Weeknote 32: Dance number

There goes the last short week for a little while.

I'm now off from today till Monday the 9th. No plans. Not going anywhere. Gonna stay home and chill. I thought about planning some like non-work weeknotes next week where I work on this website, which I may still do, but actually I think I'm just gonna turn my brain off. No weeknotes next week.

This week off was planned as 'preventative leave' but I think the feeling of exhaustion has morphed it into actual necessary leave. I spoke last week about needing a break and oh man I do indeed need a break. I'll get into that more after I do the big list:

  • Had a retro with my squad where the consensus was that the cycle went fine, but we're all pretty sparked out from this brand updates project. It's not just me feeling the burnout. We still had some interesting chats about how we manage the impact of the work on ourselves
  • Showed and told my squad's work on 4.10.0 and investigating v4 users to the rest of the team. Well actually I didn't, Char did. Thanks again Char for taking over presenting whilst I had an electrician round
  • Helped finish off the release notes and content bits for 4.10.0
  • Helped release 4.10.0 and 5.10.2 of GOV.UK Frontend
  • Got into planning for the following cycle. Me, Romaric, Ollie and Char are gonna be looking at updating the tech docs gem and the prototype kit's docs website with the brand updates and making little improvements to both if we have time eg: implementing service navigation
  • Closed down a bunch of github stuff in prep for the end of the cycle and me being off next week

Releases releases releases

I wrote this already and I have no idea if it makes any difference but we've got Frontend releases!

Firstly, 5.10.2 which is a neat little fix release on top of 5.10 and 5.10.1. Any easy update if you've already updated to 5.10. Update or else.

Secondly, 4.10.0 which lets v4 users implement the brand updates in their service. I would recommend following the upgrade path to v5 at some point, but this is a good short term bandage.

Owen the back room developer

I was thinking this week how for this brand work I've mostly been on low-to-medium priority stuff. A nunjucks enhancement feature to turn the brand on and off more easily, a v4 release of Frontend, next cycle updating our lower-priority public facing things etc. That last one is a pertinent example because both me and Romaric are off next week so it'll be a shorter, traditional 2 week cycle.

This isn't a problem for me, far from it. I think not being at the coalface of this high profile project has helped with not setting off feelings of delivery anxiety as much as they might if I was on landmark features like the header. It's therefore all the more interesting and annoying that I'm still feeling so burnt out. It feels like a lot of my stress is second hand.

There's something here for me to reflect on in terms of my resilience at work and my investment in work things like the social cohesion and wellbeing of my team. Me and my therapist have had extensive chats about me being willing to let my feelings happen and not try to control them too much. Thing is, I'm tired of feeling so grumbly as soon as the pressure goes up even a little or if those around me are struggling. It's obviously a two way street and I'm hoping that my organisation will chill out soon as well but I would quite like to feel less consistently bad.

Outside of work

Lots of my time taken up by my in laws being around which meant eating out almost every day they were here and forgoing stuff like BJJ. Not great for my health but does mean we get to have some nice nosh. Special shout out to going to Gunpowder on the bank holiday Monday and seeing Do Ho Suh's Walk The House exhibition at the Tate. The exhibition was cool, if a little overpriced IMO. The food was excellent.

On Tuesday we did a tourist thing and went to the Globe to see Romeo and Juliet. It was interesting seeing a Shakespeare show in the modern day. I initially thought the wild west setting was a kinda lame choice but it does in fact make it more accessible. The whole show was a balancing act between doing the classic Shakespeare thing for the Shakespeare people and doing more digestible gags and affectations for the people there just for fun. I did think the dance number at the end was completely unnecessary. Felt a bit like Hot Fuzz honestly.

Only other thing I wanted to gush about is that The Pill released an EP finally and it's bloody good! I think POSH is the only new song on it and it might be their best song so far. Lots of fun.