How are Things?

Tag: work

  • Monday 4th August 2025

    It is August, already. I have found that, as my own cognition improves, I’m drawn more and more to the mental structures of rationality. I am reading the Glass Bead Game, listening to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, rereading the Stoic principles.

    The positive or negative thing about such pleasant structures is their supposed ease of access. Here, says the Universe, is a method of being Rational/Logical/Stoical, or whatever term is appropriate. Now you can be Rational/Logical/Stoical. Never once does Rationality appear to say, sorry, this is not for you. It does not have any layers that are inscrutable, or beyond you. It merely provides a method, and away you go.

    To use it daily, is to question both the data I take in, and the technique I use to examine it. It means that I am forced to move so slowly over material facts like a glacier taking over a new piece of material; I have to take in the fact, then correctly use the technique with regards to it.

    I wanted to take in and consider the next five years. My son will be 18 by then, and I’ll be 57. Considering that it always takes longer to reach a goal or target than you think, and that cognitive bias is a factor nearly impossible to avoid, setting small targets seems sensible. It is also sensible when you consider the destruction to the West, and to the area North of Africa; the world is going to look very different in five years.

    More on this tomorrow.

  • Thursday 31st July 2025

    If you’re reading this, you are probably imaginary. No one is reading this; the stats remain flatlined, like the heart readout of a patient in a TV ER show. “I’m sorry, Doctor … we did all we could.” So you reading this, are all in my head. A busy bespectacled professional, hoisting a leather notebook out of a satchel, wondering how my day went today. A mom with the sound of happy children coming from another room. A wise old woman, long silver hair in plaits, patchwork quilt to work on as my words go on, a view of old trees outside the window.

    The last day of July. Here comes the commencement of the march towards Autumn, and what I suspect will be a very hard winter for the world. How has my July been, and this rare, unique time that I now exist in? My son is away from the house, with his father and the man I do not like to think of, not least as my ex-husband. I get more than four hours sleep. I exist in a schedule of my own making. I am rested. Unrushed, for me.

    I think that it has taken me days to get to this state, where my pre-frontal cortex is alert enough to contemplate and reflect properly. I need to use this time to think, to really think, and to remind myself of who I am. Who I want to be.

    There is an art to strategy, to ruminating, and it is about time I got back to it. I should sit in the back of the cave and think for a while, the choice to do so won’t be given to me forever.

    One last thing to think tonight; going without sleep makes you stupid, upset, and unable to plan. Get more sleep.

  • Wednesday 23rd July 2025

    Right, well, here we go. No jazz concepts to calm the soul tonight my lovelies.

    My son has special needs. He can’t spend his summer at Summer camps as so many places won’t cater to him and he thinks they are rubbish in any case. So, there is a scheme where you can hire a qualified person to come to your home and take care of him, for a maximum of 40 hours over the total summer. It is a tiny thing but it is there. You fill in a form, you send it off, you get approved, you’re good. My son has a favorite person who has come to us several summers in a row, and it was all going like clockwork.

    She asked me today about the form, and I should have received confirmation way back in June about it. And I didn’t. I hunted through the items in my inbox, and on my desk, and true to form, there was the fubbing form untouched in the envelope his school had sent it home to me. I think I got it late April but maybe May, and had all of that month to send it in and then June as well. And I ruddy well forgot!

    I now owe this woman three figures that she has more than earned and I have to hand it over straight away, as in, tomorrow. How can I be so stupid? My first reaction in such moments is that I’ve discarded the right to live, I’m so stupid. And I have no one else to blame!

    There was a dreadful moment last year, after we were evicted and living in a city center flat, where I let getting the electricity set up go too long. It was absolutely my fault, I just let weeks go by and didn’t do it. Then they shut us off, and I had to get it back on pronto. It meant paying a reconnection fee, and dinners for my son in McDonalds. I was lucky, I still had a membership fee at the gym so we could go for swims, take hot showers, lunch in town… I was privileged. But it was completely unnecessary, just being too delicate to deal with the realities of life! Lying in the dark that night, I felt that a lesson of life had been shown to me; suffer the pain of practicalities or suffer a greater pain in their absence.

    And yet here we are again! Things sliding off me like algae off the side of a stagnant pond; why am I so stupid?! Why?

    I am supposed to be amazing everyone at work regarding my marvelous skills, and I’m honestly wondering if I should be here at all. What a waste of flesh!

  • Tuesday 22nd July 2025

    And finally, the day is done. I have some jazz on, everything is lit by lamplight, and the cat is relaxing. Let’s go through the day, shall we?

    So I managed to get up and to get going earlier than I have been (though still much later than I had before). I made breakfast for myself, and was interrupted by my son, meaning I felt obliged to make sure he had breakfast as well. This sudden extra piling on of jobs irritated me, I’m sorry to say – I was focused on the large task in front of me, and wanted to keep that focus on.

    After I made breakfast I headed away as close to 8am as possible. By 9.30am we were all in the boardroom and set up. And on came the interviews. I won’t be so tacky as to go through each of them directly, but I will say we had a total of five candidates, and there were two that stood out directly. The others had an energy that that seemed much less desirable.

    I got through them and then got through 50 emails, and then picked up some supplies from a colleague while on the way home. I got home at about 530pm. My son was out with his childminder having fun, and so I got a rare and precious chance to sit for a moment. Then everyone arrived home, so it was back to making dinner, serving, washing up, putting out the bins and then an hour’s worth of ironing. I wish I could say I listened to something highbrow, but instead I watched a Korean Drama The Trunk. Then it was, it is, time to get some rest. No doubt tomorrow all will be well.

    I am not sure we chose the right man today. I hope I have enough energy and sanity to lead the team correctly. But I am running on fumes at present, and I need to reboot as soon as I can. I have an image of myself in the shower, my eyes closed, water running over my face as I finally reset…

    I wish I had profundity to offer you. Some well crafted statement or saying conveying the purple night, a reflective thought, a resonance within a soul. Instead, I can only wish you peace, and rest, and say tomorrow will be another chance.

    Goodnight, all.

  • Monday 21st July 2025

    Good evening all. I’ve become so used to this blog it is beginning to feel weird if I don’t make a daily entry. Today, I woke up so tired I was at one quarter power, and honestly my entire body and soul was begging for rest. Instead, I got up, late, did my exercises, slowly, and got myself into work.

    I hate the fact that my son is now old enough for me to leave by himself. He has a fully charged phone, and he has a person who calls in, but it is two hours after I leave, and my eager imagination creates all manner of disasters to happen the moment I leave.

    The day itself seemed to beg me to stay home. We had torrential rain from about 5am onwards and it didn’t stop until at least 10am. There is always a part of me that worries about those who have to deal with that; animals made starving by climate damage, homeless people with nowhere to go. It is the case that I now know that such well meaning wishes don’t do anything concrete except make me forgive myself.

    Work was brought to us by the words ‘Coffee’ and ‘Perseverance’. I brought the huge number of emails down from 120 to 30, and then turned to the questions for tomorrow. Tomorrow, we hold interviews for folks wishing to join my team. I went with the flow last time and had to deal with a frankly less than pleasant personality. Tomorrow, I aim to get the best person possible for the team.

    The evening was salmon for dinner, lots of laundry done, and listening to the rain. Hope you’re not out in bad weather, wherever you are. Sleep well.

  • Friday 19th July 2025

    Finally, this week is over. I have been so tired and so uninspired this week, and now there is a chance to rest for a moment.

    I made an appointment with my councilor, a woman who by now knows me way too well. Then I had lunch with a fellow colleague where we got a chance to raise our concerns about senior management.

    Problematic person has done a lot of crying but has broken up with terrible person but I’ve gone ahead and notified security about his awful ex; if only because apparently my name was mentioned in the break up conversation. The Problematic person’s emotional wave has gone out from shore, and in fact is now heading back in: they have texted me to say they’re annoyed with the other people being annoyed with them. This is a mess, and I’m going to get myself out of it.

    Dinner was made by my son and it tasted amazing, mainly because he is a great kid. I’m listening to Amy Poehler and going to bed. Night all.

  • Thursday 17th July 2025

    Things that happened today:

    So I made it into work, determined to ignore any and all calls for intervention, assistance or emotional support. Only to receive a WhatsApp message: The horrible abuser had been cast off! Really and truly! The relief was huge, and it was amplified when a third party told me that horrible abuser had been told to stay away from exactly the type of environment we all work in. As in, part of his probation was to stay away. And he’d been here! Several times!

    Honestly, I throw up my hands at this. In no way was ANY of this a good idea; going out with horrible person or my getting involved in the whole nasty thing. Colleague is blind to a dangerous degree to firstly allow this and then to lie about it. He is immature and dangerously so.

    Strange behavior from a colleague, this time from another unit. She claimed there was construction work going on so could she us e an adjunct office. Yes she could but she is disingenuous, and I wonder at all of this.

    And finally, I and Young man spend the evening together with my niece. She has broken up with her partner and I can see their influence decreasing on her heartbreak.

    Enough drama. So to sleep.

  • Wednesday 16th July 2025

    One part of my role is to help junior staff. And some of those junior staff share an open plan office space. Today one of them called into me with a problem. A second staff member has been speaking about a very unpleasant situation with their boyfriend. There was signs of real problems, possible physical abuse, and certainly financial cohersion.

    I spoke to the second staff member, and it is sooo much worse than I realised. Firstly, the boyfriend is in fact getting a lot of money off them, nearly four figures. They forget birthdays and important days. They openly speak of other people in an effort to make junior staff member jealous. And the icing on this unpleasant cake?

    He is on the sex registrar list, but he swears he didn’t do it!!

    I could if I wanted to show you a press briefing of the criminal case. He recorded men and women in bathrooms and showers, and kept it up. When the case was reported on social media, folks came out to say they knew him in school and he was nasty then, too.

    Oh jeepers.

    We talked and talked. Junior staff member swore up and down that they would break up, that they would block their number, and that all would be well. There were tears, there were promises, there were guarantees.

    Aaaand they have done none of them. Apparently they left my office and told someone immediately that they were not going to break up with Mr Sex Register. The news article is just a conspiracy, it seems and the rest is just a joke. Relax!!

    For goodness’s sake. You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them cop the fuck on.

  • Tuesday 15th July 2025

    Yesterday, for all the briefness in my entry, was an important day. I gathered as many people as possible to decide the best way to deal with the coming year. It was a collective group action, about building consensus and about sharing information as a group. It was work, diligence and about being as professional as possible in a public forum. The skill attached to it was gathering the reigns of those in the room, and moving their opinions towards my vision for the future. And I did, for at least the majority of the event. My agenda items were carried out and I’m in charge of doing so.

    Not surprisingly, today I was tired. I was up, but not functioning for quite some time. I did all the things I usually do, but slowly, and most likely with little flair. However, today moved from the external, to the internal. The company I work with provides a coaching service, where you can reach out to a more senior member of staff in a different unit. Today was the first day I was to meet him.

    The movement towards his office was far too cinematic, in that I moved from my office, down to the concourse, towards his building, up in the elevator to the top floor, and then into the winding corridors that led to his office. When I knocked, he opened it after a moment and said my name with a question mark. I smiled, nodded, and met his eyes, and he held the gaze a little longer than normal. I felt that he used the tactic to gain space over his visitors, and moved my own gaze away.

    The plan is that the first session lasts at least an hour. The discussion is not to be a counselling session, but it is very often like that in terms of topic. It is not meant to be about technical skills, but rather the psychology behind the work, behind the person.

    His office is busy, with many mementoes and souvenirs of a busy life. I see such things as the birthright of the smart and the rich, and look upon them as privilege. Those not credited with intelligence are not given such rights, but have to be happy with impersonal space – a bitter thought, probably not my only one. He himself is a short, neat man, with wiry strength, and an ethnicity going back millennia.

    The conversation would have deserved a setting to Philip Glass; there was harmony, but not sentimentality. We quickly found ourselves discussing profound matters, and the conversation reached a depth I had not really emotionally prepared for. In short-

    I believe I am not a good person and I have no right to work there.

    And in that vulnerability is all my wasted potential and fear, making me blind and leading to defenses rather than merely working, and working well.

    We both acknowledged that the conversation had uncovered a lot rather quickly. Myself, my stomach was one tight bundle. We wrapped it up after an hour, and I took a lunchbreak to think, to breathe.

    The afternoon saw me have a cup of tea with a person who is heading away from our unit. She is heading to another country where she can rent an apartment for a fraction of what she can get here. I wish her well, and admire her for seeking a good life for herself. We all want that, of course we do.

  • Monday 14th July 2025

    In which I chose to spend all my time in an airless room.

    Today, I held an event I myself was organising. It was an away day for folks with my job title. It is a very specific, if not very elevated, job title, and the need for Senior Management to push us around is consistent. So, I am therefore helping us to band together. We will be creating several things to support us, and to create cohesiveness among us for the future.

    I feel, with regards to the future, almost an interest in how bad it is going to get. I have very little faith in government, for very clear reasons. But how bad it will get, how low it will go, these are the things that occupy my minds.

    According to my fitbit, I got 4 hours sleep yesterday. I think I better go to bed.