Flowers, I remember

On Wednesday, flowers were delivered. It came as a surprise, as there was no special occcassion. The flowers were from my best friend. The note read: Happy Hump Day! Just some flowers because I love you.

It was a beautiful gesture that immediately brightened my day. I felt happy to be thought of. The rest of the work day was great because of the energy from the flowers.

On Thursday, I had a catch up call with friends. It wasn't scheduled. We all just had free time, and stories to tell. And it's nice to validate that we all think about one another.

Saturday, I had a scheduled call with friends. That was necessary since one person was in an international time zone. It was refreshing to have our conversation in daytime (for 3/4 of us). We always leave those meetings wanting more.

Finally, Sunday, I got to visit with other friends. They are two very clever people who most definitely pass the partner crying test for me. We played Ticket to Ride and Overcooked. In-person meets release the pressure and allow for laid back fun.

With all these groups, there were conversations portions about COVID, cultural appropriation, and causes behaviors as Filipino immigrants and children of immigrants. Last week, I felt like I wasn't doing enough to make those conversations normal. But it got me to notice it comes us. Just because I don't see immediate result doesn't mean things are evolving. Hopefully I evolve with it.

Personalised Greetings

 Yes. I purposely used the commonwealth spelling. S instead of Z (or "zedd" as they would say).

At work, we try to make birthdays special. When we were in the office, we would decorate desks and order treats to share. Now that we're virtual, creative celebrations I have seen are:

• Digital cards - it's interactive just like a paper card
• Digital boards - contributors can write, but also put photos and gifs
• Zoom dance parties - Marshmellow crashed my friend's party (it was definitely him, not someone's uncle that bought the helmet from Amazon)
  
• Video happy hours - sometimes there's Jackbox games
• Cameo video purchases
• Vidday video collages
  

This past birthday, I was in charge. The celebrant was in the UK, outside of London. Things I learned:

• There isn't Postmates, at least not one I can access from the states.
• 
  There's no post on Sundays. In this covid world, couriers for shipments I looked at did not pick up on Saturdays.
• Same-day delivery did exist for flowers, so I ordered that at 11:30pm PST on Sunday for delivery by end of day Monday in the UK.

For the last two birthdays, my team wore hand-made birthday hats in our team meetings for the celebrant. 10 minutes before this week's meeting, the team asked me if we should make hats. In a scramble, I asked, what is easy and can imitate the celebrant? Then it hit me, she always has her planner. So, we all got a notebook and wrote happy birthday. In the meeting, we all displayed that we were writing in the notebooks. The celebrant, then held out her own planner to be like us. Then, the rest of us turned the notebooks around to show the birthday signs.

It was well executed, despite being last minute. And it was a personalised flavor to the hat gesture we had made for prior birthdays.

So what did I learn from this?

1. Things work out. So long as it's not somewhere living in the dark ages, there are resources. I had anxiety all morning waiting for the flowers to get delivered. But that was something I put on myself. I told myself it would be ok, but I worried anyway. Next time, I have to try to say it would be ok, and then give my energy to think of other productive things.
2. A small gesture can go a long way.
3. I should communicate more. I don't have the best confidence in being a leader and executing things. I know I have good ideas, and I know people know that, but I don't know how to oversee and manage people.

I'm writing them down because I need to apply these learning to my next project, due September 21. That project requires coordination of 16 individuals, some of whom I haven't met.

Over and out!