Weeknotes S01E03 — standard extraordinary

**Senior Content Designer for Children’s services amazing job**

Hi, how are you feeling? It is hard to know when the world is on fire eh? I have found it difficult not to voraciously consume the news this week and get slightly addicted to the sensation of panic, fury and crisis. It is fascinating and frightening, and most definitely a week that will go down in history. Supreme courts and impeachments, holidays ruined and hedge funds bonanza’d, journalists being allowed to say on television that riots should happen but not allowed to say racism is bad.

When deciding whether to mention the external happenings in this weeknote I thought about when I first worked in Housing. I had to prep all the paper tenancy files for scanning and there were many that went back to the 60s, some even further. When I found one from a date in history that was A Big Deal, I would always be a bit disappointed the event wasn’t mentioned. Like it was a missed opportunity to record social history. Funnily enough though the letters never went “Dear Housing Officer. My three children are cramped in one small damp bedroom. I have been on the waiting list for a bigger house now for 10 months! Isn’t it amazing that England won the world cup?! We are having a street party! Please come and repair our gutter.”

So in this week of standard personal work life and extraordinary national events: “Dear Medium reader, this was the week that Boris Johnson showed a callous disregard for the safety of fellow MPs and refused to modify his language, and the next day a female MP’s office was attacked, and about 50 other terrible things happened. Isn’t it diabolical? Please grout my new kitchen tiles.”

Apart from imagining how much more fascinating future Politics A-Levels will be in comparison to my own, what else did I get up to?

As I sat here this morning (no music — Harold is having a rare sleep in — though I have been trying to get CDS Radio — Home into playable order) I had no idea what I had done despite coming to the end of the week with a feeling of having been incredibly busy. Looking at my calendar didn’t help. But looking at my sent items did….

I have been doing a lot of arranging:

contract extensions | CV chasing |recruitment control request forms|User Research lab use |service assessments |job adverts |interviews

I have been handling:

age-old issues around content decisions between services and content designers, one of which really isn’t being fun. Not a lot of compromise. The experience has taught us a lot though and our Content Operating Model now includes a 2 page summary that will always be set out with services at the start of any work.

There has also been a lot of talking, creating links, moving conversations on. I have been supporting:

a couple of colleagues who have been in tears this week. Some inside, some outside work stuff. There is a lot going on in everyone’s lives. Outside work — aforementioned everything on fire, life challenges, heartache. (He’s a total idiot). Inside work — a bit of frustration. It’s standard change curve stuff — the people are hired, the new floor plan is agreed, the new delivery teams are forming. It just isn’t all in place yet so we are all keen to crack on but there are still a few people and bits of kit on the way.

It has felt like a really nice week for feeling more bonded with some of the team. The start of the week felt stressful and edgy for me, but we have rallied and supported each other. It ended with a lovely lunch with the girls and a new piece of functionality on the alpha website so good the boss did a tiny dance!

But that is enough for one week, I’ll leave that as an exciting trailer for the next one. Happy weekend! May you live in standard or extraordinary times, whichever you prefer :)