Slotting into place
Jan. 15th, 2026 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosa_heartlilyThis time last year I was baking son's birthday cake a day early because work, doing safeguarding training, writing up minutes, and assessing the differences between Copilot and Decisions.
Today I expanded the paragraph for MC's story, 'The World Behind the Wall', which is the final part of the 'Keys to the Kingdom' trilogy. I really feel this has legs! I'll pop the expansions in here tomorrow when I have more time.
Then I needed to get out of the house early because the head of our division was doing a presentation on how wonderful we all are. There was some sort of technical hitch, so we got to chat amongst ourselves for 10 minutes or so. I was sitting next to my former line manager, so it was nice to have a bit of a catch up with them. On the way back to our building I described my woes over finding a backpack that is Just Right and they suggested Cheshire Oaks, which might actually be a good shout. Eventually the presentation got going and we are in a pretty good place as an institution - certainly better than some others.
In the office, I had a chat to Big Boss about lining up projects with university strategy. I got a metaphorical nudge in the ribs when the Director of Strategy gave their presentation. So, I seem to have volunteered myself to do some assessment of what's in the strategy v what projects we have in the pipeline. But hey, THAT's my job!
I also met my mentee who had made some progress since we last met, although they'd only had a couple of weeks in work because Christmas Break. They've taken away some more ideas and I sent them some information on the Johari Window, which is such an interesting exercise to do. I was trying to build their confidence by asking about achievements and things they were proud of, and then asked what their boss or spouse or best friend would say - and then I remembered the Johari Window, which allows you to find all that out without an awkward f2f conversation! We're going to try for another meeting next month.
One of the PMs and I had a chat about an upcoming Project Board, which we think we should move. It's the last one for the project but there's still some fixing to do. We went through the action list and there was something against me that I hadn't done, so I boxed that off. I also beefed up the ELS section of the governance doc and sent it to the PM to review.
Tonight we had another go at filling in the Safeguarding Dashboard and got some more stuff ticked off. There's also work we're doing that we can't capture on there because it only becomes available as you 'level up'. We've got an action plan to share with PCC, which is mostly, 'When you've done your training, we can progress'. There were supposed to be four of us in the meeting but one couldn't make it at all and another said they'd be late. Myself and the remaining person had charged through the dashboard and it looked like I'd be able to watch all of Traitors with the boys - then the other person came in and was showing us what they'd been doing. Which was all great but I wanted to go downstairs! But safeguarding is SO important and I'm very grateful for what they've done.
And I did get to watch most of Traitors.
Today I expanded the paragraph for MC's story, 'The World Behind the Wall', which is the final part of the 'Keys to the Kingdom' trilogy. I really feel this has legs! I'll pop the expansions in here tomorrow when I have more time.
Then I needed to get out of the house early because the head of our division was doing a presentation on how wonderful we all are. There was some sort of technical hitch, so we got to chat amongst ourselves for 10 minutes or so. I was sitting next to my former line manager, so it was nice to have a bit of a catch up with them. On the way back to our building I described my woes over finding a backpack that is Just Right and they suggested Cheshire Oaks, which might actually be a good shout. Eventually the presentation got going and we are in a pretty good place as an institution - certainly better than some others.
In the office, I had a chat to Big Boss about lining up projects with university strategy. I got a metaphorical nudge in the ribs when the Director of Strategy gave their presentation. So, I seem to have volunteered myself to do some assessment of what's in the strategy v what projects we have in the pipeline. But hey, THAT's my job!
I also met my mentee who had made some progress since we last met, although they'd only had a couple of weeks in work because Christmas Break. They've taken away some more ideas and I sent them some information on the Johari Window, which is such an interesting exercise to do. I was trying to build their confidence by asking about achievements and things they were proud of, and then asked what their boss or spouse or best friend would say - and then I remembered the Johari Window, which allows you to find all that out without an awkward f2f conversation! We're going to try for another meeting next month.
One of the PMs and I had a chat about an upcoming Project Board, which we think we should move. It's the last one for the project but there's still some fixing to do. We went through the action list and there was something against me that I hadn't done, so I boxed that off. I also beefed up the ELS section of the governance doc and sent it to the PM to review.
Tonight we had another go at filling in the Safeguarding Dashboard and got some more stuff ticked off. There's also work we're doing that we can't capture on there because it only becomes available as you 'level up'. We've got an action plan to share with PCC, which is mostly, 'When you've done your training, we can progress'. There were supposed to be four of us in the meeting but one couldn't make it at all and another said they'd be late. Myself and the remaining person had charged through the dashboard and it looked like I'd be able to watch all of Traitors with the boys - then the other person came in and was showing us what they'd been doing. Which was all great but I wanted to go downstairs! But safeguarding is SO important and I'm very grateful for what they've done.
And I did get to watch most of Traitors.
