Year in Review 2023
Dec. 8th, 2023 02:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teylaminhI'm posting this earlier than usual, as my transition phase to my new team has mostly involved deputising for my former team leader by doing the minuting list, and providing some very minor post-meeting support for the Chairs, so I’m enjoying the relative peace and quiet before I get really busy in my new role.
I went into the office on 5th December to meet the new team and have a catch-up with my new TL, particularly around my health history, and she commented that I will definitely be busy but it will be a different type of busy – less high pressure / immediate deadlines but probably more to juggle. It has at least reminded me that I was actually quite keen to move / start the new role back in January last year, but all the intervening nonsense meant I was constantly fluctuating over it. None of the stuff is unachievable or particularly difficult, and the only bit I’m not really looking forward to is the supervision of staff, but fingers crossed I won’t have to make myself unpopular.
Anyway, I don’t think things will properly start moving til January, when the ground floor refurbishment of our south venue is completed and the Head of Service has decided how often he wants people to be in. At present I am expected to go in on Tuesdays, to our Aston venue, which suits me just fine.
That being said, the year in review meme is incoming, though I imagine it will be fairly brief considering my life has been on hold for 11 months!
1. What did you do in 2023 that you'd never done before?
Went on a solo flight, as Paul and I had separate summer holidays this year. He went to Alicante for a Blood Bowl tournament, and I didn’t fancy spending a week in the house on my own, so I went to Bulgaria for 11 days.
I went from Birmingham because Luton were such a nightmare last year, and I didn’t fancy the three-hour coach trip on my own. It was a bit more expensive but worth it terms of the reduced stress levels.
The only downside was trying to get home again, because Uber wanted to charge me £60 to get home from the airport (it was £30 on the way there) because it was rush-hour, so I had to get the train instead and it took ages – both the walk from the airport to the station itself, and then the train getting stuck at New Street waiting for a signal (it’s literally two stops, should have taken 15 minutes and was more like 45).
Next time I will probably book a coach so at least I only have to get a cab from the city centre.
2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
The only thing I vaguely achieved was learning to do fancy free-hand lettering, which TBH was kind of an accident. Facebook is always showing me calligraphy reels and I decided to give it a go. It’s been a learning curve but I can see the progress, even though there’s a way to go.
TBH this was partly borne of necessity as my printer got bricked in a power cut – previously I would cheat by printing off a fancy font and then tracing over it, so I had no choice but to learn how to do it myself. The next phase is to move onto proper brush pens and/or nib pens. I have more calligraphy nib pens than I know what to do with so I should probably start using them.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not this year.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thank anything, also not this year.
5. What countries did you visit?
Bulgaria as usual. Also Turkey, for a few hours! My folks live quite close to the Turkish border so they can literally drive there in a couple of hours – we went to a town called Edirne which mostly comprises shops/market stalls, and a mahoosive mosque right in the centre. My mum is knitting me a jumper so we went to Edirne because they have a better selection of wool and it’s cheaper than in Bulgaria.
We nearly got arrested for smuggling cigarettes back into Bulgaria. My mum had looked up the limit on bringing cigarettes back and thought it was 200 (we were already 100 over that limit, thanks David), but it turns out that limit is for when you’re flying, not when you’re driving.
Bulgarian border control are completely batshit currently because there have been lots of migrants trying to get into Europe (and thus the EU) via Turkey. David managed to accidentally piss off the passport control man by driving too far ahead at the booth, so we reckon he radio’d ahead to the customs control guard. He asked if we had anything to declare and we (what we thought was) correctly stated no, he then made us get out of the car to inspect our bags / seats / boot, and informed us the cigarette limit was 20. Luckily he realised it was a genuine mistake, and let us off without a fine. His exact words were, “You know for next time, and today I saw only one carton.”
Not sure if they will be going back to Turkey on that basis as what they saved on cigarettes will no longer offset the petrol costs, though it’s not like they aren’t already cheap enough in Bulgaria!
6. What would you like to have in 2024 that you lacked in 2023?
A proper hybrid working arrangement so I can get some semblance of a routine back, not to mention some sanity. Hopefully I will actually have capacity to start writing again; I have literally not produced any new words in almost a year.
7. What date from 2023 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
22nd November was the day I had my huge meltdown at work and facilitated my team move. Other than that, the year has just been one big blur.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I’m going to repeat what I said last year for this one:
”Not going off on long-term sick with stress and/or anxiety thanks to all of the absolute bullshit I've been dealing with at work since March. ISTG it has just been relentless this year.”
Except replace March with January.
Other than that, I actually have no idea.
Oh, wait, I finally got around to repainting the bathroom in April, along with purchasing some new storage furniture, and it actually looks really nice, so there’s that. Also finally weeding out the flower bed, even though the bastard things just came straight back again.
Next year I want to tackle the spare room / replace the living room blinds / actually dig out the flower bed completely and start over.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I have done literally no writing (other than some editing of the Jonathan Creek POTOver fic, which I posted over the spring), though I’m mindful of not referring to that as a personal failure because it’s a reflection on where my head has been recently.
I also wish I could have been more assertive about my team move, but I was very much caught by my loyalty to the team and my TL, and very aware that she did not want me to go, so I went for months without challenging it and assuming things were moving quietly in the background, until it was obvious they weren’t.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Luckily no physical health issues this year! We suspected Paul had Covid when he got back off holiday (from the plane) but it turned out to be a bad cold.
My mental health has definitely been a struggle, particularly during November when the (lack of) team move came to a head.
Other than that, I’ve had (I think) one really bad migraine and a short bout of food poisoning / stomach bug which was thoroughly unpleasant.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
The new sofa / armchair are both super comfortable, at least compared to the old one, although one end of the sofa does creak / twang alarmingly at times. It’s clearly not broken, and we had a man out from DFS to look at it who reckoned it just needed time to “settle” (which was about 10 months ago now). I’ve put foam pads on the feet and that also hasn’t helped, so probably we just need to live with it.
I also got the 4K blu-ray of The Last of Us (though we haven’t finished rewatching it yet) with the fancy steelbox, because I am a magpie.
Oh, and I also replaced the printer a couple of months ago and the new one is sooooo fancy! It has separate ink bays that you refill from a bottle rather than expensive cartridges, and the ink use is really efficient so it actually works out much cheaper. It’s had a lot of use already for my Christmas card making, and I’m going to make gift tags again this year which will really put it through its paces.
We also bought tickets to see Eddie Izzard in November and she was awesome.
I had a splurge on some PS5 games which included Horizon: Forbidden West (I played the first one, Zero Dawn afterwards via PS Plus) and Death Stranding which were both amazing – the latter is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever experienced but it kept me entertained for several weeks. Paul and I both really enjoyed Dysmantle (also via PS Plus) and I bought both of the additional DLCs – it’s a really great little game and completely exceeded my expectations!
(For a few weeks we were gleefully shouting at each other about the fact we could break cars/trucks/buses/EVERYTHING at various points as we separately progressed through the game. Its tagline might as well be Smash All The Things.)
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
My two Principal Officer colleagues who supported me after The Incident that led to my team move. I think if not for them being there, I probably would have just gone home and got on with things, and either something else would have happened to send me off that cliff or I would have ended up on long-term sick.
It did however highlight the key difference between how the Chairs perceive us compared to how Business Support senior management do – the Chairs see us as their colleagues, not just “admin support”.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Well, the Covid Inquiry has been enlightening, hasn’t it? Except it really hasn’t because anyone with half a brain could see that Boris Johnson had no fucking clue what was going on at any point. At time of writing this he is busy blithering, faffing and deflecting his way through questioning, so pretty much as expected.
Special mention for Elon Musk for single-handedly destroying Twitter. Honestly, the entire world would be so much more habitable if it was run by actual grown-ups.
As much as I don’t really want to say it, my (former) team leader has to go in this category, because it was her inaction that led to my entire year being so difficult. I totally understand why she delayed the move, and whilst a part of me is flattered that she valued me so highly and didn’t want to lose me, it also feels like there was just no consideration for my feelings at all in any of that decision making. Thinking back on it, it must have been obvious from October onwards how fed up I was, but I honestly feel that if not for The Incident I would still be sticking around for another 12 months.
One of my colleagues has already moved to the peripatetic team (they support wherever they’re needed) – she continued supporting CP for a couple of months after the move, then went off to do a project somewhere, and is now back again – initially it was supposed to be til mid-December and she’s now been told it will be til March 2024.
I just wish someone had the balls to go to the Head of Business Support and tell him the restructure is not working for CP, but for whatever reason nobody will do it.
I also need to mention the new Head of Child Protection here because it seems to me like he wants the service to fail. I knew when the previous HOS moved on that things would be awful, or that she was moving because there was something coming that she couldn’t get behind professionally (I actually wonder if the restructure was that “something”)… as ever, my prediction turned out to be correct.
14. Where did most of your money go?
For the past few months, I have literally no fucking idea. It just disappears into a black hole. I think the splurge on bathroom furniture probably didn’t help, but thank goodness we have just had a pay increase and a nice chunk of back pay.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The TLOU adaptation, and I was not disappointed – it was absolutely the highlight of the year, so it’s a shame it arrived so early.
I was also really excited for this year’s series of Taskmaster purely because of Julian Clary and Sue Perkins, and neither of them disappointed in their respective performances.
There was also a DLC for Horizon: Forbidden West which I downloaded on release day, because I loved that game so much and felt absolutely bereft after I’d finished it.
16. What song will always remind you of 2023?
The only new music I bought this year was P!nk’s new album, Trustfall, so probably something from that.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) happier or sadder? I definitely feel saner now than I have for a while, but if you’d asked me this question three weeks ago…
(b) thinner or fatter? Probably fatter TBH, I’m hoping having a better routine will help me eat properly again.
(c) richer or poorer? It’s fluctuated, since the summer I’ve been pretty much skint but hopefully things will improve a bit. I’ve been quite clear that I’m refusing to get a bus pass, so I would prefer not to work any more than two days a week in the office – quite a bit of my money has gone Ubers to/from work when I feel lazy and tired, because I have absolutely no patience for buses any more.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing, but see above caveat re: state of my brain.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Another year spent Caring Too Much at work, even when I was pissed off about still caring. One of the things that led to my breakdown in November was reading a police report for a conference and having a moment of “why do we do this to ourselves?” – at that point I realised all my professional curiosity and emotional resilience had been obliterated, and without that the job is impossible.
20. How will you spend Christmas?
The usual – inviting my uncle over for lunch.
We are having a turkey crown this year because for some reason the butcher can’t get a whole bird. Last year we couldn’t get a goose and this year we can’t even get a bloody turkey, what on earth is going on?
(Short answer: Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving.)
Anyway, that aside, I have the three days between Christmas and New Year off this year, and now I’ve moved teams it won’t be so insanely busy in the run up (hopefully).
I have a meal with former south colleagues on the 14th, and a bring and share lunch on the 19th for the whole service, and at some point we need to sort out the family get together. As ever, the days in December are caving in on me!
21. How will you spend New Year's Eve?
Staying in and watching a film, probably. I’m going to attempt to make croissants for Paul’s birthday brunch and cook him a dinner as usual.
22-23. [REDACTED]
24. What was your favourite TV programme?
The Last of Us was an absolute joy (notwithstanding I never finished my write-up) and probably one of the best things I’ve seen in years.
Otherwise I have continued to enjoy Taskmaster and my 20-year streak of EastEnders viewing continues.
On Netflix, we have enjoyed Squid Game: The Challenges (the reality show version), season 2 of Alice in Borderland and we have started binging Orange is the New Black. I’m sure there must be others but I’ve lost track TBH. We also got midway through Our Flag Means Death (which for some reason I am incapable of not pronouncing in a bad Kiwi accent) but haven’t finished it yet, though it is of course delightful.
I also started binging Yellowjackets and am about midway through season 2.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Most of the government (every time you think it can’t get worse etc etc), Elon Musk and his fellow AI techbros, the new Head of CP, and I think that’s it. But that’s more than enough.
26. What was the best book you read?
I’ve barely done any reading this year, even on holiday as I spent most of the non-day trip time doing an embroidery! I have Ade Edmondson’s autobiography Berserker ready and waiting so I’ll try and read that over Christmas.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Nobody new this year.
28. What did you want and get?
My team move, eventually.
29. What did you want and not get?
If this year has taught me anything, it’s to lower my expectations. :P
30. What was your favourite film of the year?
I feel like I’ve barely watched any films this year.
I finally got around to watching Bird Box whilst I was on holiday, and I enjoyed it but can’t understand all the hype at the time.
We also watched a great Spanish horror called The Platform (random find on Netflix).
Oh, and we went to the Electric to watch Sunset Boulevard (literally a day before going on holiday) because it had to be done. Earlier in the year we also went to see Priscilla, which had a surprisingly poor turn out – but in retrospect it is very 90’s and probably feels dated to modern/younger LGBT+ audiences (particularly with some of the language used and the fact that a transgender woman is being played by a cis actor, which was acceptable at the time but not so much now).
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 42 and spent the day doing mandatory supervision skills training, which was not how I wanted to spend my day really, but at least it was virtual. Paul’s mum came over in the evening and he cooked us a meal, which is mostly because I kept forgetting to book a table anywhere and also because we were skint.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Again, I will refer to last year’s answer:
”My job just... not.”
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2023?
I have bought more dungarees from Cider! Jean shorts style and a stripey culottes type thing which I bought for my holiday, though I only managed to wear the denim ones – they were super comfy.
This year I’m really loving chaotic 60s style prints and my new favourite dress is a mini dress (it’s knee length on me) that I got from Matalan, with a psychedelic orange/red/blue/black pattern on it – Paul hates it but I get loads of compliments every time I wear it.
I finally bought myself some new jeans this year as fashion has gone back to the 00’s with flares/combat denim, though annoyingly they are all high wasted rather than low rise. Still, I’ll take it over stupid skinny jeans.
34. What kept you sane?
Editing and posting the POTOver, whilst it lasted, particularly as the (admittedly tiny) fandom clearly enjoyed it.
Gaming has been a welcome distraction, and I’ve tried to keep on top of making cards for people. I managed to make Christmas cards this year also, thanks in part to replacing the printer.
35. Which celebrity / public figure did you fancy the most?
The usual suspects TBH. I didn’t fall down the Pedro Pascal “internet dad” rabbit hole, thank god, that fandom is actually terrifying.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
I don’t know where to start. This government is exhausting.
My step dad is obsessed with the ongoing Trump impeachment / re-election stuff so whilst I was on holiday I was bombarded with his YouTube viewing on it – UK politics seems sane compared to the absolute batshittery coming out of the US.
37. Who did you miss?
I’ve really missed my south team colleagues, as we have all moved on now, but we have all managed to get together for a couple of retirement meals. I think if we had all been still going into the office when the restructure hit (which was of course the intention, it got delayed by Covid), the whole thing might have been easier to deal with – or at least easier to offload.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
We have a new member of our pub quiz team in the form of Duncan, who is our sports man. He has some slightly questionable political views (he voted for Brexit) but he’s quite a bit older than us and we just don’t discuss it, and he’s otherwise a nice bloke.
39. Did you meet anyone you only knew online?
Nobody this year.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2023:
Look after yourself, because nobody else has your interests at heart.
Also, when your goodwill is being exploited, it’s time to quit.
41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I scoured the lyrics booklet from Trustfall and the title song about sums it up, I think…
Picture a place somewhere else far away
Where you know what they mean
And they mean what they say to us
Would that be enough?
I think that’s it!
I know I say this every year, but I will try and update more regularly next year, and hopefully escape Twitter to somewhere better.
I went into the office on 5th December to meet the new team and have a catch-up with my new TL, particularly around my health history, and she commented that I will definitely be busy but it will be a different type of busy – less high pressure / immediate deadlines but probably more to juggle. It has at least reminded me that I was actually quite keen to move / start the new role back in January last year, but all the intervening nonsense meant I was constantly fluctuating over it. None of the stuff is unachievable or particularly difficult, and the only bit I’m not really looking forward to is the supervision of staff, but fingers crossed I won’t have to make myself unpopular.
Anyway, I don’t think things will properly start moving til January, when the ground floor refurbishment of our south venue is completed and the Head of Service has decided how often he wants people to be in. At present I am expected to go in on Tuesdays, to our Aston venue, which suits me just fine.
That being said, the year in review meme is incoming, though I imagine it will be fairly brief considering my life has been on hold for 11 months!
1. What did you do in 2023 that you'd never done before?
Went on a solo flight, as Paul and I had separate summer holidays this year. He went to Alicante for a Blood Bowl tournament, and I didn’t fancy spending a week in the house on my own, so I went to Bulgaria for 11 days.
I went from Birmingham because Luton were such a nightmare last year, and I didn’t fancy the three-hour coach trip on my own. It was a bit more expensive but worth it terms of the reduced stress levels.
The only downside was trying to get home again, because Uber wanted to charge me £60 to get home from the airport (it was £30 on the way there) because it was rush-hour, so I had to get the train instead and it took ages – both the walk from the airport to the station itself, and then the train getting stuck at New Street waiting for a signal (it’s literally two stops, should have taken 15 minutes and was more like 45).
Next time I will probably book a coach so at least I only have to get a cab from the city centre.
2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
The only thing I vaguely achieved was learning to do fancy free-hand lettering, which TBH was kind of an accident. Facebook is always showing me calligraphy reels and I decided to give it a go. It’s been a learning curve but I can see the progress, even though there’s a way to go.
TBH this was partly borne of necessity as my printer got bricked in a power cut – previously I would cheat by printing off a fancy font and then tracing over it, so I had no choice but to learn how to do it myself. The next phase is to move onto proper brush pens and/or nib pens. I have more calligraphy nib pens than I know what to do with so I should probably start using them.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not this year.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Thank anything, also not this year.
5. What countries did you visit?
Bulgaria as usual. Also Turkey, for a few hours! My folks live quite close to the Turkish border so they can literally drive there in a couple of hours – we went to a town called Edirne which mostly comprises shops/market stalls, and a mahoosive mosque right in the centre. My mum is knitting me a jumper so we went to Edirne because they have a better selection of wool and it’s cheaper than in Bulgaria.
We nearly got arrested for smuggling cigarettes back into Bulgaria. My mum had looked up the limit on bringing cigarettes back and thought it was 200 (we were already 100 over that limit, thanks David), but it turns out that limit is for when you’re flying, not when you’re driving.
Bulgarian border control are completely batshit currently because there have been lots of migrants trying to get into Europe (and thus the EU) via Turkey. David managed to accidentally piss off the passport control man by driving too far ahead at the booth, so we reckon he radio’d ahead to the customs control guard. He asked if we had anything to declare and we (what we thought was) correctly stated no, he then made us get out of the car to inspect our bags / seats / boot, and informed us the cigarette limit was 20. Luckily he realised it was a genuine mistake, and let us off without a fine. His exact words were, “You know for next time, and today I saw only one carton.”
Not sure if they will be going back to Turkey on that basis as what they saved on cigarettes will no longer offset the petrol costs, though it’s not like they aren’t already cheap enough in Bulgaria!
6. What would you like to have in 2024 that you lacked in 2023?
A proper hybrid working arrangement so I can get some semblance of a routine back, not to mention some sanity. Hopefully I will actually have capacity to start writing again; I have literally not produced any new words in almost a year.
7. What date from 2023 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
22nd November was the day I had my huge meltdown at work and facilitated my team move. Other than that, the year has just been one big blur.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I’m going to repeat what I said last year for this one:
”Not going off on long-term sick with stress and/or anxiety thanks to all of the absolute bullshit I've been dealing with at work since March. ISTG it has just been relentless this year.”
Except replace March with January.
Other than that, I actually have no idea.
Oh, wait, I finally got around to repainting the bathroom in April, along with purchasing some new storage furniture, and it actually looks really nice, so there’s that. Also finally weeding out the flower bed, even though the bastard things just came straight back again.
Next year I want to tackle the spare room / replace the living room blinds / actually dig out the flower bed completely and start over.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I have done literally no writing (other than some editing of the Jonathan Creek POTOver fic, which I posted over the spring), though I’m mindful of not referring to that as a personal failure because it’s a reflection on where my head has been recently.
I also wish I could have been more assertive about my team move, but I was very much caught by my loyalty to the team and my TL, and very aware that she did not want me to go, so I went for months without challenging it and assuming things were moving quietly in the background, until it was obvious they weren’t.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Luckily no physical health issues this year! We suspected Paul had Covid when he got back off holiday (from the plane) but it turned out to be a bad cold.
My mental health has definitely been a struggle, particularly during November when the (lack of) team move came to a head.
Other than that, I’ve had (I think) one really bad migraine and a short bout of food poisoning / stomach bug which was thoroughly unpleasant.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
The new sofa / armchair are both super comfortable, at least compared to the old one, although one end of the sofa does creak / twang alarmingly at times. It’s clearly not broken, and we had a man out from DFS to look at it who reckoned it just needed time to “settle” (which was about 10 months ago now). I’ve put foam pads on the feet and that also hasn’t helped, so probably we just need to live with it.
I also got the 4K blu-ray of The Last of Us (though we haven’t finished rewatching it yet) with the fancy steelbox, because I am a magpie.
Oh, and I also replaced the printer a couple of months ago and the new one is sooooo fancy! It has separate ink bays that you refill from a bottle rather than expensive cartridges, and the ink use is really efficient so it actually works out much cheaper. It’s had a lot of use already for my Christmas card making, and I’m going to make gift tags again this year which will really put it through its paces.
We also bought tickets to see Eddie Izzard in November and she was awesome.
I had a splurge on some PS5 games which included Horizon: Forbidden West (I played the first one, Zero Dawn afterwards via PS Plus) and Death Stranding which were both amazing – the latter is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever experienced but it kept me entertained for several weeks. Paul and I both really enjoyed Dysmantle (also via PS Plus) and I bought both of the additional DLCs – it’s a really great little game and completely exceeded my expectations!
(For a few weeks we were gleefully shouting at each other about the fact we could break cars/trucks/buses/EVERYTHING at various points as we separately progressed through the game. Its tagline might as well be Smash All The Things.)
12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
My two Principal Officer colleagues who supported me after The Incident that led to my team move. I think if not for them being there, I probably would have just gone home and got on with things, and either something else would have happened to send me off that cliff or I would have ended up on long-term sick.
It did however highlight the key difference between how the Chairs perceive us compared to how Business Support senior management do – the Chairs see us as their colleagues, not just “admin support”.
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Well, the Covid Inquiry has been enlightening, hasn’t it? Except it really hasn’t because anyone with half a brain could see that Boris Johnson had no fucking clue what was going on at any point. At time of writing this he is busy blithering, faffing and deflecting his way through questioning, so pretty much as expected.
Special mention for Elon Musk for single-handedly destroying Twitter. Honestly, the entire world would be so much more habitable if it was run by actual grown-ups.
As much as I don’t really want to say it, my (former) team leader has to go in this category, because it was her inaction that led to my entire year being so difficult. I totally understand why she delayed the move, and whilst a part of me is flattered that she valued me so highly and didn’t want to lose me, it also feels like there was just no consideration for my feelings at all in any of that decision making. Thinking back on it, it must have been obvious from October onwards how fed up I was, but I honestly feel that if not for The Incident I would still be sticking around for another 12 months.
One of my colleagues has already moved to the peripatetic team (they support wherever they’re needed) – she continued supporting CP for a couple of months after the move, then went off to do a project somewhere, and is now back again – initially it was supposed to be til mid-December and she’s now been told it will be til March 2024.
I just wish someone had the balls to go to the Head of Business Support and tell him the restructure is not working for CP, but for whatever reason nobody will do it.
I also need to mention the new Head of Child Protection here because it seems to me like he wants the service to fail. I knew when the previous HOS moved on that things would be awful, or that she was moving because there was something coming that she couldn’t get behind professionally (I actually wonder if the restructure was that “something”)… as ever, my prediction turned out to be correct.
14. Where did most of your money go?
For the past few months, I have literally no fucking idea. It just disappears into a black hole. I think the splurge on bathroom furniture probably didn’t help, but thank goodness we have just had a pay increase and a nice chunk of back pay.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The TLOU adaptation, and I was not disappointed – it was absolutely the highlight of the year, so it’s a shame it arrived so early.
I was also really excited for this year’s series of Taskmaster purely because of Julian Clary and Sue Perkins, and neither of them disappointed in their respective performances.
There was also a DLC for Horizon: Forbidden West which I downloaded on release day, because I loved that game so much and felt absolutely bereft after I’d finished it.
16. What song will always remind you of 2023?
The only new music I bought this year was P!nk’s new album, Trustfall, so probably something from that.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) happier or sadder? I definitely feel saner now than I have for a while, but if you’d asked me this question three weeks ago…
(b) thinner or fatter? Probably fatter TBH, I’m hoping having a better routine will help me eat properly again.
(c) richer or poorer? It’s fluctuated, since the summer I’ve been pretty much skint but hopefully things will improve a bit. I’ve been quite clear that I’m refusing to get a bus pass, so I would prefer not to work any more than two days a week in the office – quite a bit of my money has gone Ubers to/from work when I feel lazy and tired, because I have absolutely no patience for buses any more.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Writing, but see above caveat re: state of my brain.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Another year spent Caring Too Much at work, even when I was pissed off about still caring. One of the things that led to my breakdown in November was reading a police report for a conference and having a moment of “why do we do this to ourselves?” – at that point I realised all my professional curiosity and emotional resilience had been obliterated, and without that the job is impossible.
20. How will you spend Christmas?
The usual – inviting my uncle over for lunch.
We are having a turkey crown this year because for some reason the butcher can’t get a whole bird. Last year we couldn’t get a goose and this year we can’t even get a bloody turkey, what on earth is going on?
(Short answer: Brexit, the gift that keeps on giving.)
Anyway, that aside, I have the three days between Christmas and New Year off this year, and now I’ve moved teams it won’t be so insanely busy in the run up (hopefully).
I have a meal with former south colleagues on the 14th, and a bring and share lunch on the 19th for the whole service, and at some point we need to sort out the family get together. As ever, the days in December are caving in on me!
21. How will you spend New Year's Eve?
Staying in and watching a film, probably. I’m going to attempt to make croissants for Paul’s birthday brunch and cook him a dinner as usual.
22-23. [REDACTED]
24. What was your favourite TV programme?
The Last of Us was an absolute joy (notwithstanding I never finished my write-up) and probably one of the best things I’ve seen in years.
Otherwise I have continued to enjoy Taskmaster and my 20-year streak of EastEnders viewing continues.
On Netflix, we have enjoyed Squid Game: The Challenges (the reality show version), season 2 of Alice in Borderland and we have started binging Orange is the New Black. I’m sure there must be others but I’ve lost track TBH. We also got midway through Our Flag Means Death (which for some reason I am incapable of not pronouncing in a bad Kiwi accent) but haven’t finished it yet, though it is of course delightful.
I also started binging Yellowjackets and am about midway through season 2.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Most of the government (every time you think it can’t get worse etc etc), Elon Musk and his fellow AI techbros, the new Head of CP, and I think that’s it. But that’s more than enough.
26. What was the best book you read?
I’ve barely done any reading this year, even on holiday as I spent most of the non-day trip time doing an embroidery! I have Ade Edmondson’s autobiography Berserker ready and waiting so I’ll try and read that over Christmas.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Nobody new this year.
28. What did you want and get?
My team move, eventually.
29. What did you want and not get?
If this year has taught me anything, it’s to lower my expectations. :P
30. What was your favourite film of the year?
I feel like I’ve barely watched any films this year.
I finally got around to watching Bird Box whilst I was on holiday, and I enjoyed it but can’t understand all the hype at the time.
We also watched a great Spanish horror called The Platform (random find on Netflix).
Oh, and we went to the Electric to watch Sunset Boulevard (literally a day before going on holiday) because it had to be done. Earlier in the year we also went to see Priscilla, which had a surprisingly poor turn out – but in retrospect it is very 90’s and probably feels dated to modern/younger LGBT+ audiences (particularly with some of the language used and the fact that a transgender woman is being played by a cis actor, which was acceptable at the time but not so much now).
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 42 and spent the day doing mandatory supervision skills training, which was not how I wanted to spend my day really, but at least it was virtual. Paul’s mum came over in the evening and he cooked us a meal, which is mostly because I kept forgetting to book a table anywhere and also because we were skint.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Again, I will refer to last year’s answer:
”My job just... not.”
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2023?
I have bought more dungarees from Cider! Jean shorts style and a stripey culottes type thing which I bought for my holiday, though I only managed to wear the denim ones – they were super comfy.
This year I’m really loving chaotic 60s style prints and my new favourite dress is a mini dress (it’s knee length on me) that I got from Matalan, with a psychedelic orange/red/blue/black pattern on it – Paul hates it but I get loads of compliments every time I wear it.
I finally bought myself some new jeans this year as fashion has gone back to the 00’s with flares/combat denim, though annoyingly they are all high wasted rather than low rise. Still, I’ll take it over stupid skinny jeans.
34. What kept you sane?
Editing and posting the POTOver, whilst it lasted, particularly as the (admittedly tiny) fandom clearly enjoyed it.
Gaming has been a welcome distraction, and I’ve tried to keep on top of making cards for people. I managed to make Christmas cards this year also, thanks in part to replacing the printer.
35. Which celebrity / public figure did you fancy the most?
The usual suspects TBH. I didn’t fall down the Pedro Pascal “internet dad” rabbit hole, thank god, that fandom is actually terrifying.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
I don’t know where to start. This government is exhausting.
My step dad is obsessed with the ongoing Trump impeachment / re-election stuff so whilst I was on holiday I was bombarded with his YouTube viewing on it – UK politics seems sane compared to the absolute batshittery coming out of the US.
37. Who did you miss?
I’ve really missed my south team colleagues, as we have all moved on now, but we have all managed to get together for a couple of retirement meals. I think if we had all been still going into the office when the restructure hit (which was of course the intention, it got delayed by Covid), the whole thing might have been easier to deal with – or at least easier to offload.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
We have a new member of our pub quiz team in the form of Duncan, who is our sports man. He has some slightly questionable political views (he voted for Brexit) but he’s quite a bit older than us and we just don’t discuss it, and he’s otherwise a nice bloke.
39. Did you meet anyone you only knew online?
Nobody this year.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2023:
Look after yourself, because nobody else has your interests at heart.
Also, when your goodwill is being exploited, it’s time to quit.
41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I scoured the lyrics booklet from Trustfall and the title song about sums it up, I think…
Picture a place somewhere else far away
Where you know what they mean
And they mean what they say to us
Would that be enough?
I think that’s it!
I know I say this every year, but I will try and update more regularly next year, and hopefully escape Twitter to somewhere better.
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Date: 2023-12-17 04:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-12-18 09:27 am (UTC)