I love "font people" as a phrase. The next time I'm at a remotely design-related conference, I'm finding a way to work "would the font people please leave the lobby" into conversation. Even though it will mean nothing to anyone but me.

What font do you have on your resume?

I use Calibri. It's also now my default setting for Word and Excel.

Mine is either Helvetica or Verdana. Can't remember.

Who's gonna represent for the serifs?

I like Times New Roman. I've set it as the default font for this very website in my settings.

Serif-less fonts make me weep.

edit: You're welcome, Hec.

Incidentally, comic book God, Will Eisner created a character named Sand Saref. (She's the sexy woman, not the guy.)

edit: You're welcome, Hec.

Thank you, Connie!

Of course I have tl/dr; thinkies about the project wrapup happening, and on a day where I was laid low by pain and on the edge of crying all the time, it was especially raw. It went down kinda like this, and now I'm going to bed:

I spent the better part of twenty years thinking I was an unrewarding employee for an average boss. I mean, I showed up, I did the work, and I did the work well. I didn't do the work *stellarly* in a way my boss would notice, but shit got done, of quality, on deadline.

I came up with one or two ideas of my own, but by and large I was quiet, and preferred to innovate with my code and nothing else. The only time I stepped up onstage was when I was management, and I did it for them, the people I managed. I had to protect them from all the crazy people above them. And that was worth it for them, and rewarding for me. It worked. But it was the tail end of a toxic engagement.

My next two jobs--I did my work. Again, I did it above average well, but no one would pick it out of a crowd. I was generally pleasant, polite, and articulate. So people might have thought my work was better than it was because I knew how to work a stage. But I didn't push anything. I just worked out what the task list, and tried to make sure nothing fell off it. I didn't make myself noticed, I didn't stand out in a crowd, management had no idea who I was unless it was my own management.

The first year of this job--crazy pressure to learn in an environment that really didn't respect personal time, didn't have a clear career path set up in the company, so I had no idea what the pay bracket was, what the next job "up" was, nothing. I was kinda crushed by the overbearing boss, and given little room to establish my personality, much less speak up in meetings…go to meetings alone…have my own ideas…do my own research…generate my own deliverables without needing them close edited by someone whose documents I really needed to correct.

And then a boss left and my mother was diagnosed and something snapped. The cast list around me haven't changed much past the one departure, but that was notable. I remember not even being able to speak in the meeting where his firing was revealed, I just didn't feel I had anything to say, but then two meetings later there was joshing and smiling, and suggestions of process, and explanations of projects, and most importantly room and trust to do my own things.

Skip forward to the project where people keep saying "Ask ita ! She'll get you an answer!" Sometimes it was within my fiefdom, sometimes it was adjacent, and sometimes it was billing practices of the company I don't work for sort of random. I got the answers, because it seemed simpler than passing the buck. So, even more, I was the go-to-girl in the project.

MVP, the Director called me. I didn't make much of it, but she spent a lot of tonight saying "Isn't she amazing?!" and getting people to agree with her. *I* spent a lot of time thanking her, for thanking the PM for not letting the project explode by the time it landed in his lap, and making sure the Director properly understood how far above and beyond the developer had gone on putting together the code and answering all the questions, and finding a way and making me look good, because my promises were kept. Her and the Chief of Marketing owe him a large amount of thanks.

The PM smiled at me across the table and deliberately refrained from being complimentary, but I get him. I know the woman next to him, the one that said "ita ! ita ! Lastname! I've heard such great things about you!" could only have heard it from him.

I'll go in tomorrow, and I won't be on this team with these people anymore, but I've told the Director to ask for me by name next time, because she made me want to come to work every morning (inasmuch as I can) even though the project was majorly crazy. Because it was fun, and the people were fun. No one knew what they were in for, but everyone had a good time.

Everyone shared completely unrelated stories and laughed and I drank with my team for the (continued...)

( continues...) first time in two years (but I did not actually finish the gimlet).

Tomorrow I'll go into work, and someone will mistake me for the owner of the front page of the main application, and I'll field that request, because that business group now only talks to me. The PM will come to me, because on his second project here he's come across a problem our programmer already solved on the last project, and can I do some research and find out what the fix is for his new project, please?

Yeah, we can, because the developer is rock star like that. He will send your team his query, and it will be the template for how it's done from now on.

See that development model with three overlapping teams? No one has deployed with that model before us. Watch this space. Watch badassed back ends and tight hi tech slickly usable web pages. Watch us do it smoothly next time! They did say it couldn't be done, or it wouldn't be worth it, but I wanted to get my way, because this was important.

And lo, it was coded. We got to market on time, with a development team spread across Southern Cali (many of us work from home), in Minnesota, and in India and across divisions. It worked and it was pretty, and now I have a pen, a phone screen wipe and a fuck of a lot of contacts to show for it. I might just have impressed the Director of marketing.

They were looking for 5% penetration into the application in a year, and they got 10% in two weeks. Next stop, retention. Next stop, the moon.

I hope I'm on that project. And the next, and the one after that.

Bravo, ita.