Weeknotes No.32

Here it is, the long-awaited return of weeknotes (said no one), I cannot believe it has been nearly 2 years since I wrote anything.
Things have changed a heck of a lot since my last post, I joined Hippo Digital on the 12th January 2022, and left on the 12th January 2023. It was an adventure that I will write about, but first, I have a new journey to go on and look forward to life as a contractor (the sequel).

In the old and tested fashion, I’ll keep the format the same as before.

Monday:
Today is my first day at HMRC as an Interaction Designer and it was all I wanted it to be, it was easy, nice, warm and structured. A huge hat tip to Sam Manzi for just being amazingly welcoming and just being in control of a situation that is never easy.

The first day of contracting isn’t a shock or surprise to me anymore, after a year of leading and landing teams into contracting or consulting positions and seeing their anxiety rise due to piss-poor onboarding or more-than-likely lack of preparation from the resource team, I have a couple of quick wins under my belt (which I should write about one day), but not beating myself up and thinking others are expecting me to hit the ground running and know what I’m working on just isn’t real life.

Tuesday
Today is a full meet and greet with the team and the wonderful Jean, she reached out almost instantly when I joined and that is a great sign of it being a good place to work.
The community seems to be a huge thing here, which is exciting as I’ve missed the “help each other out” during design crits and attending one already felt natural, even giving me space to talk about my experience with a problem I had faced previously. Great day for onboarding.

Wednesday
Reading, reading, reading, confluence, confluence and a bit more confluence.

Thursday
Today started as a cracking day - woke up, fed the kids and it was my turn to take them to school.. only today was different - I thought it was Wednesday. No big deal - most school days are the same, except Robyn has a booster class at 8:30 am, whilst I’m strolling in at 8:45 am telling Robyn it’s 100% Wednesday.
Being corrected by a 7-year-old is a fresh kick that coffee never provides, and then pushing a pram at the speed of light to get her in the lesson is a vibe.

Friday
Forgot to write this one - doh! What a wonderful start.

Useful links this week:
Usually I would place podcasts, blogs and people to link to, but as i’ve just re-started it - feel free to send some over for me to read or listen or do introductions!