— छह हजार एक सौ बारह —

It's been a kind of wild couple of days at work, having been affected by this story about worldwide cybersecurity vulnerability, forcing both national governments and the place I work for to preemptively take entire websites down. Our regular website seems unaffected, but our "Partners Portal" for vendors and brokers to submit promotions is a whole different story. It's been hosted on a platform that is at end-of-life for years.

I have been very actively involved in preparations for months now regarding a migration to a new online portal, but that's very slow going; the hope is to migrate next year, but we aren't even at the point of getting a Statement of Work, though we are close.

I was also a big part of Gabby being tasked with coming up with a contingency plan should the current portal go tits-up—which, this week, it effectively did; it's been offline since Wednesday. Only today am I fielding a bunch of emails asking if it's just them or when they might get access. All I can do so far is say our Partners Portal is down; our IT department is working on a solution; I don't have an ETA on its return; but I will follow up when I know more. The list of people I need to follow up with is growing by the minute.

I'm less panicky today, but right before a weekly status meeting about the new Portal (which we have no reasonably expectaion of getting up and running before next year), yesterday I got a Teams call request from Dave, the VP of Merchandising, and Justine, the Center Store Director. Especially while Gabby is on PTO for an extended trip to France for most of this month (it's uncanny how often major shit happens at work while she's on a trip somewhere), I am the default go-to for what the contingency plan might be.

And I did actually write up an SOP for exactly this kind of scenario, which I finished in June. Justine said in our brief meeting yesterday how grateful they were that I already had it written up, as otherwise that would be our first order of business. I told them they should credit Gabby for this, as she was the one who made sure it got done. Now, I did write it and I came up with the requested solution idea, granted; but I never would have taken the initative to do this on my own. Although to be fair, it was Gabby whom the VP of IT told the current Portal is on its last legs and we should really have a contingency plan in place.

As soon as the Portal was taken offline on Wednesday, I kind of continyed in ignorant bliss: this was annoying, but surely it would be back online soon. But then Dave and Justine requested the call, and when they told me there was a possibility we may have to use my contingency plan, I said: "...Oh." And there was something about the way I said it, I guess: Justine really cracked up at that.

The more the conversation went on, the more I stressed how much I was holding onto hope that IT could get the Portal back online. "I admire your optimism," Justine said. I replied: "I'm desperate for this not to happen!"

Now, that was a brief Teams call that cut a couple of minutes into the weekly new-Portal status meeting that was at 11 a.m. Dave then scheduled a half-hour meeting with Justine and me at 2:00 to go over the SOP I had written up. There's a lot more that needs to happen to make this idea workable, starting with getting IT to update the cost update template we've been using for decades but could still be leveraged for loading promo cost adjustments.

This was my solution as opposed to completely going back to the manual process we had before starting this Partners Portal in 2017. It's still going to be a lot more work, but will also allow for some automation. Justine asked me to quantify how much more work it would be: how many hours? 25% more work? 50% more? This is such a hard thing to answer, and I hate it when we get asked those sorts of questions. I guessed it would at minimum be 50% more work, but it was still impossible to answer, as we are always doing anything while in the middle of doing other things—I mentioned that part in the first meeting, and Justine indicated gratitude for what we do by lifting her hands and giving a light applause gesture.

We left that second meeting with the idea that we would meet with IT this morning to go over the cost template and what would need to be done with it, but that hasn't happened. Scott, our IT Director of Business Applications, had been sending sporadic updates, and the last one sounded surprisingly hopeful. I got a Teams message from Dave near the end of the day that said, That was a promising update on partner portal. Maybe we hold on contingency plans. I responded with an emoji of a smiley face crossing its fingers.

Things are far from settled as I write this, but more hopeful than they were even at that point. Still, the idea of pivoting to such a rudimentary solution after years of a portal that everyone loves—it was a prospect I dreaded. Like, I felt physically ill a couple of times while thinking about it. I haven't felt physically ill at any point today, so that's progress.

— छह हजार एक सौ बारह —

— छह हजार एक सौ बारह —

Now there's another detail I want to share from all of this, which kind of gets into office politics. Regular updates on the status of this situation were being sent to only three people: Brandon, the Director of Marketing and Purpose Development; Kim, the Senior Manager of Service Experience; and me—the other two were because of other specific pages on the company website that were being affected, and me, evidently as the Merchandising person for getting updates on the Partners Portal. A separate, earlier thread did not include Kim but did include two more people from IT. The later thread added Chris H from IT, and only Dave and Gabby (even though she's on PTO until the middle of next week) from Merchandising.

Now, I was immediately forwarding all these updates to Cathryn and Amanda, who manage promotions for Deli and for HBC, respectively. Cathryn asked me to ask them to include them in all further updates. I made this request on the first thread, and it did not happen; I made the request again on the second thread, which was more focused on regular updates (the first thread was initial acknowledgments that the Portal was down and why).

In that later update from Scott, sent about a quarter after 3:00 and including Dave and Gabby but still not including Cathryn or Amanda, one of several things Scott noted was:

One note before reporting progress. I have been asked by some recipients of this message to add others to this distribution. You all have been designated as functionally requiring this information. While others are significantly impacted by this outage, this email thread will not replace departmental communication plans. So, I cannot ad hoc entertain these requests.

Ad hoc entertain? Umm. Okay. I just forwarded, yet again, to Cathryn and Amanda with a simple "FYI."

Cathryn, a bit predictably, was not thrilled by this response. She later noted in our own thread of emails that "I think we are getting real redheaded stepchild energy here." She was being playful about it, but also legit about her feelings. And who could blame her? I'm not sure anyone could reasonably say they are any less "functionally requiring this information," so I totally get it. Now, I simply forwarded all updates as I got them, but that's beside the point. Also I was busy with something when one of the updates came in, and had they been copied on it then they would have been updated in a more timely manner than I was able to manage.

It also puts me into a bit of a socially awkward position, similar to when I was granted a promotion at the beginning of the year. I am clearly being singled out as "important" in a way others are not. When it comes to systems, I am the go-to authority in Merchandising—people like Cathryn regularly bringing up points I had not thought of notwithstanding (she and Amanda do broadly the same job I do, but have nuances of differences depending on the separate departments of their focus). Honestly when it comes to HQ, the item maintenance system I have been using far longer than anyone, this makes a little more sense; any such differences of experience with the Portal would be negligible, although I do process a far higher number of contracts in Grocery than any other department.

Shobhit met with me after work yesterday, because he sent me a photo of the Dia de Muertos "Giant Skulls" I was delighted to learn have returned—they had these around town in both 2023 and 2024, and I had been disappointed to find they didn't display any last year. This year, they have six on display, all together at Westlake Park; I suspect this was a response to the late-season vandalism some of them endured in previous years. Naturally I wanted to go over there right after work and get photos; I've already got a 23-shot photo album.

Anyway, I told him about all this shit from work while we walked home together after. He took it all as great, a positioning of myself as a "star" at work (which I kind of have been for years) who provides solutions to significant problems. I suppose. But this, to me, gets into why I would never excel as a manager (and Gabby has openly talked about what is other people's "superpower"; I would say being a great manager is her superpower). I don't really know how to handle evident resentment, however minor or indirect, connected to how I'm getting treated differently, or with greater deference.

We walked home, made dinner, and finally watched the last two episodes of Silo. My Apple TV subscription ends today; soon I will start a new month of Netflix. This afternoon, though, I'm leaving early—something I had to note to Dave and Justine yesterday when we were discussing the prospect of further meetings—so I can drive down to Olympia. Dinner before a show with Dad and Sherri: the Bee Gee's cover band, called "You Should be Dancing." If you wondered whether I have gotten old, I do have ear plus ready in my pocket should I need them. Anyway I'll be staying the night and driving back home tomorrow.

— छह हजार एक सौ बारह —

[posted 12:32pm]

— छह हज़ार एक सौ ग्यारह —

An interesting, new, and slightly uncomfortable experience for me this morning, even though I knew from the start that something of the sort was always a possibility because the film is so new, and so far, so narrowly seen: I received an email from a member of the crew for the film 49 to 51, asking for edits in two different paragraphs.

The email was very polite and even complimentary of my review, but I still had kind of mixed feelings about it. None of it had anything to do with anything critical I said about it—the kind of thing that had Shobhit anxiously saying to me "Just be careful"—but rather about being sensitive to the subject matter in one instance, and avoiding spoilers in the other.

I'll start what this person clearly regarded as a spoiler in the final paragraph. In my review as first written, I noted that the title, 49 to 51, was a lighthearted inside joke between Pooja and her late brother, Raj. That's all I said about it; I did not say what the inside joke was. But, considering it does not change the quality of the review overall, I did go ahead and rephrase it, saying the title is a reference to something a bit more lighthearted, a lovely detail revealed very near the end of the film. I even edited another detail in that very same, final paragraph, which the crew person who sent the email did not ask for, but it occurred to me that I did also arguably give too much detail about the final shot of the film as well, and it would be better experienced if I made that reference a bit more vague as well.

This is a bit of a more nuanced example, but I do feel compelled to note that I'm kind of over how much people obsess over avoiding spoilers. If you want no details at all about a movie before you see it, you simply should not read any reviews before seeing it. The person who left a comment on my review of You Can See Everything asked that I put "Spoiler Alert" at the top of the piece, which in that case I have not done; she ended by saying "It matters," which I found a bit grating. It matters? Does this person have any idea the massive amount of stunning shit in that movie that I did not reveal? Plus, it's still a movie. It doesn't matter that much.

That said, the subject of 49 to 51 is of a far more sensitive nature, and has far greater justifications to claims of mattering. And I should stress that this email was very respectful. That said, the person offered to get on the phone and "suggest wording for the sentences around it," and I wasn't having that. I did take the suggestions for making edits, and I did make them; but I can't be letting people tell me how I should write about movies, particularly movies they themselves worked on. That's something I would consider straight up unethical, though I was softer about it in my brief reply, in which I let her knew that I did make edits to the paragraphs to which she referred: I said I would not be comfortbale with it and would consider it to be in an ethical gray area considering my writing, which is still also true.

The person had legitimate concerns about what I was sharing about the film, but a) it's been publicly presented and that makes it fair game for whatever I want to say about it, technically, the delicate dance regarding any degrees of separation from acquaintance with the filmmakers nowtishtanding; and b) I still think it's far better for me to make edits on my own terms and in my own voice. The choice still needs to be mine, and not a compromise of my writing. (I did make a compromise in terms of details revealed, which is a different thing.) The person seemed otherwise to really appreciate what I had to say about the film anyway.

I did note in my blog post the day after attending the screening that it was pretty likely people involved in the film would see my review, it's so new and so few people have published reactions to it. This just illustrates how right I was. I suppose the exchange could have been far more uncomfortable than it was, so I'm grateful for that. It was still a new, and kind of odd, experience.

— छह हज़ार एक सौ ग्यारह —

— छह हज़ार एक सौ ग्यारह —

As for last night, Shobhit met me at work while out getting his steps in, and he walked home with me. We stopped at QFC on the way home and bought eggs and pasta that were all on sale, which kind of made it an errand run more than anything.

We kind of had a lot more to cover together than usual, though, starting with our latest of endless calls to Aetna to get the status of claims that are listed as either denied or "waiting for more information," though both say the latter in the details on the Aetna website. The concern is that one is for just above $50,000 and the other is for just above $58,000. They keep telling us this will update once they get the right information; Harborview Medical Center has told us they've sent it to them four times.

I actually got a voicemail today while I was at work, from the very same woman we spoke to yesterday—a significant step up from all of our experience thus far, actually, as no one else has proactively followed up with me. That said, the message now is something along the lines of the itemized bill they received from Harborview not being correct and it needing to be resubmitted (yet again??) and that it will take another 3-4 weeks to process. Jesus Christ.

There was a bit of a chaotic moment because TPS, which Shobhit works for, onboarded a new Executive Director, and Shobhit needed to take a Zoom call with her. I was on hold with the agent at Aetna at the time, on speaker as usual so Shobhit and I could both talk to her, but now he was on this other call. And the Aetna agent got back on the call right when Shobhit got on his Zoom, a frustration which was compounded by my therefore needing to move to the bedroom so I could hear her, while the pot of leftover sambjar on the stove also started to boil over. Fun!

Anyway, once those calls were done, I logged into my work Dayforce site so we could go through my Open Enrollment together. We took my laptop over to the common area in the West Building so we could print out the Spousal Surcharge Affidavit form, which he is taking to TPS today to get signed so I can prove my spouse does not have access to health benefits at his job and therefore the surcharge for him to be on my insurance gets waived.

After that, things settled a bit: we watched three episodes of season 3 of Silo on Apple TV. I was going to go to Steamworks after work today but I decided to postpone it until next month; we still have two episodes left of Silo and we'll watch those tonight, before my one-month subscription expires tomorrow—when, incidentally, I will leave work early and drive to Olympia, have dinner with Dad and Sherri and then go with them to a Bee Geese cover band concert. I'm really looking forward to that. I told Karen about it over our Zoom lunch yesterday and she really cracked up.

We watched one episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm before I went to bed and it was hilarious.

— छह हज़ार एक सौ ग्यारह —

[posted 12:43pm]