I’m a packrat – not just the six tons of books I have in my library (as of 2006! God knows how much I’ve got now) but at work, where in last week’s office move I had thirty-two individual labeled items for the movers to move, sixteen of those boxes of stuff (again, mostly books, both for my personal library and for the robotics team library). But there were two boxes of stuff I took home, along with various bric-a-brac – mostly genre toys, a lot of them items only there for entertainment, like my large centaur statue or my mini R2D2 robot. But in that is a far more important genre of materials – in a way, the third most important category of things on my desk.
The most important thing on my desk is the computer – I’m there to work, natch. The next most important thing is a picture of one of our cats – not because cats are important, but because it’s a reminder of my wife and family, of why I’m working. But the third most important thing are a set of awards, swag and trophies from work itself.
These trophies include everything from a major award for a team I was on to a tiny piece of swag for hosting an intern. Not a one of them – not a one – is a major award for me in and of myself, sorry; my contributions were minor. But they are reminders that I’ve done something at work I can be proud of. As a neurotic workaholic, I need that feedback to keep going.
When I’m struggling, when I’m fighting an algorithm, when I’m debugging code, I can always look to my right, see my cat sitting in front of a sabertooth skull, and remind myself why I’m doing what I’m doing; then I can look to the left, give my Google Instant globe a spin, and remind myself that hey, don’t you worry: you’ve got this.
-the Centaur
