Northern Adventure

And we're off, with my usual complete inability to take the train without some kind of drama. Today they had to call the police for some stupid reason, which means I have now missed my connection and am going to have to improvise. I hate public transportation. Problem is, it is full of the public. Anyway, I got up this morning at 0520, which was a little bit of a trial and tribulation. Going to cycle for two days in the Yorkshire Dales. I was meant to do that over Easter, but a foot of snow suggested to me that it must just be better to wait. So, yeah, just finished my third week in new job. Much to my slight surprise and immense relief, I'm actually enjoying it, though I'm not sure I've ever been so tired in my life. I bitch and moan about having to get up at 7 every day, as opposed to 740, but my team members are all at their desks at 8. 915 for me is just about all I can muster. Of course, they all live locally and I have an 8.5 mile cycle to get there in the morning. Wah wah. They are also born and raised locally, have worked for local government for many years and are older than me. I've moved from a situation where I was doing projects for others but working in a situation offering a relative amount of autonomy and room to experiment to one where I develop the projects, the policies and the methodology, but within an astoundingly hierarchical setting that doesn't even trust its employees to be able to map their own network drives. The work performed, though usually of pretty high quality, is generally reactive and at the whims of the higher-ups. There is little room to experiment, little thought to collaboration between departments and little interest, by those in power, in seeing that this represents the last, dying gasps of the old public sector. I am rapidly realising that I was brought in not just for technical background and general management, but to help affect large scale cultural change in the institution. My immediate line managers are definitely not part of the old guard, but my team, now three, soon to be five and then seven, most definitely are. It's kind of exciting actually, the first time I have ever felt that about a job, but also think OMG I've really been dumped into it this time. But, if I can pull this off, woohoo! :-)