Weeknote 24
The week ‘started’ with a busy weekend - friends visiting, much activity. A lovely long walk through the forests across the road from us. A trip to Big Pit. Meals out. It was lovely, but I was peopled by Monday and I started the week in an absolutely rancid mood.
Things turned round by the end. But I am heading into the weekend absolutely exhausted again.
Short house update: Sprint 1 completed. Demolition done, foundation in. Sprint planning with architects, structural engineer and builders happened on Wednesday. Work restarts on Monday.
This week
This week was really mixed.
Started the week really struggling to get my head round my role. It feels like there is a real conflict between what those of us in the role think it is and what different groups inside our organisation think it is. There’s not a huge amount of overlap between those things.
I won’t lie - the first two days of the week had me hovering over the rage quitting button. So much admin that I feel is unnecessary. Servicing the amount of reporting and spreadsheeting we have to do for the organisation and the client when data already exists is a huge frustration. It takes away from getting hands on the work and helping to shape it. The tension between delivery roles and the senior partner roles is also very real.
I had a lot of rants and moans to my senior partner colleagues. Some helpful, some spiralling (sorry). A comment from one of the longer term partners of ‘make it your own’ really helped shift my head.
And by Wednesday I was taking some more positive action to start shaping it how I wanted it to be. Spent (not enough) time with a couple of key internal team members to start to visualise the buckets of work and how we’d divide them up. More to do on this week. There’s a lot of teasing out what actions/behaviours sit behind certain words and phrases but I’m feeling a bit better about it. More sessions next week.
A real highlight of the week was joining a session with Vicky B and our research team to review our overall approach and work through some challenges to how we work in a more continuous flow model rather than short, sharp, SoW focussed deliverables. Reaffirms that I’m happier when I’m closer to the work and more involved.
I had the first part of my neurodiversity assessment on Thursday morning, 90 minutes with a psychologist going through diagnostic questions. I think it was probably behind some of the rancid mood earlier in the week - stress and worry. And I’m so pleased that I blocked out a good chunk of my diary in the afternoon to not be available. My head was absolutely mashed. But I’m extremely certain of the outcome and that helps. I’m also suspecting one or two other co-morbid conditions alongside the main one. I should find out a bit more in two weeks when I have the second session with the psychiatrist.
Next week
I’ll be diving back into more work with the delivery team and getting under the skin. Looking at what Q2 work might look like.
I have some deep spreadsheeting to do to fix a few peopling issues. Possibly pulling together a SoW. Fiddling with another one. Some more frustrating admin to tackle as well.
But I’ll have something to look forward to at the end of the week. The dog is going to her home boarder and we’re heading up to North Wales for a long weekend, Friday-Monday.
What I’ve been watching
We finished Station 19 last night. Weird ending to a weird show.
We’ve been dipping back into Extraordinary - rewatching the first season before watching the second.
But we now have capacity to watch some new shows and I’ve got a long list of things that I’ve mentioned before. June sees a lot of good stuff starting.
Reading - I’ve utterly failed. The brain squirrels have dashed those hopes. Oh, I read the Labour Party Manifesto to see what might be the direction of travel for the work I’m involved with (should the election go that way) and also to see what they have in store for Wales.
Pupdate
Dilys had physio again, she’s doing really well and will start hydrotherapy next week. Get ready for photos of a tiny dog on an underwater treadmill.
What’s blooming
Not a lot tbh, this endless winter weather is really stunting the garden and everything looks like it’s on strike from growing. I’m a bit worried if I’ll get any veg or any cutting flowers this year.
I made elderflower cordial from some of my pink elderflower and some foraged from the woods.
The clematis is having a good year. Though the light purple one grows in a place we can’t really see it.
