This will be a reasonably technical post about the fulfilment of my life’s ambition: people wanting to match things. For as long as I’ve had a professional career I have been banging the same extremely boring drum: matching things is hard, humans are bad at it, and anything larger than…

Alright, so you remember how last week — shut up, time is weird in the pandemic — last week I talked about how my organisation’s hiring rules meant I might be moving soon? It happened. I’m moving. Specifically, I’m moving to a small arm’s length body of another department to…

This week I’ve been thinking a whole lot about trust. Also about where to go from here. Here is a really exciting place, but because my organisation has really hyper-specific rules about hiring I may have to move soon. …

Okay, so last week I said I was going to take 8 weeks off to focus on the thing I was doing. I assumed this was because I would be too busy to write about what I was learning. — Then Sam Villis— who is wise — pointed out that I’d written a good reflective thing last week and I realised that these are for me, actually. I love you, reader. I do. You give me the endorphins I crave. …

This week I was offered an opportunity that may seem deeply boring but I’m quite excited about: developing a business case at pace from scratch. — Well, scratch-ish. From itch, maybe? Anyway, it’s a great way to end the season: an exciting cliffhanger, with your hero hunched over their laptop. I’m not really hunched. I’ve actually got a really lovely setup. But it adds drama. The absolute highlight of my week — apart from the above…

This week I applied to a speculative position to write speeches, which is both my dream job and the thing I fear most of all in the world. You can read my application at the end. I also pushed harder than I’ve ever pushed before to fix (in my opinion)…

I had a great week, and it’s reminded me of why I do what I do. Thinking about the big picture stuff, and helping other people take a step back and think about it, is such an exciting way to spend my days. Plus, I had some genuinely interesting meetings…

We talked about resilience at work, and I went completely over the top dramatic and wrote — I dunno, something a bit grand about human beings and resilience. It’s very West Wing, and I mean that in the best and worst way. …

This week has been hard. Really, really hard. I went into the office twice. It was everything I hate about open-plan offices. I am autistic. I find overlapping conversations distracting, distressing. I do not like these things. I don’t know if they are necessary. I am well suited to being…