Unexpected gratitude for Movember
At Atlassian a few of us are growing mustaches for Movember; mine’s a bit crap but some others are managing to get some impressive porno ‘taches going. Personally I don’t think men’s health issues get enough attention so for me it’s largely a solidarity/awareness thing rather than actively soliciting for sponsors. But other than not shaving one part of my face I hadn’t actually been thinking about it too much.
However yesterday I went to a friend’s barbecue. Nothing remarkable in itself; beer, fun and mountains of snags were had by all. But as we were leaving a girl who I’d only vaguely been aware of and hadn’t really talked to ran up and asked if I was growing a mustache for Movember. I said ‘yes’ and she suddenly expressed a surprising amount of emotion. It turns out that she had lost both her husband and father to cancer, and was really grateful that was helping to raise awareness of the issue, and that people were finally starting to give it some attention.
This doesn’t really change anything of course, but it’s funny how what to me is a bit of a lark with a point behind it can mean a fantastic amount to someone else.
Update: By popular request …
They even made some custom beer-bottles for the last day:
