Weeknote S17 Ep10
Post-Margs note.
A little late to this weeknote. I have just come back from a lovely weekend in Margate with the little man and husband.
It was sunny, we walked on the beach, we went to the arcades. Even though this was a short jaunt it was a really lovely one. Highlights were Dreamland, as the little one loves a rollercoaster. I adored the wooden ‘Scenic railway’ for it’s old-school simplicity, and I loved that I could get a Mr. Whippy covered in hundreds and thousands.
I also visited the Crab Museum which was stupid and funny and silly and subversive and brilliant. I also spotted Dan Schreiber in Dreamland, and (as a long term No Such Thing as a Fish, and now We Can Be Weirdos fan) meant I obviously didn’t speak with him because that would be too much now, wouldn’t it?
Travelling with a smallish autistic human is always interesting because you never quite know how they will respond, what they will enjoy, what they will not. It also means getting comfortable with being on a different timetable to everyone else. I’m not going to lie, heading back to our hotel room to rest for a couple of hours anytime between 1pm and 5pm is something I find really difficult, especially in a new place when the sun is shining, because I feel I’m missing out. But I also know I don’t want to push my son out of his comfort zone too much, just getting away for a few days is more than enough to ask of him.
Anyway, what else?
Last week I:
- Started my Service Design training*. Except, well I kinda didn’t. I turned up at 6pm on Tuesday night only to find out that rather than it being Tuesday and Thursday as I had thought, it was actually Monday and Wednesday evenings. This was a bit annoying as it meant I missed intros to the rest of the cohort and had to catch up. I’m not the only one who thought it was Tuesday and Thursday so I’m still unclear about what’s happened here. I’m not so worried about the content of these sessions, there are many more to come, and the second session covered systems thinking which I’ve already done some training on (the course leader also shared my work in the slack channel later as a resource for others which suggests I’m probably alright with this). It’s just meeting the people I’m going to be working with I’m most concerned about. Anyway, another session tonight that I can make so fingers crossed this will all pick up.
- I got invited to the GDS Alumni slack by the lovely Lee Porte which has a channel about jobs in (tongue in cheekily the channel is titled ‘neoptism’) anyway, there are lots of friendly faces, which is very nice.
- I chased on a couple of jobs I’ve applied for, the first got back to me with their timings which is really useful, the other hasn’t come back to me at all. One thing I hadn’t fully factored in is how long some organisations take to get their ducks in a row and I forget the impact that delay has on people looking for roles.
- I applied for a couple of roles one in Local Government and one back in central government.
- I had short but lovely exchanges with Lily, Millie and Soh-yon and a lovely chat with Emma. I started feeling last week a little anti-social so I’m trying to get out there again this week and see if I can see some friendly faces.
Coaching:
I also had a great session with my coach. I talked a little about what I wrote in weeknotes last week; this feeling of slowing while everyone seems to be moving forward with LinkedIn declarations of new jobs and promotions popping up all over the shop.
We did a visualisation exercise to meet my ‘wise self’ this sounds incredibly hippy but I found it very useful. I often get told that I am wise and it’s always sat incredibly badly with me, like, does this just mean old or ‘been around the block’? I equate it with having failed or been hurt for some reason. Anyway this exercise helped me to realise how the compassion I provide to others is not something I ever turn on myself.
I also started reflecting on some of my current thinking about job hunting. I’ve kind of been telling myself this story that I have this privilege and time with the voluntary redundancy, and that I need to use it to make sure I’m finding a role that is really genuinely what I want to do.
In the story, I’ve told myself about the compromises I’ve taken through my career, the shapes I’ve smushed myself into, and I’ve restated just how little I want to compromise this time. But I now think that’s not entirely a healthy view because it’s not a realistic one?
I want to work in design, I believe I have a design focused soul** (if that doesn’t sound too ridiculous) I believe that the opportunities I’ve been exposed to have pushed me further away from that, and I want to feel like I can step into this and actually say it. In my head that means finding a role that will invest in that or at least support that.
But, compromise must be a part of life right? It goes against all of my agile working practices to believe that this one time, a big bang will happen and I will suddenly find the role of my dreams. Right?
All of this came back to me in my coaching session. I somehow feel like I will be wasting the opportunity of my redundancy if I don’t strive for this big bang job. I feel like I’ll be letting myself down, and somehow letting people down who care about seeing me succeed (especially given the situation I left under). I somehow feel like I owe it to them to go onto something #impressive and that it’ll be some kind of confirmation of me being rubbish if I don’t do that.
But, that’s clearly unrealistic, it’s clearly stupid and focused on perception of what others think of me rather than what I need. And maybe I need to take something safe and flexible and reframe my thinking to see this as such, and not as compromise? I feel a little caught between at the moment. Maybe this is all true and real, or maybe it’s partly an impatience gremlin? I am impatient.
And what else?
- I fell in love wit this instagram account:
https://www.instagram.com/databutmakeitfashion/?hl=en
- I wrote a post (Service Safari) about experiences sending things I’ve sold on Vinted:
- I bought the best t-shirt at the Crab Museum
*For anyone who doesn’t know I’m undertaking this training at Experience Haus:
**When I was in school and our teachers took us to the library for reading time I used to head to the part of the library which had a small selection of design books (literally 1 or 2 about architecture and one on modern design) I would flick through one particular book about 20th century products and read about Phillippe Starck, Dieter Rams, Eames, Marimekko. I wish there had been more books in the library.
