This will be my final weeknote of 2022. This is actually my 28th of the series – there was an 11 week hiatus between the end of my short-lived time at UKHSA and while I waited to get the paperwork sorted for my current job. It has been good to get into the habit again and also to see other people experimenting with the form as they try out blogging.
Did more interviewing this week. I’m starting to feel they are a bit like that Churchill ‘quote’ (did he actually say it? I’m not sure) about..
“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
Interviews seem like the worst way to assess someone for a job…but the other options seem even worse. The last thing I’d want to encourage is those endless big tech style interviews where you meet the world and it takes forever or the mad whiteboard tests or whatever. Giving people the questions – or at least the shape of them – in advance does seem to help and we need to do more of that and design the scenarios around the questions more carefully. I don’t know – everyone on both sides puts in some much time and effort and it feels like a coin toss sometimes.
I had some fun playing with ChatGPT to create a Christmas quiz at the weekend which I debuted at our final Product community session of the year. I’ve always been dismissive of all these “AI” toys – especially the art ones – but this really did make me start to rethink a few things. Maybe it is because I am a text guy really but this did really impress me despite its flaws and was the first time I really started to tune in to the possibilities of the technology.
I had to skip our Cardiff Christmas meal – which means I’ve basically missed both work Christmas drinks gatherings this year – which I’m a bit sad about. I have however kept up my Christmas jumper/sweater/tee tradition up – with a different one for every working day in December and debuting my new one on the 22nd which is my last working day this year.
I’m not sleeping brilliantly at the moment – I’m really not doing enough physical activity to be properly tired and my mind is both knackered and going a mile a minute it feels like. Much as I am enjoying this role there are so many things that I want to do and that we could do (and a lot we should not) that I need to slow my brain down and plan over a longer timeline – like I am asking everyone else to do! I’m hoping the Christmas break will provide a little reset/reboot.
My plans to abandon Twitter continue apace. Despite it being a bit of ghost town I’m going to continue to try and build something over at Post News – I have a massive 14 followers over there at the moment but I still prefer it to Masto but I suspect I’m betting on the wrong horse.
Hopefully I’ll find a way to stay connected – I really am sad about the ongoing demise of Twitter. I know it was often a shit show but I have been part of a wonderful community there for like 15 years and to be honest I’ll be bereft when I lose it.
This weeks Christmas movies/TV –>
Digital by Default 