Author: Aden Davies

First full five day week at the new place. The culture continues to shine through and it is a very pleasant place to work. What I am starting to spot though is the things in the product that I want to fix. I am trying to hold back jumping to conclusions about things that seem obviously broken until i can understand the wider context of the product, why it works like that from an interface point of view and also from an organisational point of view. I got to visit my first two customers this week as well and it was enightening in many ways. The quality managers were proud advocates of the system but were also not afraid to get stuck in with some tough feedback for things it (and the company) needed to do better. Firm foundations but some improvements needed on some of the bits above ground.

A boozy child free weekend was enjoyed. Friday was a friends 40th party followed by late dancing in The Washington. Saturday was the funkfest at Abbeydale Brewery, a celebaration of all things sour in beer land. Lipsmackingly good. Top and tailed with Engalnd beating Bulgaria and a visit to Dead Donkey Cafe and back to a friends house for needless late beers. Good week.

A full year of weeknotes. Well done me.

Started a new job. I am looking after product at Qualsys. A firm that makes Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) software. The first four days have been brilliant. Really great people and a very good culture. Great feeling too it all. Just need to get to grips with the product and how it is made, sold, supported and what needs doing to it to make it even better.

Got weighed this week after a lazy unhealthy summer. I was expecting to be just over 17 stone but I was actually only just under 18 stone. Looking back at week note 2 I was in a similar post summer state last year so bad that I started week notes and wedid make some big life changes so hopefully can get back to them quickly.

This week has been a much healthier week. Massively reduced calorie intake, no booze, first run in ages, a pedestrian 5k that hurt but still better than this time last year when I managed about 2.5k, some kettle bells and hiit workouts. Lost 6.5lbs in just under a week so far.

Booked a holiday to Marrakech on the 26th of October. I have set myself a few goals to achieve by then.

Lose 21lbs
Run 3 times per week
Be able to touch my toes – This one is the least likely to be achieve, I am so inflexible
A different exercise two times per week e.g. Running and something else like Kettles, Hiit or Spinning
Less than two hours per day mobile screen time – another tough one when I currently do between 4-5 hours per day….Christ
Read at least 4 books
Run to my new place of work by the end of September – It is about 9.5k away so should be doable. Took me until November last year to run to work and that was only 8.2k.

A decent start made on all the above. Just need to maintain it to return so some semblance of health. I have been thinkingabout some larger long term goals around health that I really should make a commitment to.

New reading. Finished Joe Country by Mick Herron a couple of weeks ago in Filey. Not finished much else this year though. Got a few half finished books all on the go, Tim Maughan’s Infinite Detail, Stupid Arbitrary Goal by Tamara Shopsin. In a bid to tackle my screentime issues I have removed the phone charger by my bed and got some books on an old Kindle Paperwhite. The upshot of this is that this week I have polished off those two books and a short story by Stephen King called Elevation. Now it is time to elevate myself with some arbitrary stupid goals and stop being a lazy fat shit.

Late again.

Most of my week was spent in Wales. Two days child free which meant me and my wife could go out drinking and eating what we wanted. A day trip to Colwyn and Conwy to do just that.

The rest of the holiday was just as good once the children were duly returned by their grandparents. Lots of beach days. A trip to the Llandudno toboggan run (an annual family pilgrimage). A visit of the newish Sun Centre 2 on Rhyl front which had some great slides.

All in all a good end to our summer holidays.

Back to work on Tuesday at a new thing. Looking forward to it a lot.

A weird mix of a week that seems to have gone really fast (so fast I forgot to do a week note on Sunday evening). Also because I have to go back to work soon I suspect.

Walked up Win Hill with the boys.

Also had a little walk round the Limb Valley.

My Sister visited with her 3 kids. All the kids played very nicely together. When they were not outside they spent most of the time on Gang Beasts.

Went Ten Pin Bowling. My eldest Son gets very frustrated becuase he cannot get a strike. then again so do I. Should be easy to hit that middle pin. Also the holes in bowling balls seem to be for people with fingers like twiglets as I have a hard time finding one my thumb fits in. This has the benefit of being used as a good excuse ‘I can’t grip it properly’ etc.

Went to another leaving do at my previous employers. One person leaving of his own accord. Another one due to a disgrace of a screw up with employment visas by said employer. Hardly anyone left in the engineering team and I heard about more that were leaving. What a mess. Company culture is such a fragile and important thing.

Discovered we had missed three episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale. Thought the ending was a little tame a few weeks ago. The real ending was much better.

Finally got Product Tank Sheffield announced. Looking forward to starting running an event with a few other, thankfully more organised, folk. First one September 12th and we are looking to do it every few months. Looking at the current sign up rate we might have a venue that is too small….a good problem to have.

I have been on holiday in a place called Wald Newton about five miles away from Filey. A family holiday with my in laws and sister in law and kids cousins etc. We stayed in a lovely house and the weather was excellent when it was forecast to not be so. A lovely part of the world. A great holiday.

Saturday I went to ‘fortress’ Hillsborough to see Wednesday play very well and beat Barnsley 2-0. I enjoyed it very much. Excellent week.

What I left out last week was the fact I had accepted an offer of a new role. As of the 27th of August I will be doing some product stuff for a nice company in Sheffield called Qualsys.

They make Governance, Risk and Compliance software. It is a new field for me as it is not financial services this will however force me to focus more on product processes and structure rather than relying on my knowledge of FS to ‘know’ what we should be building. This is a daunting challenge but one I am looking forward too. I get the sense they are a very willing and supportive bunch which will differ greatly from my previous place of employment. Looking forward to it.

On Friday we headed off to Filey (well a few miles away on a village called Wald Newton) for our annual week away with the in laws. A good couple of days so far. Weather pretty good, converted barn nice and spacious, Filey has a lovely beach with plenty of rock pools and shallow water to swim in. Scarborough tomorrow for a more classic seaside experience and a reminder of my own childhood holidays. Looking forward to having some cockles.

This week contained my last official day at U Account. I have been “working from home” since my role was put at risk but my official end date was the 26th with pay in lieu of notice period to follow. A weird end to my time there. Went in Wednesday for a final consultation meeting which lastd about 60 seconds as a woman I do not know told me my role was definitely going and did I have any questions? When am I getting paid my notice money? She did not know. Thanks for everything. Bye.

I have had several interviews over the last few weeks. I had one last interview to do and it did not go well. A real lack of rapport between myself and the interviewer and it was quickly worked out we were not right for each other. I asked questions which I am sure made sense but I was made to feel as if I had said the most stupid thing in the world. I beat myself up about it obviously.

In contrast I went for an informal chat with someone at another company who had no roles right now but was keen to meet. He was a great interviewer and we just had a lovely chat about making things, the politics of doing so and the engineering of fibre optics. I went for another chat with someone who was contracting with the government and again we had a really great chat about the challenges of interviews and the calibre of people they were getting through.

Thankfully I do not have to do another interview for the time being as I have accepted an offer from somewhere that also took a far more informal approach to interviewing and then offered me a role when I was actually expecting a more formal itnerview to be the next step which caught me unawares and I had to wait before accepting as I had other things lined up. Got a good feeling about the people there and more to say about this in the future.

Thankfully someone else in my old team also got a job before we officially finished our current one. She is going to a great company run by great people that will allow her to grow so much more. Proud.

Friday was for leaving celebrations. A few of us were leaving on that day so we had a good turn out. The drinks lasted long and a few of us made it until around 4.30. I will really miss these people but I will not miss the hangovers they have given me. Drinking with people in their 20s is not viable for a 43 year old.

Finished series 3 of the Handmaids Tale. Mixed kind of series. Got good towards the end as she found her way for the next series. I needed a similar sort of revelation although thankfully not brought about quite as brutally as poor June.

Another week of job hunt fun. Three interviews, more applications and an offer of an interview next week kind of out of the blue. Lots of good progress and learning by doing. I also still have another offer to consider but I have to decide really what I want career wise.

One of my interviews was at the Dean Clough Mill in Halifax which is somewhere I worked 20 years ago as a labourer. Amazing to see how that place has evolved from the days when I was smashing up an rebuilding an old Sun Alliance office.

Two of my interview this week were with senior product people who had been doing this kind of role for a long time so it was good to test myself and also compare myself to them. Both were very smart, articulate and really nice people. I could see where I needed to improve to reach that level but I also was frustrated a little by the thought of things like If only I had done X or taken opportunity Y then just maybe. Futile thinking in some ways but also makes you focus on what maybe I should be focusing on more. Hard to do sometimes when you are neck deep in a role and don’t make the space for thinking about your future but that is just a shit excuse isn’t it?

I got a call out of the blue on Friday from a company that had approached me when I first announced I was leaving but I had heard nothing from for a few weeks so thought it was a no go. Turns out that was not the case and I had a great chat with their head of HR and I have a further interview next week. Was a great end to the weekend. I now have three things progressing really well in Sheffield which is a great feeling but I just want to get the right role accepted.

Went for lunch with an ex-colleague who was part of my team. Lovely to catch up and she gave me an amazing leaving gift. So gutted not to be continuing to work with good people at U Account but glad I got the chance to do so.

Went to my sons summer school concert. A very cute mixture of random songs including a million dreams form the greatest showman, the planets song by storybots and shotgun by George Ezra. Very enjoyable but something a little wrong about 5-7 year old’s singing about bikini bottoms and lager tops.

On Thursday I went to a beer tasting at hop hideout. My friend and I went a few years ago for a tasting and it was brilliant. Learnt so much about beer from Jules and it was great to go again but this time for a different chat. Jules knows so much about how beer is made but we actually spoke more about the beer industry and the challenges of what craft is today, the illusion of choice and how beer is getting distributed and sold. We also had some very nice beer. Support your local beer shop and go and drink at the hop hideout if you are in Sheffield.

Another week of being kind of jobless. I applied for a few things cold via Linked In and other recruitment websites. I also spoke with a few recruiters. Need to build momentum.

One of the places I would really like to work is in government. I went to a DfE recruitment event in Manchester. A great presentation from Jack Collier the design director to shwo the size of their challenge and to outline how they are building a new service organisation from almosts scratch. There were multiple other sessions. I went to one with Jordan Russell on how the trainee teacher placements are dealt with. Interesting insight into how the product teams are structured today (mainly contractors). I was interested in how people get into the Civil Service as I had actually applied for a role with the MoJ in Sheffield a few weeks earlier (and got rejected on the same day I got made redundant!). There was a session on the recruiting process and the method they use to consider CVs and cover letters. Clear where I had failed in my application. I now know lots more about strength profiles and DDATs and what they are looking for.

On Wednesday I went to a customer event of a potential employer. I had an informal interview lined up for Thursday and while researching them I saw they were having a customer forum which is an annual event where they update their customers on new developments in their industry and with their product. It was a great way to learn about the company, their product and their people preparing me much better for the chat on Thursday.

Wednesday evening I headed to Nottingham for the Design Exchange event. Mainly to see Dean Vipond of NHS Digital. He gave a great talk on the work they have had to do on the NHS website and it was a great presentation that showed real quality, care, skill and stress involved in making something worthy of the NHS. We got the train back north together and it was good to chat about recruitment challenges, learning leadership skills and balancing it all with kids.

Thursday I went for an informal chat at potential employer. It was a good couple of hours finding out more about the company and the role. It did not feel like an interview at all. More like an advert for the company and that was enjoyable. On Friday I got an offered the role. I have three more more interviews next week but I have a decision to make next week.

On Friday morning I went to my first ever spinning class. My wife had been trying to get me to go for a while and being on gardening leave while the kids are at school gave me no more excuses. I really enjoyed it. More of my thoughts on it are on Twitter.

Watched and enjoyed Years and Years. Good semi dystopian sci-fi which laid on the Brexit and Trump parallels a little thick but was really strong telly. Recommended. Hopefully my future will not be quick as bleak or require such a revolutionary approach.

What a week. Tuesday I had to go into work for a consolation…I mean consultation meeting about my role being at risk. It felt like the Tuesday of the damned with others in the same position knowing their roles were not really at risk but that they were gone. Felt really weird in the office like the proverbial fart in a space suit. My focus was basically what would happen now and how there was no point being in the office and that the other person in my team was ok. Thankfully it was agreed that we could both ‘work from home’ until our official end date of the 26th of July and then we would be paid in lieu for our final months notice.

The downside of this is that it meant we had to sneak out of the office with no goodbye. A countdown to 4pm and a not so subtle clearing of our desks. You can judge a company culture by how well it treats it’s leavers and while redundancies mess that up still it leaves a mark. I was over joyed by the people that joined us in the pub at 4. I mean most came to see Faye and I had to go early to get my kids but it was still great to know the effect colleagues can have on each other. We did not get to say bye properly in the office which was sad. We will however be having leaving drinks properly on the 26th of July.

Job hunting was in full swing. A mixture of people getting in touch after tweets and linked in posts. Three people I work(ed) with helped me out massively with a CV tidy up because I hate writing about myself (he says in weeknote 45). I feel more confident in my CV now but that is still offset by my general lack of confidence in what feels like a lack of real achievement in my career.

Went to an agency party at Paper. It was just what I needed. Lots of smart digital folk, lots of great advice (and some very nice beer). Also got a heads up on a lead for another role.

I popped up to Leeds on the Friday for an interview with a recruiter about a role in Nottingham. The meeting was across the road from the North Brewing Company tap room so snuck in for a cheeky schooner. I then met with Saul Cozens of DXW who is just one of the nice guys of Sheffield. We went for lovely Japanese food at Little Tokyo and he also gave loads of great advice and contacts and reassurance that I would be snapped up quickly.

People always say that. You will be fine, you will get something quickly, people with be clamouring for someone like you etc. etc. I hope they are right but I have a few months runway and then mortgage and other outgoings get tricky to pay so it is a stressful time.

My amazingly organised wife was wanting to help keep me focused. We have whiteboard in the kitchen and we have turned it into a jobs board. A list of leads and applications and the stage they are at and what action is next. I have told her she would make a great project manager. What a romantic I am.