is in storage - so it was nice to get all together. Our office dynamic included a lot of foosball so I got the foosball table from storage and set it up in the backyard, and we had a bunch of games, and I also set up a disc golf basket, and we did a bunch of putting. We had burgers and hot dogs done on my new grill and a bunch of salads, and it was pretty great. I'm pretty happy with my grill; having gotten along with an old, small grill for a long time, having a nice big grill with immediate, even heat is wonderful.
Other than that, still just opening boxes and trying to put things in their place after moving. It's crazy how much stuff we have.
I just finished a simulated consulting experience for my job. They flew a bunch of new hires out to Illinois come up with a solution set for a complex project during the day, and hang out and socialize with each other and the instructors and partners. My small national team's leadership finally got to catch up with the new hires, which was absolutely great. The funny thing is the project we did was all director and partner level work (going to a board and pitching the solutions), so it will be a while before anybody who did this project is actually doing it live. However, we will be helping with the process potentially, so it was really informative. We had rooms of six teams, and my group won in our room, which felt great, as I've never won anything on a group project like that, but my teammates were awesome. I also met so many people that folks were walking up to me like they knew me and their name had dropped out of my memory.
I locked in my Steam Deck, so hopefully I get it before I fly next in a few weeks.
I spent last week at the beach. Always tough coming back home from such a lazy, relaxed vacation. I got a ton of reading done, got to hang out with my partner’s family (immediate and extended), which is surprisingly pleasant. We didn’t bring a crate for the youngest dog, and she did great! No messes and no chewing.
Flew back to Canada, got upgraded to business class along the way. Slowly unpacking and trying to handle the jet lag. Getting ready to fly to the southern US next week, since my new job offered to have an onsite orientation and meeting since I joined at just the right time.
I'm not sure if things have changed since I've been gone, or if things have always been this way and I just now have a fresh view on things after living in central Europe for three years, but so far, it seems like more of a downgrade than I expected. One thing that popped out was how nonsensical a lot of the government instructions are, before even getting out of the airport.