another mad work week. worked through the weekend prototyping a new form which went live on GOV.UK today.
Stephen was out for a few days earlier in the week so I covered him and pretended to be the head of design for GOV.UK. nothing broke, though that’s almost all credit to the brilliance of the design team who amongst them picked up on the businesses offering support work, switched focus to some other work at the drop of a hat, and calmly updated the landing page while politics swirled around us. Ignacia, Mia, Kate, Conor, Jeremy, Joe, Tim, Stephen: can’t think of anyone I’d rather design through a crisis with than all of you!
I’ve always thought the Design System was cool, but don’t usually come into contact with it in the course of my work. using it in anger made me appreciate it even more.
Conor suggested at one point this week that we’d shipped more in the past two weeks than some people do in a year. no slight on those other people, but he’s not wrong: we have shipped a lot.
woke up exhausted on Tuesday morning and took the afternoon off. definitely went too hard at it: by Sunday night / Monday morning I’d got into the mindset that “well, there’s nothing else to do I might as well be working”. and by Monday afternoon I was definitely not on my game: switched on my product manager muscles when I should’ve let someone else do their own job. Tuesday afternoon was just enough of a reset to get me through till today. I’m not going to make that mistake again.
due to minor cough last week, we’ve been indoors for our respective 7 days. C went back to hospital work yesterday. it was meant to be her first full time week of health research. instead, she’s being redeployed back onto the wards. felt a bit sick after closing the door after her yesterday morning. I’m trying not to be bitter about it, but last night with the NHS clap I thought, yeah, remember your clapping next time you go outside for an unnecessary reason.
complaining much less about my back since we started a Yoga With Adriene 30 day challenge.
I went for my first walk of a week just now, just to the park. stayed off the paths and on the grass and well clear of everything. feels well apocalyptic out there with this kind of zombie avoidance stuff; I think I might prefer staying indoors.
started Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, but found it really hard to read it without wondering when the pandemic was going to arrive in the plot.
a family member of a friend in Italy died this week. Bergamo is the worst hit city in Italy so I guess that was likely to happen. but still some deep sadness these past couple of days. it is senseless. please just stay indoors. I’m re-orienting my mind from thinking “it’s just the corner shop to get some biscuits” to “are biscuits essential?”. and of course the answer is no, they are not.
have taken this afternoon off too: went for a walk, cleaned the floors, and dusted off my record player. picked out My Favourite Things by John Coltrane to play loudly. little things.
the past five days been a combination of finding my place, figuring out GOV.UK, remembering how to deliver, not putting my back out, learning how to work remotely. and probably something else too.
it feels like it’s been a very long week. as predicted, it has been great working with the design team. and everyone else! there’s been loads to get my head around and things have shifted multiple times. the team shipped a new version of /coronavirus today which has come together exceptionally fast.
made a prototype today for a service we’ll be likely launching early next week. deeply grateful to Tim who batted back and forth on screen layouts and flows with me. Mum, I’m an interaction designer now!
we both have sore throats, so I guess I’m not going out for 7 days, at least. probably inevitable given that C works for the NHS. hopefully it doesn’t get any worse. not sure why I’m not more worried.
most of my health complaints this week have been about my back: our flat was not built for home offices. lots of lying on the floor, planking between meetings, and 15 min yoga videos.
few of us went to ‘the pub’ on Google Hangouts last night. gonna do it every week.
this is mad weird. I’m glad to have been busy because I think I’d be going mad otherwise.
Sonia dropped a loaf of bread round. a proper drop off: brown paper bag at the bottom of the stairs. thank you Sonia! I’m having toast for my dinner.
Rebecca Solnit once again making the case for hope as a form of resistance. “There is one hummingbird on the power line outside the window of the room I’m writing this in, in the middle of San Francisco, and this work is worth it just for hummingbirds.”
“We need to understand the worst-case scenarios and the suffering and loss happening now, so we know what we’re trying to prevent. But we need to imagine the best case scenarios, so we can reach for them too.” my imagination of best case has been lacking in recent years: too much cynicism.
when I had Italian on Tuesday, my teacher (in Rome) had been indoors for three days. she thinks everyone in the UK is insane for still going outside, told me not to go to work and if I had to, I should at least cycle and not get on public transport.
it’s good the weather has cheered up, isn’t it? that’s why I’ve been cycling to work every day since Tuesday!
moving team next week to join GOV.UK for a bit. quite pleased about this because I imagine international work will be a bit quiet for a while. plus, I get to work with Kate, Stephen, Ignacia, Conor, Mia and Jeremy! ace.
also, back in a dream team with Jen, which means I can draw identity assurosauri (?) on post-its and leave them on her stuff while she’s off at important meetings. sure, you cut Jen and she bleeds GOV.UK, but I’m not going to let her forget her identity creds.
“I live in fear of anyone asking me to actually do the work” “yeah, that’s how I feel about service design” -> after more than 2 years of majority ‘leadership’ and 'stakeholder management’ I am both excited and terrified to do what I sometimes call 'real work’ again.
at 6pm today I got a text from Leo saying that Control by GoodBooks is back on Spotify. that’s after around three years off it - Columbia’s copyright expired 10 years after release, if I remember correctly. thank you Leo for all your work! still deeply proud of this record and my part in it. management remains one of the most formative experiences of my life.
there’s a lush moment where in Violent Man Lovesong, about 2m30 in, and Max sings “within a frame of goldleaf”. still so nice.
back in things that didn’t happen 13 years ago, one of the best bits of my week was a long chat with Sanjay yesterday afternoon. I had a talk to finish cutting down from 45 to 10 minutes, and dinner with friends to be at, but it was such a delight to see him that I didn’t want to cut it short. I’m not going to say that one of the best bits of line management is when they leave, because it isn’t, but seeing the people you line managed after the fact is great: back on a level of human-to-human, rather than any odd power dynamics being in the mix.
back to GoodBooks: I think my feelings towards managing them are probably, approximately, what I imagine parenthood must feel like. fiercely proud and protective. wanting the best. advocating always. we had our fair share of challenging each other, but it was never and has never been in doubt: I will always, always go out to bat for you.
sounds kinda creepy when it’s spelled it out like that. I guess this is why I get annoyed when what feels like needless bureaucracy gets in the way of what I want for 'my people’.
schadenfreude is one of an Arsenal fan’s primary currencies. obviously I hope the Premier League season isn’t cancelled, because if it was that would be terrible for public health (pls get better Mikel). I still sent a text this morning that said 'lol Liverpool’.