Hello friends. Thank you for stopping by my long-neglected blog. This is a non-exhaustive account of things that happened in my week.
What am I proud of this week?
- We finished building our third emergency service of the year: grant applications for businesses who have been forced to close during the second lockdown in England. Each time we’ve taken on one of these projects the legislation has been more complicated and the tech requirements more sophisticated, and I’m delighted that we’ve managed it again in under a fortnight.
- I ignored my inner voice that was telling me ’not to make a fuss’ and had some honest conversations about my stress levels. I was borderline panicky on Monday about the scale of the challenge ahead of us, and by Wednesday I wasn’t coping well at all and lost a night’s sleep to the worry. There wasn’t much I could do this week except power through, as we had a near-impossible deadline to meet, but I will be consciously slowing down next week knowing I have a brilliant supportive team around me.
- I caught up with my fellow UKGovCamp organisers on Thursday night and didn’t overcommit myself. My chronic ‘yes’ instinct is strong, but I kept it under control, and volunteered for one task which is manageable around my current schedule.
What did I learn this week?
- You can never say ’thank you’ enough, because those on the receiving end of praise will invariably try to brush it off.
- Communities support each other through the tough times. Every moment spent building connections in the between times pays off in spades when the pressure is on.
- I have a nigh on self-destructive approach to work: if I’m not completely exhausted by the end of the week I feel like I’ve not done enough. I’ve been reflecting on the source of this throughout the UPFRONT course and will continue to do so, as this pace is not sustainable beyond a few weeks/months at a time.
- On the tough days at work, it helps to have a visible reminder of why I chose to work in Local Government. This week I wrote on a post-it how many individuals and businesses our work has directly supported this year and stuck it on the wall, and glanced at it every time I needed a motivation boost.
What’s next?
The early part of next week will be managing the service live; supporting the assessment team as they familiarise themselves with the new assessment process and fixing any bugs that arise.
Once we’re happy the new service is stable we’ve got another grant fund to design and build in a similarly short time frame (yikes!), so I’ll need to pace myself and schedule in regular breaks.
I’ve got a few hours set aside for training, in which I’ll be doing some practice questions for my next Salesforce certification exam and reading/watching/listening about topics that interest me which aren’t directly related to my current projects to give my brain a change of scene.
