Nice

Whatever ill will I had toward work over the past week or so (caused by it gobbling up my weekends and weeknights faster than I could shove more Matlab simulations down its throat and walk away for several hours) evaporated this afternoon because people here are just so... nice. On Monday I got an email from a man I've never met asking if I could release one of the 4 optimization toolbox licenses that I was monopolizing (out of the 7 total that the company has) so that he could do his work. I explained that I had been running simulations overnight and had gotten a bit greedy with the licenses and kept using them during the day, but I quickly apologized and logged off one of the machines and told him that I could release more licenses if he needed them. Instead of the sarcastic "thanks a lot for hogging all the machines" reply I was expecting, I got a quick, "No worries. One is all I need. Thanks!"

Round 2 came this afternoon. I got a phone call from another guy that I've never met, explaining the same situation: "I've been trying to run my simulations, but I can't because all the licenses are taken and you've got 4 of them checked out." Whoops again. So I gave him the same spiel and quickly logged off, which was met by a pleasant, "Thanks!"

I'm not sure why I was expecting everyone to be so mean about it (or maybe they were just doing a good job of pretending), but in any case, it's nice that people here are so cooperative. It makes up for that crack between the ceiling tiles and the wall that separates me from the loudest conference room on Earth.