I suppose every generation is destined to lead the hard way about bad company.
I should really take the entire winter off work. Or—why not?—forever. My brain does not cooperate.
One more reason I don’t regret not accepting an invitation to act up into my former manager’s role: the insistence on the exec team on in-person meetings which could just as easily—and effectively—be conducted online.
So it is that the poor chap who took the role must set out on a two-hour jaunt from a rural village to a remote office in the city, hard to reach by public transport, to sit in a room with the bigwigs because…
Well, nobody really knows why this has to be an in-person meeting, especially with that £20K Surface Hub sitting unused in the corner of the room, that was supposed to make hybrid meetings a seamless experience.
Maybe the tech is just too complex for our esteemed leaders. But for the rest of us? Actually, for many of us, video meetings have been a tool of liberation. Not least that “hand up” button, which allows everyone to speak and be heard—yes, even the quiet introverts.
We’re the ones who, in in-person meetings, get talked over constantly, or cut off mid-sentence. Whereas in online meetings, people have learned to be polite, enabling every voice to be heard. Amazing!
But our leaders don’t see it that way, still believing there is no substitute to getting everyone in a big room to listen to opinionated extroverts talking to each other about topics that could just as easily have been covered in a quick email.
Theirs is a different world to the rest of us. For my colleague, it will be a wasted, frustrating day, piling up more work to do at some other point. But I suppose that’s leadership for you: it’s not really about doing work. It’s about discussing work others will do.
I wonder which mug will end up doing whatever it is they’re planning to discuss today at great length. Ah, but alas, I have already been warned! Brace yourselves.
Phew, just as anticipated, the Incredible Hulk has been disarmed with pizza. The comedian returns.
Friday night, and the youngun is comprising his role as tough man, squaring up to us as if we’re his opponents on the street.
He’s learned to swell up his chest, looking down on us as he shoots past, dishing out threats. He’s giving us an ultimatum.
We just laugh back, and carry on preparing dinner. Perhaps he’ll come back down to earth once his hungry stomach has been filled.
We can but hope. Come home, oh, sweet boy we raised, once so kind, helpful and caring. Come back, dear boy. We miss you.
How sad. The only letters I get these days are from charities begging for more money. Maybe they’re my last friends.
All these years struggling against my self, repeating the same mistakes over and over, and it turns out my problem is probably neurological.
There’s a name for this collection of symptoms and possibly even potential treatments. Yes, beyond recurrent repentance. Who knew?
It’s best not to take things personally. So what if my proposal for a team is consistently turned down by the organisation, but an individual service finds the money to fund an external consultant for a year to do the work we’d do, without consulting me at all?
I can’t be bothered with these battles. Let me just keep my head down, doing what I do best, and let the service deal with their man — probably a family friend of one of the service managers, for all I know, delivering whatever it is they know I would never be able to deliver.
My wife wants a new patio, and a veranda too.
“You can do it,” she says to me, “I believe in you.”
Indeed I could, but that doesn’t mean it would be any good, or any better that what it will replace.
Want a rustic patio? I’m your man. Otherwise, this is a job for the professionals.
“But you’re more affordable,” my wife tells me. “Won’t you do it? For me?“
We’re stuck, failing at jobs we hate because…
We have bills to pay, mouths to feed, futures to fund…
Forget the midlife crisis. Even the midweek crisis.
This is the daily existential crisis, during which we wonder what we’re doing with our lives.
We’re demotivated and drained, staring at screens, egging our work on to do itself.
Were it not for our responsibilities, we’d quit immediately to pursue some fleeting dream.
But there lies madness. In the other room, our other half, reminding us of reality.
Don’t rock that boat, they petition us. Just be grateful for what you have.
Head down. Get on.
One benefit of raising teenagers is that it throws perspective on our own youth.
It reassures us that we weren’t unique in being complete jerks.
No, it seems to come with the territory.
Preserve me from PowerShell parameters, pipelines, patterns and practices.
Give me a GUI anytime. Point and click, drag and drop.
It’s true: I’m not a real tech nerd, for I detest the command line interface. Perhaps I’m a visual thinker.
Oh, give us strength. The right-wing press is epileptic about white poppies, all of a sudden noticed a full ninety years after they were first conceived by the Peace Pledge Union.
Remembrance Day is not the time for campaigning for a peaceful world, demands the breakfast show host on talk radio. How disrespectful to demand an end to militarism on our sacred day!
How dare pacifists hijack a day remembering the fallen of war for their own twisted notions of putting an end to all war! What kind of sick mindset do you have to have to call for peace for all?
It wouldn’t be the weekend without some kind of flat pack furniture to put together.
You know, I probably am racist. I pay particular attention to my Muslim brethren parking inconsiderately on pavements, corners and double-yellow lines in the vicinity of the mosque, and driving like maniacs around town, whereas I turn a complete blind eye to whitey doing the same thing. Maybe it’s racism, it’s true. Or maybe it’s just that I hold Muslims to a higher standard, given that we’re supposed to be exemplars of good conduct. What’s the harm of arriving a little earlier, to park a little further away, so as to cause inconvenience to no one?
