Thursday, February 18th, 2021

Our youngest programmer, the only woman on the team, is leaving the company today. I understand that it was a mutual parting of the ways. I think she’s headed to another job, though I’m not sure. She has brought in an immense amount of munchies to celebrate. I've never seen a departing worker do that before. They are arrayed on the counter of the office kitchen: chocolate bars, hamantaschen, crembo, cookies and cakes, plates of cashews and dried cranberries, and other items that I can’t name. I eat too much of them. I intentionally don’t keep any of that stuff, other than the nuts and dried fruit, in my house. That's why. The boss gathers us in the corridor between the cubes and gives a grand speech, praising her and wishing her well. I get more things than usual done today. In the morning, I rewrite a blurb to be sent to our partners about new ways of working together. The boss and my direct boss have written it, so it has some peculiar wording. English seems to use singulars and plurals differently than some other languages. I have to figure out what they meant and sort it out. In the afternoon, I incorporate fixes from a technical review into a manual I have almost finished. I enjoy working with the programmer who made them. All his comments are precise, understandable, and keyed to the exact line in the document that needs to be fixed. The fixes are punctuated by trips to the kitchen for more coffee and sweets. It’s a good thing that we tend to retain our workers, and don’t have these celebrations often.