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Weeknotes: S2 E12

Flooding, conflict, male allies, building trust in teams and cousin greg

Weeknotes: S2 E12

The province of BC experienced catastrophic flooding that shut down major highways caused major supply chain issues. People in my city started hoarding food and gas. These events didn’t have much of a direct effect on us — we live on a mountain so had no flooding, but the road to school was closed. We had a 5-hour power outage, which was a great reminder that we need to improve our supply of candles and torches. My Christmas cards are delayed, and our plans to spend the first Christmas in many years at my mum’s house (to which we get to via a major highway that is now under water) are in jeopardy. But we’re very lucky considering.

Although the world around us is in chaos, the past fortnight has felt uncharacteristically focused and productive; This isn’t the norm for me. It’s even carried over in my personal life: I’ve managed to do almost all my Christmas shopping before black Friday. Another period of chaos is always around the corner I’m sure but til then I shall ride this wave.

What went well:

  • I played back some research I did to the team. I don’t get to do this nearly as much as I would like to, so it’s noteworthy.
  • I set up open office hours for anyone who wants to chat with me. I was convinced no one would care but I’ve actually had three people book times for chats. Exciting!
  • I’m taking a full stack developer course and am motoring through it at a good pace. When things get busy or hectic, it’s usually the first thing to go off the to-do list but I find when I don’t work on it I have trouble getting back into it and remembering what we’ve been doing so I’m trying to maintain momentum.

To improve:

  • I had a spot of bother with someone who called my research work a “social group.” I called him out on it in a very no-nonsense way (yay me), he was receptive and apologized, so that’s all good. But in the ‘to improve’ column, I would add: How do I spend less emotional energy on people who don’t care about things they really should care about? I want to be someone who boldly and decisively calls out bad behaviour when I see it, and then just moves on, rather than thinking about it for a solid 48 hrs (and counting.)
  • Another thought on this: What is the role of powerful male allies in a conflict that isn’t explicitly about gender but also might be? My male manager was incensed on my behalf and wanted to step in as my leader to sort it out — which was great and supportive and what a manager is there to do. But I asked him not to because it felt disempowering to send a man to sort out an issue with another man for me. I’m not sure I got that right, as it certainly would have had less emotional toll on me to send the problem upwards. Regardless, I’m grateful for a manager who respected my wishes and let me take the lead.
  • Two wonderful developers on my team are leaving soon and although I’m happy for them, I’m a bit gutted too — they are the two who are most likely to challenge things and share candid thoughts when we have team discussions. So in ‘to improve’ I am thinking about how we can bring that energy to the rest of our lovely team when they’re gone.

What’s been inspiring me:

Reading, listening, watching

  • My library hold for Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen finally came in. It’s great so far, only complaint is that the chapters are way too long, it’s impossible to finish one in a sitting for me.
  • Heavyweight is always great but the two most recent 2-parters were especially intriguing.
  • Like most, I’ve been watching Succession every week. I’m not sure it’s good for my mindset, I spend a lot of my shower thoughts on all the reasons I loathe every character. Even cousin Greg is getting on my nerves this season.

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