Well if 42 is the ultimate answer to the great question of life, the universe and everything, week 42 was something of a let-down in that respect. No answers but a few questions as I’ve been in a bit of a weird headspace all week. 

I’d not quite shaken the last bout of autumn ailments before my flu and Covid booster jabs floored me again and that combined with an old school level of travel anxiety before my trip to NYC tomorrow has also kicked off this latest spell of navel gazing.

I’m just feeling a bit unsure of myself professionally I guess – much as I am enjoying this role it is finite with a clear end date (still four or five months away admittedly) and I’m really torn about what to do next. Do I continue as a jobbing product person for a while, despite the very real feeling that I’m not really in-line with current ‘craft’ of product management or do I shift to something vaguer, more advisory, less structured? 

Honestly I really don’t need to make any decisions at the moment and I don’t know why the hell it is taking up so much of my attention. Like I said – weird headspace.

The big event this week was an away day – in a very lovely building on Whitehall – for the GDS product people community. This was a really lovely day with lots of great conversations with a really lovely and talented cohort of product managers from every corner of GDS. I did a little lightning talk about biggish data that I like to keep a track on to help me understand the world we operate in – particularly focusing on Citizens Advice, Ofcom, the Census, Good Things Foundation and the ICO. Everybody else did talks that were much more focused on the nitty gritty of data insights to inform product teams (which was probably the actual brief!) so I was a bit of an outlier but it seemed to go down okay. Had a good gossip in the pub after (just a cordial and soda!) which was a lovely end to the day as well.

I guess the only side effect was that this day also contributed to my navel gazing as much as I enjoyed it. This was another occasion where I did feel a little out of step with the way people talked about and approached their work. Not that I thought it was wrong – just different priorities and motivations.

Anyway it was good fun and I am glad despite the vaccine fatigue I dragged myself into London for it.

The [redacted] work continues apace – though my role has become a bit more hands off as things progress. It continues to cast a big shadow though.

Most of my downtime this week has been stressing about tomorrow’s trip to New York. Honestly it took two hours to decide what hoodies to take…and I still haven’t decided what trainers I am wearing. Excited though – the weather looks good and I have a busy itinerary – but not so busy I can’t chill, do some writing and watch some Champions League in the local ‘soccer’ bar one afternoon.