Like the late, great Isiah Whitlock Jr. was prone to say…sheeeee-it. March has done a real number on me.

As I sit here on the morning of my 53rd birthday, enjoying the warm glow of a Codeine and Paracetamol breakfast I cannot help but look back on the last four weeks and ask…WTF?!

It was definitely the busiest I have been at work in a decade. With a fair amount of high profile, high pressure activity coming at us fast and disrupting any semblance of plans in some corners.

There were some good moments – I had lovely conversations with Emily Middleton (our Director General), Kalbir Sohi (Chief AI Officer) and Jenny Brooker (Chief Data Architect).

Met up with Alex Coley for a cuppa and a chat for the first time since before the Covid era.

Helped Tom and the CustomerFirst team do six interviews for their Product Lead role.

Got to listen to Giles give a talk about writing like a human with personality and passion rather than like an AI bot.

Watched Antonia, Joe and the gang launch the first iteration of the new data.gov.uk. They have big plans and this really is day one but it should not be underestimated just how much effort went in to getting something shipped at all.

Then there was all the admin fun. Sorting out extensions for loans from other Departments and contractors. Making sense of the ‘Government Digital and Data assessments’ (which honestly I failed to entirely manage – it is a frustrating process to say the least). Refreshing my knowledge about doing Performance Reviews – it has been a while since I did these formally – and then doing them.

All of this was really the background noise. In the foreground was an avalanche of commissions/submissions – papers, decks and notes circling a couple of topics (from slightly different angles) including all manner of very senior Civil Servants and Ministers from the ‘Great Offices of State’ as well as the ‘powers that be’ at DSIT.

One of the pieces of work that emerged from all of this is seriously high profile, has meant significantly reshuffling our team, bringing in support from all over DSIT and beyond and I suspect will be the primary focus for much of our work for several months. It is big and gnarly and important…but it is bloody hard.

Another new undertaking sprung from one of those aforementioned submissions. It went from the glimmer of an idea, through a series of iterations from ever more senior contributors and somewhere along the line the question changed from ‘should we do this?’ to ‘why haven’t you started already?’. Again we needed to do a little reshuffle to make this happen but it is an exciting piece of work in an interesting and impactful area with great partners so a win is a win…but it was quite the whirlwind.

Anyway my previous plans for 26/27 – agreed way back at the end of February – are now in tatters and my thoughts turn to how I can reshape things to handle this kind of turbulence.

Because turbulence is how I’ve decided to think of it all. We are moving at pace and in the right direction (with the occasional diversion) but it is often bumpy and sometimes you need to get strapped in or you are going to get slammed.

In amongst it all I am trying to work out how I can best contribute – at the moment I am somewhere between coach, conductor and conduit for information. I’m across a lot and am still trying to prioritise the people but delivery pressure is starting to overtake that so that is something I need to watch out for.

Oh and our ongoing challenges to work in the open at all remains a frustration – not going to lie.

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Anyway while all of this was going on I have been feeling increasingly unwell. Constant abdominal pain (with all the additional fun related symptoms you can imagine) that needed regular combos of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen to get through the day (and needed to take extra in the early hours to get any sleep). I was definitely starting to fray around the edges and eventually the pain got to a point I needed to take an afternoon off which led me to finally go to the GP.

A couple of blood tests later and I was admitted to hospital with acute pancreatitis the following morning. Leading to a four day stay plugged into an IV drip 24 hours a day in a room nicer than my recent work hotel rooms, but noisier than a stag/hen hotel and with zero privacy with the constant tests.

Once they identified it was not gallstones causing it the surgeon immediately decided I was lying about my alcohol intake and I generally don’t think he ever believed me. I know House, MD used to say “everybody lies” but it was weird to be on the receiving end of it! In the end they acknowledged it might be an issue with my Metformin so we’ll see.

I am home now – albeit highly medicated. This post has been brought to you by 30mg of Codeine.

I seem to be over the worst of it – but apparently I am now always at risk of a flare up and have to make (more) lifestyle changes. Including totally abstaining from alcohol <sob>.

So between the diabetes and the pancreatitis I think that takes just about every treat off the table now. Maybe I need to look into sugar free weed gummies 🤔

Anyway I am going to read some comics, watch The Pitt on HBO Max (so far it lives up to its expectations) and tonight have a steak.

Be careful out there.

Onwards.