And . . . relax

To borrow from Gorse Fox, "ah, Friday".  Yes indeed.

Having been to bed every night early, I am starting to feel like the old Scobi, which is still far from perfect (don't get me started on my current aches and pains) but at least it is normal.

The fact that this is my last working day for a week is also pretty neat.  I will probably work next Friday, since LO is doing so and it gives me a day of holiday to use elsewhere, it also helps me to tame my Inbox without too much impact to me being there or not.

Plenty has been written about email, and how it has become a victim of its own success in a way, and such success has rendered it an almost unbearable burden to everyone, perhaps for remote-working knowledge workers the most.  In fact, the leader on my current account is planning, rumour has it, to try a No Email Tuesday.  I am tempted to say "good luck with that".  I can see that I could ring you rather than email you, that is cool, however I am not really hooked in to all the other business-focussed social media gizmos, so do not regularly post a spreadsheet on the team's shared area in the ether, my first thought is still to email it out.  I understand all the benefits of not emailing, it is just that the habits and lack of familiarity of the tools is inhibiting me.  The small fact that most of the tools available in Starfleet are hosted over the pond means that they are slow in the morning, and excruciatingly slow in the afternoon.

Anyhow, today will be mostly about closing all the lose ends that I can, and documenting those that I cannot to be shared with my cover for next week, which due to a number of factors will be three different people in my team.

One of these three is actually a very vocal person.  In fact, a colleague has asked me to "have a word" coz his loud outbursts in the open-plan office are bugging the locals.  Anyway, this person is very vocal, as I have said, and one of his stronger themes at the moment is that he does not believe my role needs to exist.  he likes me as a person etc etc, but the role is redundant.

A chap could take offence, but working on the principle that there is truth in everything, however small, and that every such situation is a chance for a chap to take a good long hard look at himself to see whether what he is doing is right, I have given it some thought.  I come out of that piece of self-analysis being comfortable in my skin and my role, but it has made me ponder a little.  This particular person is very self-reliant, and needs minimal, if any, management.  His view is "I get my solution, I manage details and dates with my customer, I don't need your help unless I ask for it, and if anyone on the account wants to know anything about it, don't ask you, ask me".  For him, the role is all about the solutions, and nothing else, and for him that is just about true, if you can ignore the various organisational challenges we have been set, such as doing 40 hours of training, which I have just feathered in to my year, but he has chosen to leave until now, and he is now bleating about needing to have a week off from solutioning to get his training done.

But I digress.  For him, the solutions are everything, and there is nothing else but unnecessary conference calls and meetings.  He is not sighted on all the other stuff I do, and I am pondering whether we can swing it for him to shadow me for the day, so that he either things "crickey, he does a lot" or "I told you his role was not needed".  Hmmm.

Have a great weekend, and enjoy next week whilst I am away 'vannin'.