Interesting reversal

You've known people who seem to want God/Goddess/a Deity/the Divine to exist so they have someone on which to blame bad things, right?

I find I want the Divine to exist so I have someone (Someone?) to be grateful to when things go well. Really, I mean that. When my heart is filled with gratitude, I want to be able to say "Thank You!" to something more than the unanthropomorphic Universe. Although the Universe will do if there's no one else out there to thank.

This realization is partially fueled by how well my personal life is going at the moment, but also because we had our recognition dinner for the last SAP release last night. I helped emcee part of the evening, designed the award plaques, designed the appreciation certificates, created the closing presentation/entertainment, and had the great surprise and pleasure of two different people saying that their "favorite funny memory" of the project was something I had said or done. (For the record, one was the names of the re-labeling logbooks - the Interim Labeling Log, or "ILL", the Handling Unit Re-Labeling Log, or "HURL", and the Business Objects Log, or "BO Log". :) The other was a submission I made to buzzwhack.com - from that link, look for the definition for "proceduralize".) I had many compliments on my award design (I'll see if I can figure out a way to post it here later) and my singing (I'll also try to post what I recorded for the closing presentation) from not just co-workers but upper management, which was gratifying.

It is an amazingly satisfying feeling to have worked on a project which, for all that there are some residual issues, was the most successful of 10 system releases, and to have things I can point to and say "That particular success was directly due to my efforts." That's not something I have been able to experience in my career before, and really makes the 50, 60, and even 70 hour work weeks worthwhile. (Though I do hope I don't have to repeat those too terribly often on this new release. Between family and personal life, I really can't afford THAT much time out of my life now!)

It was also great to see everyone again, as some of the folks there I hadn't seen since we rolled off the project in late January. Amazing how the basic psychology of "put them through h___ together and they'll bond" really does work. :)

And I don't want any of this to sound like bragging, because I do not intend it that way at all. Before this year, my career has been more often filled with written warnings for lateness than successes (and part of the reason I can be successful on this project is that people give me a lot of slack for not being a morning person, in exchange for the amount of creativity and extra evening hours I'm willing to put in). And situations like when I was assistant site manager for a consulting company, and when the manager left, the company hired an outsider that knew nothing technical about IT instead of promoting me, in part because they knew I would train the new manager well. (That was also the time when I found out that members of my team were asked privately by HR, "What are you looking for in a new manager?" and they answered "Suzanne." Blew me away - I didn't think I'd been all that involved in their jobs. But perhaps the fact that I left them alone to do their jobs was what they liked!) So I've had my share of unpleasant work moments.

But right now, I am using this blog to fulfill my urge to offer the universe a moment of thanks, for all the synchronicities that led me to this job. And for being given the great gift of feeling valued , which is perhaps a greater motivator for me than I ever realized.