I am a victim of both my success and my failure. The success: achieving the comforts of a decent salary and flexible employment conditions. The failure: not having confidence to approach new opportunities requiring different skills.
Perhaps I’m even too late to hold onto what I have. The ground has shifted around us, bodies have been replaced, new directions forged. And my allies at work? One by one, they’re retiring, leaving none to vouch for me, as the politicking and backstabbing ensues. Should I fear what comes next? Perhaps. But Allah …
The awkward moment when meeting with the CEO that you realise they clearly have no idea what your team actually does, and has based all their plans on that misunderstanding. Worse than that, their throwaway remarks that accidentally (or not) completely undermine the confidence of the team that they have a decent future here. To …
I can understand an office worker whose early career spanned the 1980s and 1990s struggling with technology in the workplace. But we’re now twenty-five years into the new millennium, where the internet and personal computer have been a constant presence. It perplexes me that so many staff can have such an abject lack of skills …
My web team proposal is officially dead. Nobody has any money. In its place, an AI-augmented single-person model. An annual saving of £140K right there. Not that this kind of spend was ever seriously on the cards. But we must moot these figures to focus minds should I mention automation or custom tools. No, but …
I did everything necessary to exit an unwanted contract on time. Produced the options appraisal, made a sound case for termination, won executive approval, all agreed well in advance. The problem? The head of service tasked with notifying the supplier forgot to action it, after confirming in writing they would. Yet more evidence that if …
I know my social gaze is problematic. For the past twelve years, I’ve resolved the issue by working from home and generally only socialising with those I trust. But now we have two adolescents in our midst who remind me daily that my gaze is broken. “Why are you staring?” they bark if I happen …
Alas, hindsight strikes a quarter of a century too late. All that strife from college, university and the early years of employment begins to make better sense now that I have a better understanding of myself.
The trouble with me… I always embark on writing projects I have no hope of ever completing. The latest is no different, and all of a sudden I have paused. Looking at all the moving pieces — the complex character relationships, multiple timelines, varied formats like emails and messages, corporate documents, physical challenges, family dynamics, …
Had to be done.
My dear colleague, why are you arguing with me about copyright law? Your insistence on doing it your way has no bearing on the reality of the rules. It is what it is.
How can someone supposedly so intelligent be so dumb?
Have I been heard at work? Don’t get your hopes up. Everyone made the right noises, but I have been here before. All the proposed solutions have been mentioned repeatedly, only to go nowhere at all. I won’t consider it progress made until I see action in place of words. Until then, it’s all just talk.
I’m starting to think I could be a Head of something. I have far more skills than the Heads of around me. Though, admittedly, that is a very low bar to surpass. This morning, I taught a Head of how to copy and paste text from a web page.
The snow came down thick and fast on the school run this morning, but it was the blizzard of racism on the car radio that really caught my attention. Are we back there again?
