Weeknote 15 of 2024
Weeks 2 and 3 in my new role and settling into school year routines.
What happened
- My onboarding into the Ministry of Health continued with an official onboarding session and a lot of intro meetings. I also joined some project meetings as an observer.
- I completed a 2-day conflict management training that I had signed up for a few months ago.
- I gave an in-person talk to the Environmental Assessment Office on communication skills, a followup to a talk I had given back in June when I was part of that ministry.
- I wrote an article for the Service Gazette.
- I gave some feedback on various things
- And mostly I've just been trying to connect dots and make sense of all the different pieces of information I'm taking in on various projects.
- On a personal level, I helped my kids (especially my kindergartener) transition into school, and sent my older daughter off on her first ever girl guides camping trip.
What went well
- I've been really enjoying learning about all the work going on in the health sector, and also really loving being part of daily standups again.
- I had a glorious Monday off– moving jobs means I'm now once again able to do compressed hours and earn flex days. It was so good for my mental health.
- I finally talked to my healthcare provider about ADHD stuff and medication. I'm feeling hopeful in this regard but unsure of how much I want to share about it just yet.
What was challenging
- With the changing routines, my kids have been having big emotions– lots of meltdowns and running late and general chaos. Mornings have been very tricky. The excitement of a new school has worn off and my little one recently asked me, "when can I go back to my old life?" All I can do is be patient and wait for this to become the new normal.
- I've been having a bit of FOMO about not making it to SDinGov this year. Also a bit bummed to have not made it onto the FWD50 agenda.
What I've been thinking about
I'm enjoying Kate Tarling's new Email course, Silos to Services.
From Silos to Services
5 Steps To Build Your Business Case For A More Service Oriented Org And How To Present It So The People Understand And Changes Get Made (Even If You Believe It’s Too Late)
Some other good things I've read this fortnight:
Five impressions from an unexpected healthcare service journey
“We seek to re-center the ways in which time and infrastructure interact, to illuminate the texture of this web so crisscrossed with great divides that in literature and popular myth, the whole borderland has taken on a phantasmagoric shape, unrecognizable to those undergoing the experience.” Bowker
Gordon Ross
Designing for equity: a focus on internal or staff facing products
Using a targeted recruitment approach to introduce equity into internal staff facing services.
Faiza Peeran
I love all weeknotes but special shout out to Martin for these reflections, especially about diversity in the public service:
Week #123 at the Digital Service: Notes for 2–6 September 2024
Martin welcomed the new Work4Germany fellowship cohort. He also co-ran a cross-public sector user-centred design community gathering on designing good forms and welcomed the second content designer in his week 123 at Digital Service.
Martin Jordan
Reading, watching, listening
- I finished the Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley. It was a decent whodunnit.
- I continued my rewatch of Mad Men
- Some super interesting podcast episodes came across my feed this past fortnight. Shell Game from Radio Lab, in which someone gets an AI voice clone to act as them in a number of conversations. Which phone is the best to do crimes on had a shocking twist that I am still trying to understand. Maintenance Phase did a deep dive into Myers-Briggs and did you know that neither Myers nor Briggs has any background in psychology? And there was a great story of government being super confusing and poorly design on This American Life.
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