As hectic, busy, and downright exhausting as work has been recently, I’ve actually been enjoying it more. I don’t know if it’s because I have stuff going on in my evenings again or it’s just because I’ve been working more with people I like who appreciate my thoughts and no longer feel like the work I’m doing doesn’t matter. Well, now that I’ve typed it out, I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. Or, you know, both of them with most of the change in outcome being a result of the latter. Feeling like the work I’m doing matters is kind of a big deal to me because there is little more I hate than feeling like I’m wasting my time and going to work every day at a job that felt like it was wasting my time was really not a happy place for me to be, mentally speaking. I mean, I knew the work I was doing mattered, but there were sure a lot of days that it didn’t feel like it did, no matter how much I reassured myself otherwise.

I started this paragraph by typing “not that much has changed” but that’s kind of a bald-faced lie and a massive attempt on my part to dodge the introspection and reflection I meant to do when I started this post. A lot has changed, actually. Up until a couple weeks ago, I was working with a coworker who felt it was easier to do things himself than teach me how to do it. Only once he was gone and I was forced to start asking other people for help did I realize that not only did they let me do it after the explanation, but they actually explained things and answered my questions rather than just telling me “that’s just how the test is run.” Which means I figured out a whole bunch of places where redundant testing was happening, so I’ll be able to produce a much cleaner, shorter, and more accurate test plan once our busy push ends (if it ever does).

Plus, I’ve gotten to dig into some weird, nuanced issues where I was able to formulate a hypothesis to explain what was wrong, have people take it seriously, and then either be proven correct in the end or have the data I’d been collecting wind up being the key to the developer or engineer figuring out what was actually wrong. I’ve either been correct or incredibly close every single time out of the last ten significant issues I’ve uncovered, which feels great. Plus, I don’t mind doing repetitive tasks or doing a bunch of the same thing over and over again with tiny variations introduced in each repeat, which is a great way to collect testing data for developers. I feel very compentent and skilled at my job, which is not something I’ve felt since the Great Burnout of 2021.

I’m still massively burned out, of course, and there are more things wrong at my current job than just this one, but this has been a set of weeks where I’ve felt like maybe it’s worth sticking things out here and doing what I can to make change from within. I’m not sure I’ll be able to manage that and I’m not sure this idea is a healthy one, but it certainly feels better than the miserable, awful burnout and dissatisfaction I felt prior to this exhausting but pleasant pair of weeks.

I wish I had more to say about how nice it has been, but I know this is basically going up two weeks from when I wrote it, rather than the usual one, so I don’t want to tie it too specifically to a point in time. Also, I’ve very tired from a busy day of work and have absolutely zero focus because I’m writing this the day before The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom comes out and I just have nothing left in me–heart, mind, and soul–for anything anything that isn’t LoZ-centric. So I’m just going to leave this relatively happy, effusive piece as-is and focus on the exciting stuff that’s happening soon.