Money Diary #138

Morning: Mom wakes up me at 6, and I lay around until 6:30. Get up, brush my teeth, and drink a cup of tea. Log on & check email. Drink another cup of tea and have toast for breakfast. Get dressed, download grocery coupons for Albertsons, and head out to the store. They grab bananas on sale ($0.29/lb), 2 things of milk ($1.49 each), 2 green peppers ($0.49 each), and 4 2-liters of Coke Zero & Sprite Zero (99 cents each). Come home, unload groceries, and log back on. A project comes in, and I review it. Reach out to the stakeholder with a few questions & set up a call with him tomorrow to connect.

Afternoon: Lunch is foccacia bread, cauliflower, and eggplant. Do the coconut oil pull and jump on my 2 pm call. Listen in and pipe up with a question. Reach out to a colleague to give her a heads up. The call ends by 3:15, and I get a few projects to review. Get started on those, set up a meeting for next week, and flag some initial questions to myself. Will review again later this week. Reach out to a colleague on a question & she shares that her position has been eliminated. I give her a quick call and see how she is doing. Drink a cup of milk tea and air fry some spring rolls for an afternoon snack. 

Evening: Read for a while, and here is what I learn:

• Easiest way to increase your compensation trajectory: "Lateral in the good times but stay put in the bad (because you have a built-up store of good reputation and a network and many places take a last-in-first-out perspective for cuts)." 

• Conserve your energy: "If you are exhausted in this job, you are a sucker. You need to learn the subtle trick of not exerting too much energy or as little as possible on this job." 

• Patience wins the day: "The quicker you want something, the easier you are to manipulate.​"

• Breaking the pattern: "Venture teaches you to pattern match, but by definition, you are supposed to invest in companies that break patterns." 

• Other people have ways of doing things that are correct: "After several years as an individual contributor, I was recruited into management. This is when I learned that other people also have ways of doing things that are correct, and they appreciate it if you consider the merit of their alternate ways instead of immediately dismissing them."

• No maintenance costs: "Work in a job that will shower you with money but has no maintenance costs (fancy clothes, country clubs, luxury cars, meal services because you don’t have time to cook) or high entry fees (a degree that comes with six-figure student loans)."

Dinner is rice & air fried shrimp, yum. Sliced mangoes for dessert. Do the coconut oil pull, brush my teeth, and show Mom a funny butt picture. Bed around 11.