This one was hard. It was a long day.

We're doing a lot of interviewing right now, and I've been thinking about how I would answer these interview questions if I were on the other side of the table. Always good to be prepared. One of the questions is, "what are you proudest of in your career" followed by the downer question "what has been your biggest failure?"

I have a few project-related proudest moments, which I'm not going to blah blah blah about. But one of my (three? four?) proudest moments came with time. In my first official managerial 1-1 with a much younger staff person, I showed up with a super-long list of questions with check boxes next to each question. She basically said, "so whaddya wanna talk about?" As we went through each item I checked it off my list. The next week she had a few questions with check boxes next to them and my list was relatively shorter than the previous week. Starting with week three, she had all the questions with check boxes and I, having no check boxes, just mentored and managed and took her amazing suggestions and employed them however I could. The other day I got an email from a former coworker/still good friend saying that my "protoge" (his word) had done an amazing job in a very important meeting. This made me proud.

I've been trying to mentor my current younger coworkers since it's pretty evident I will not be advancing into management at my current company. I'm not in a position to make decisions, so mostly I provide moral support and give them suggestions for how to approach management with their ideas. One of said younger coworkers has started making lists of questions with check boxes next to them. I had to laugh to myself.

My biggest failure... I know what it is, and maybe I will write about it someday. Someday when I can figure out how I could've done things differently. Because dwelling and moping is useless but hindsighting is actually kind of productive.

So anyway. Things that didn't suck about today:

• The new M. Ward album has Zooey and Lucinda Williams. So that's pretty awesome. The album itself is pretty awesome too.
• I finally sent a thank-you card to my uncle and aunt for their Christmas gift.
  
• My cat smells like peanut butter.
  
• In case this hasn't been obvious, I really, really, really like my coworkers. Management, not so much, but my team is amazing. They keep me sane and entertained, and we all look out for each other.
  
• Tasty Bites palaak paneer w/TJ's frozen naan (heated of course) definitely does not suck. Not as good as India Chaat House but it'll do in a rainy-snowy-hell-no-I-am-not-walking-15-minutes-to-Cart-City pinch.