Every year, my workplace holds a raffle to give away the computers that the IT department is retiring that are still in good working condition. I’ve participated without fail every year since I joined the company in the hopes of getting one of the actually pretty-decent computers for my personal use or a laptop that will get me through a few years of mobile computer usage (aka, writing) now that my old laptop can’t handle running a word processor on top of the OS. Eigth years in a row, I lost. There’s not a lot of computers and this is a popular program. This year, though, I almost missed it because I’ve been so distracted with other stuff going that I forgot about it completely and only managed to sign up at the last minute because the IT department sent out a message saying that not many people had signed up for the raffle. Since it was simple, thanks to the addition of a digital sign-up form, I filled it out and then promptly forgot about it again. I’ve had enough other stuff going on lately that some little lottery I wasn’t going to win didn’t seem like it was worth the mental space it would take to remember it. Which is why I was so surprised when I got the email congratulating me on winning the drawing. It took a little messaging back and forth for me to be certain this wasn’t some kind of scam or phishing attempt (seriously, both the IT and DevOps teams write their emails and messages like some kind of crappy phishing scam), but I was able to fill out the form and go pick up my brand new, 9-year-old-but-refurbished PC.