bad cadence: 12 december

Yesterday was the third year in a row where I did not drink at the SML Xmas party – hurrah!

I spent the afternoon hanging out with the senior managers, who were sensibly alternating alcohol with water and talked books, travel, television and movies. Truly I have reached sensible old lady status.

I’ve completely sworn off drinking at work functions, it is just much better that way – especially because of my quest to be taken seriously. This does tend to be incredibly boring, especially watching everyone get progressively drunker. Who knew drunken colleagues could be so tedious? I cringe a little at my former drunken shenanigans. And am delighted that I can bounce out of bed after these events and go for a run.

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I had intended to run the usual 3.5km this morning, but my brain was so full of workly thoughts that I overshot my turning point and ended up running 5km. Oops.

It wasn’t a particularly great run, evidenced by the cadence at the top (yellow = not great). I think it was pretty heavily influenced by not consuming a great deal of food on Friday having eschewed the canapes at the party (kind of greasy, always terribly messy). I am still pretty exhausted, but that could be that I got out of bed at 5am.

If I want to improve my distance I am going to have to pay close attention to my diet – especially before running.

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I’m in the process of reviewing my 50 list and so far have replaced #21: make wine + limocello (or other alcoholic thing) with eat no meat for a week.

I may also replace #25:see a moose in real life, not because I don’t want to see one, but because I think my options to do so in the next two years will be somewhat limited.

I’m thinking at some point I’d like to try a (very short) triathlon. I need to really get onto my swimming before contemplating it seriously. I did swim competitively as a sprog, but that was aeons ago and I think I have lost any technique I had. Whether this will be something I think I can actually accomplish before 50 is another thing entirely. But I think mixing up the cardio would be a very good thing indeed.

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I have spent the vast majority of the day tooling about on the InformationSuperHighway. This is what happens when you don’t have an action items list.

good cadence: 8 december

So we’re now at five days in with the new overlord (we’ll call him Bobs).

Day 1, he met with his 10 direct reports in a group – told us a bit about himself, his management philosophy (big, big on teamwork) and then asked for comments … Heather leapt into the increasingly uncomfortable silence, said a little, threw to me and I spoke for a while on our recent successes and challenges, Knut-the-treacherous spoke … crickets … I spoke again … and again. Everyone else just sat there and stared – what the hell is wrong with people?

Then we each had a 30 minute one-on-one. Naturally, I went into this prepared with a couple of key organisational documents, a pretty sexy summary of what my area does and a good idea of what I wanted to talk about (having a pretty good idea of his mandate¹, I tailored it to that). Knut was similarly prepared for his – and the other 8 managers? Well, they took nothing, had no discussion points and the meetings took less than 15 minutes. Again, what the hell is wrong with people?

I’m definitely not any sort of management guru, but why wouldn’t you want to give your new boss a great first impression? Because, you know, HE IS YOUR BOSS!

Bobs and I have met several times since, he keeps telling me how dazzled he is by the quality of our reporting, has told senior peeps how impressed he is by me, he loves my attitude and “wants to bring me inside the tent” for the mandate¹ stuff.

ZOMGWTFBBQ! This is like some beautiful, crazy dream! I’m incredibly excited by the opportunity, but I keep waiting for him to realise he has made some a terrible mistake.

So of course I think he is great! Knut is like-wise on board the Bobs train, some are lukewarm and others are afraid of him, worried he will “change things” (well yes, of course he will!) and terribly worried about their futures.

At times like these I give thanks MrT, who while often quite (very) unhinged, really reinforced the importance of preparation, professionalism, explaining complex things simply and coherently (executive summaries for everyone!) and management 101 stuff in general. And to anyresemblance who compelled me to buy all the boden dresses – because I really think that looking the goods has contributed a great deal!

This could be REALLY good – so good that I have even offered to cancel my leave in January, because the timeline is very tight.

¹ code for organisational efficiencies – and we all know what that is code for.