My final week of work of 2024. It’s our company policy that all staff need to take two weeks of consecutive leave each year. I’ve been so busy that I’m only able to do this now. Next week my wife is still working and my kids are still at school, so it feels a bit indulgent to be off.
At the start of the week I found myself getting annoyed with an issue at work and had to stop and think why. I’m just a bit worn out. By the time that Thursday arrived, I found myself pushing along low-value work as my energy was sapped. I’m looking forward to getting away from my work keyboard to rest and recharge.
This was a week in which I:
- Discovered a bug with either Microsoft Teams or the software that we use for compliance recording. When recording is triggered, it displays people’s names in the ‘why this call needs to be recorded’ banner in Teams even if those people don’t meet the specific criteria for recording.
- Made progress with our audio/visual technology plans for a shared area of one of our buildings. Early in the new year, we’re going to get test equipment on site to see whether it performs as well in our environment as it did in the demo.
- Met with the team involved with our construction programme to go through the snagging list.
- Continued my personal mission to try out as many of our updated meeting rooms as possible. I want to make sure I experience them for online or hybrid meetings myself and deal with any issues before our staff let us know about something that can be improved.
- Met with two members of my team for their year-end appraisals. Prior to this year, I hadn’t managed any permanent members of staff for about a decade. I quite enjoy it.
- Had my own year-end appraisal.
- Added four more people to our Microsoft Copilot pilot and working group. Giving licences to people that come asking for them and involving them in a community may morph into our rollout approach, with some monitoring to see whether they continue to use it.
- Had a conversation with an analyst about using Microsoft 365 and Copilot in some of our more remote locations.
- Discussed the provision of coffee in the office and how we can ensure that there is a continual supply whilst the building’s coffee bar is out of action for refurbishment.
- Met with our sister company to discuss options for staff catering for the period that our company cafe will be closed next year. I had to work from home on the day of the meeting, so I missed out on the free food samples.
- Joined December’s Teams Fireside Chat where we heard lots about the features of Teams Premium from Mansoor Malik and Margi Desai.
- Wrote-up the minutes from the final Steering Committee meeting of the year.
- Came up with an impromptu format for our last all-team meeting of the year. I asked everyone to send me a song that meant a lot to them or reflected their current mood. I then put these together in a playlist and played them in the meeting, asking the team to guess the person who chose each song.
- Got one of our cars fixed with a new water pump at the side of the road by an RAC Mobile Mechanic. £262 seemed pretty good for something that took about three and a half hours to fix.
- Enjoyed two Album Club evenings, one online listening to Don’t Wait ‘Til Tomorrow by Yonaka and another in person to hear Van Morrison’s Moondance.
- Had a splendid time out at drinks and dinner with the WB-40 podcast crowd. Beers at Dovetail were great — I tried a Brugse Zot Sportzot, which may be the best alcohol-free beer that I’ve tried so far. We ate at Granger & Co in Clerkenwell, the same location as this time last year, and had a fabulous meal.
- Enjoyed some drinks at a neighbour’s house. We need to do a bit more hosting next year.
- Had fun on Berkhamsted Cycling Club’s annual Mince Pie Ride where we were treated to a free mince pie along with a coffee or mulled wine at the end of the ride. I decided to ride dressed as a Christmas pudding. It turned out that I’d thought through whether I would be able to pedal and control my bike, but not how aerodynamic the costume would be. Everyone else in our group loved riding behind me as I acted as a massive windbreak for 60km or so.

Media
Podcasts
- I loved John Harris’s interview with a Syrian woman who came to the UK, settled in Yorkshire, built a business and had her children grow up here. It’s an excellent illustration of one human story behind the headlines about the fall of Bashar al-Assad and the future treatment of refugees.
- Ben Thompson’s interview with Tae Kim about his new book The Nvidia Way was a great listen. What stood out to me was:
- The culture engendered by Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang of calling people out on stuff publicly and them responding to that by doing things better, even if it is ridiculously embarrassing for them and everyone else in earshot at the time.
- The flipside of Huang rewarding people on the spot with bonuses or stock when they’ve done a great job on something.
- The culture of everyone in Nvidia being a specialist and their ‘career progression’ being defined as them getting to be the best in their field. Then the CEO is the only, ultimate, generalist. This is great for a while, but what do you do about succession?
Articles
- Ben Elton: “The dead person at a funeral is literally the last person who should get a vote in either the entertainment or the catering. So I have no song – all I want is to make sure I’m composted in an environmentally friendly way.”
Video
- Finished season one of Shrinking on AppleTV+. It’s a little bit twee, but the characters are great and it gave me lots of laugh out loud moments. Jason Segel’s mannerisms remind me so much of what I loved about Chevy Chase during his mid-1980s movie period. He can speak volumes just with his eyes.
- The Making of Do They Know It’s Christmas? (iPlayer) is essential viewing for a pop music documentary buff like myself. But it’s not a patch on The Greatest Night In Pop (2024) which documents the recording of We Are The World. The Band Aid film just consists of footage from the recording with very little context or narrative; an important artefact but without as much context or reflections as the American film.
- Started watching 40 Hidden Music Treasures at the BBC. It’s a mixed bag, but the highlights are incredible. Jeff Buckley’s performance of Grace, the B-52’s miming to Roam but looking fabulous, and INXS singing Bitter Tears are a good sample. I’ve got so much more to watch.
Next week: Unwinding by pottering around the house.
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