Weeknote 8

Oliver Hannan
Web of Weeknotes
Published in
3 min readOct 27, 2023

What happened

I’ve not written one of these since September so I had a kind of stored up guilt about not writing. That’s not an inflated sense of the importance of my words, only that I know it’s good for my brain to write regularly.

I was prompted by the note that Neil wrote, and took it as a reason to start again. Shout to Neil, who’s esteemed, inspiring and approachable. I’ve found those don’t always coexist.

Since last time

  • I had extended family to visit and stay
  • Went to a load of secondary school open evenings. My son isn’t going up to big school yet but we messed up first time round and missed all the open evenings. We always said we’d leave London before he went to secondary. It may still happen. However, I still love London so why change the existential pressure I love to put myself under?
  • I went to Berkhamsted visiting the BFI conservation centre. An amazing place
  • I finally moved my home office into a decent space. I’ve been pondering this move since before Covid.

What went well in the last week

I’m just out the other side of our first show and tell. It was successful and I can breathe again. Thanks to Iain, Samir, Cat, Josh, Prashanth and Georgi for being top colleagues, pushing me and allowing to be pushed.

Things I learnt:

  • we should have done this ages ago.
  • covering two fairly big updates in one was a bit silly.
  • you can’t please everyone.

We’re using OKRs more sensibly in this quarter. It’s been a stretch and it’s not perfect but it’s working. 6 weeks left this quarter though. WTF.

We have manoeuvred a product to beta. It’s an internal only tool, so it’s easy for it not to get as much shine. It should be celebrated though.

A fairly tricky experimental product idea is now ‘a thing’. I’m officially proposing we invest more time into it and tackle the internal tentativeness. I’d love to work on this more openly but it’s been difficult to get to this stage. I’m looking forward to working with friends in the UX team who are just fun to spend the day with.

What could have been better in the last week

I was soul searching on my efforts at work. I think because there’s wider uncertainty about how and where programme level planning is happening I’ve felt buffeted about. There’s a bit of a gap there, no one’s at fault. My own neuroses blatantly come into play, I think everything is my problem to fix, I then worry I’ve been arrogant in promising too much. I’m glad to say there’s plans forming to address this gap.

Again, I spent too much time this week working at home, indoors. Only going out to see a film. I need to stop this.

My dad hasn’t been well but I’m currently on the way to visit him in Scotland, drinking a can of lager on the train. He’d surely approve.

Watching listening reading

Not that Swedish house

I bought this Jackie Mittoo record

New Sampha, he’s quite famous now!

Lukid – just the right side of weird

Old Joy Orbison, what a silly name

Definitive Detroit techno

I loved this mix as a youth, DJ Andy Smith

RIP mark the 45 king

I went to my first London Film Festival. The extended team did an unbelievable job to make this event happen. I can’t do that justice but it was a resounding success. I saw loads of films, more in a week than maybe the year previously. What a perk. Stand outs were:

  • Birth/Rebirth, a fucking wild horror.
  • The Sweet East, which I didn’t understand but enjoyed.
  • How To Have Sex, a powerful film about being young

I also saw the Killers Of The Flower Moon. Another great movie but my knees hurt after 3.5 hours in the IMAX.

WORK

Sign up to discover human stories that deepen your understanding of the world.

Free

Distraction-free reading. No ads.

Organize your knowledge with lists and highlights.

Tell your story. Find your audience.

Membership

Read member-only stories

Support writers you read most

Earn money for your writing

Listen to audio narrations

Read offline with the Medium app

Published in Web of Weeknotes

#weeknotes are blogposts about our working week. for us but shared with you.

Written by Oliver Hannan

I write my personal opinions here, not those of my employer. I live and work in London as a product manager.

No responses yet

Write a response