Well the circumstances that caused my short and downbeat note last week have now leaked all over The Guardian. I don’t have much to add other than that this kind of disruption is rarely evenly distributed across an organisation and I’d suggest that this article underplays things for the corner in which I am operating.
The whole thing is pretty uncomfortable on a personal level – and not really the return to the working world I was seeking. The reality is I haven’t been here long enough to have that much skin in the game and I’m pretty sure that if it comes to it I’ll find something else to do…but there are lots of great people who have been here much longer through some very difficult times who don’t possess the kind of network I do. They are going to be worrying about the future and I want to be as helpful and supportive as I can. It is just at the moment I don’t know what that looks like – though I suspect given a lot of talented, experienced people are about to hit the job market I might be able to be of some use.
I’m basically doing half days for the time being – though it isn’t as clean as AM/PM so I’m keeping my eye on the Windows laptop throughout the day – and while I do feel like I am contributing (I had a couple of good meetings about assurance/governance yesterday which included bringing different teams with similar remits together and got to wax lyrical about assessments and just-in-time agile governance) there is an element of a holding pattern to it all as the shape of the new org design emerges and we see who and what is left…and where that sits.
Has to be said between all this and the Rees-Mogg nonsense I think that brief urge to return to the Civil Service properly has passed.
As a long-term and pretty full-on user of Twitter of course I have opinions about the Elongated Man buying it.
On the one hand the leadership has always been a horror show and their priorities at best misguided. Through all of that I stuck with it despite the occasional flirtation elsewhere because it is where I have found a generous, supportive, smart and funny community of people over the years – and for the most part that bubble has protected me from the hellscape devouring the rest of the platform.
That said I can only see things getting worse under the new ‘regime’. Will I migrate to Mastodon? I doubt it to be honest – but who knows – if enough people move I’ll follow. Maybe I’ll just get an old school list-serv going.
I must be the only person who didn’t find Severance that great. I stuck with it and I guess I can see what people liked but I found it all a bit Spike Jonze (which is my code for entertainment in love with how cool, clever and quirky it is.)
Dan sent me a big slice of cake through the post. It was lovely and the highlight of my week. Legend.
Road to 50 – 1976
Film: Star Wars (but Slap Shot is a close second as my favourite sports movie)
Album: Trans-Europe Express – Kraftwerk
Digital by Default 