Super Bowl Ugh-day

 For the first time in my life, I am not excited for the Super Bowl. I am still pissed about my team not being in it. Though I am out fo the mourning I was in the day after, where I literally took a sick day and had a group therapy session with my pops and mom. I feel like this is a loss you just never get over, and the 24/7 reminders are everywhere.

They were so close. If one out of 12 things don't happen in that second half, my team is in the Super Bowl tonight. The Reynolds drops, Firkser not getting in, Gibbs fumble, Goff missing Gibbs at the end of the half. I don't blame coaching for it at all, except for running on third and goal. I like being aggressive and being who you are. In a few weeks, I will be able to take a step back and appreciate what an amazing season this was.

Maybe next year. 

Into Gaza

There we were, at the Erez Crossing, where Hamas blew through in the morning of October 7th, examining the damage they had left behind. It is symbolic place to be honest. because it was quite literally cutting off the hand that feeds you. 15,000 Palestinians from Gaza come through the terminal every morning, to seek medical assistance in Israel or work at a much-higher-than-gaza-salary gig. It is symbolic because it continues to prove the point that Hamas does not want a better life for Palestinians. They do not even care about the Palestinians. So why should we?

(The fact that there is still supplies going into Gaza from the other crossings when we have over 100 hostages in there is ridiculous by the way.)

We saw the burnt rooms they blew into, and the broken glass in the terminal. We saw the bullet holes as they tried to get into the sealed rooms on the base. We saw rotten oranges, probably there since the 7th, that no one is going to eat. 

And we saw life. We saw the soldiers who are there now, using it as a base to go into Gaza from and come back to. We got to see the D9s and climb into tanks. And we saw their smiles and played music (which we checked if they wanted due to the horrible news of losing 21 soldiers in one event yesterday). 

A Change is Coming

 After a long week of deciding, I signed my contract yesterday to become the new Sales and Marketing Operations Manager at a fraud company. It was especially tough because my boss (who I love) and his boss both tried to convince me to stay this week, offering to match and also change up my role. But I think I was already set on leaving. 

I had been feeling bored lately and not so impactful. That, combined with the layoffs we had a few weeks ago, made me decide to start looking for a new position. Also, there were meetings and topics that I would have wanted to be on, and I wanted to be much closer to the actual data itself. It was tough for me to grow at Pano, because we are a huge ops team. And also, I started looking in June, got 3 offers, and decided to stay - so I knew this time it wouldn't be long until the next time I realized it was time to leave. So when this opportunity came around, it was very tempting. It is the first time they've had this position, and it is a new and exciting company. 

I get to build it up from nothing, with systems I know. I get to manage events, and even fly to a couple a year (hello baseball games). I get to grow both on the ops side and also the marketing side. An I get to be a trusted partner of the leadership team. And I get to bring home another 5k a month (before taxes), which will be extremely helpful right now.

The four reasons why it was so hard to leave were: 1, I will probably never have as good of a manager as I have now. We are so close, best friends, and work amazing together. 2, I will probably never have this good of a team, where we are friends and enjoy coming to work. 3, finally, marketing leadership is the best I have ever been working alongside, and it was tough to leave that. 4, my work-life balance was incredible. I tried to ensure it would be the same here, but you just never know.

BUt I used my decision making excel and also asked myself if I would be excited to come into work on Monday if I decided to stay, and the answer was no.

Now I have to tell everyone which I am not excited for. But once I get through that, I will be extremely excited, especially to be on top of chicken station.