Second week back – first attempt at my new 22.5 hour ‘week’. Honestly it is going to take a bit of getting used to. Trying to train myself not to dive into my inbox as soon as I am up is no small feat. It is pretty ingrained.

I’ve tried to distract myself by doing the NY Times games first thing (Mini, Midi, Wordle, Strands and Spelling Bee…and the main Crossword on Mondays when it is easy. I cannot for the life of me do Connections!) and then go for a little walk to get some steps in…but even with that I am twiddling my thumbs for quite a spell before I should login.

…and timing going into the Bristol office (where I had been out sick so long my pass had been deactivated) is going to take some rethinking as well.

It was a bit bumpy when I was in amongst it as well truth be told. I attended a meeting with a team from another Department early in the week that went pretty poorly. Nobody on our side was properly briefed and there was a lot of looking sideways in Teams as it became clear we just weren’t prepared. It was awks AF. Thankfully it is something we can easily recover from but given it was my first real meeting back it was not ideal.

Also in the not ideal category was finding out that the Directorate re-org that I was nominally aware of – but hadn’t entirely processed – was quite a bit bigger than I realised and would have some pretty direct consequences at my grade as well as the level above (which was the bit I was somewhat cognisant of). On the one hand it all seems on the face of it to be sensible and I’ve been through enough of these things to be reasonably relaxed about the process. On the other hand though I can’t really see a scenario where my newly stripped back role fits in with a refreshed vision/mission for Government Data and the capabilities that are needed to deliver that. I’m not going to panic as I am sure I’ll land somewhere but selfishly the timing is definitely suboptimal. 

My absence has meant a few people issues were a bit neglected (no fault of anyone – just one of those things when a line manager is out for a while) so I’ve been picking things up in 1-2-1s and scrambling around a little to resolve things to avoid any further disruption or worry for folks. The biggest obstacle is my own lack of clarity on some process things. I’d only been in the role 12 weeks before being off for almost eight so hadn’t really gotten fully to grips with DSIT ways of doing things. I also don’t really know many of my peers in the wider ‘Office for Chief Data Officer’ as I missed the grand coming together of OCDO and NDL.

What else? Oh I still seem a bit prone to volunteering to jump on trains! I’m in London Monday and Tuesday and then Sheffield and Barnsley at the end of the month.

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Wednesday I gave a short(ish) talk (longer than I was scheduled for though) at ProductTank Bristol. It was my first in person talk since my CampDigital keynote last year and if I am honest I was not really ready to do it…I basically kept my head down until I had to speak and was essentially walking out of the door as I gave my final remarks! It went okay though I think – as ever I enjoyed it while I was up speaking and also working out the story I was going to tell….but I think that was the last one. I suspect I’ll occasionally have a work related talk to give but anything ‘out of office’ is going to have to be a thing of the past. 

On the topic of side hustles I am transferring the domains for Web of Weeknotes (weeknot.es) and Product for the People (productforthepeople.xyz) to Steve. He has plans for both and they couldn’t be in safer hands. 

I have ambitions to host one final (for me – Steve and Debbie will carry on) Product for the People meet-up in Bristol this year – not sure when though. It’ll be Temple Quay-ish I imagine – just need to lock a date and venue in. 

Then the last side project will be The Internet of Public Service Jobs which will end in December (if not before – I am currently on schedule for hitting 500 emails in November – so I need to slow down!).

Then that’ll be it. Free of all the burdens I put on myself that nobody asked for!

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Punisher: One Last Kill is bonkers. Soooooooo violent. Makes The Raid seem like a PG movie. How the hell is this on Disney+. I enjoyed though – maybe that is a problem 🤔

Oh and Margo’s Got Money Troubles on Apple TV+ is fantastic. The trailer doesn’t do it justice and the cast is STACKED.