Kissinger and a glass of house red

There are some jobs where you have to do pretty much the same thing every day. You know the ones I mean - factory workers, shop assistants, dentists.... Sorry, but I am really glad I don't have one of those.

My job is like a corked bottle on the ocean. Sometimes it rides the crest of the wave, and I have barely a spare moment to myself. And sometimes it lolls in the trough, gathering energy for the next effort.

I like that.

This week has been a perfect example. On Tuesday I had a 5-hour practice meeting that was participative, interactive and really quite enjoyable. And it appears my managerial colleagues have indicated their desire to conduct 1:1s with their staff! Cool.

I voluntarily spent most of Wednesday drafting a PMs guide to conducting One-to-Ones, shamelessly plagiarising the content on Manager Tools (why not? they have the best advice on the subject). A nice and slow, but productive day.

On Thursday I had a half-hour meeting at 2:30 to review my Terms of Reference document for (what I will call) Project Condor. It lasted until 5:15, and I came out of it with a good half-a-dozen new entries on my to-do list. Surprise! Good job I don't get all possessive about my written work, and can take professional criticism.

In case you're wondering, it's only 6 pages long and no, the criticism did not in itself consume 165 minutes! It took so long because for the most part the critics could not always agree among themselves. Negotiating the final wording was like playing Henry Kissinger. By the time I left the meeting, I was so knackered I packed up and went home.

Oh, and today I had lunch at the local Italian restaurant. A lovely Fettucini alla Peppino and a glass of very tolerable red wine, and that was the end of my week, enthusiasm-wise. The resultant lethargy was of course perfectly predictable, but enjoyable nonetheless.

On the subject of my latest endeavor, it's just a feasibility study according to the Business and a Strategic Options Analysis according to the chief Infrastructure techies. Whatever. Anyhow, we had the first workshop on Monday, and the next one is next Tuesday. I spent some time today (one of the new items on my to-do list) planning the content of the agenda for Tuesday, and attempting to come up with a plan to produce all the information we need in four weeks.

I have but one cause for trepidation. When this FS / SOA is complete, it will take the Board weeks and weeks and weeks to decide what to do and when. Which means that I will be assigned another piece of work. No, you misunderstand, I'm not being lazy, it's just that I don't want to be distracted when the project kicks off for real. When they finally make up their minds and agree to spend the money to get "Condor.com", I want to be available to take on the job. It's mine!