Notes for March 8th 2024

Song of the week:

• Quiet week this week as I came off a weekend of hell with a sick toddler and back into an absolutely mental week workwise. I'm finding myself struggling to find time to do productive or creative work. I'm having impact, doing interesting things but sitting down for some window of time with headphones on to create something just isn't on the cards. I'm borrowing time to do things like slides or write notes for public-facing gigs. I expect it'll quieten down, but I don't know when.
• Hiring has been a big thing for me lately. And it's consumed an unnerving amount of cycles. I'm hiring across 3 roles in 2 continents and it's rough seas. I've started showing to some meetings late just so I can spend 120 seconds reading a resume or LinkedIn timeline. Otherwise the candidate experience will be awful.
  • I've also noted Americans are much more aggressive in their follow-up than ever before. I'm getting lengthy, detailed threads about success stories and things they didn't mention in our 30-60min conversation. If anything, it does the candidate a disservice. Not least because almost everyone who's done that to date have been poor fits.
• We went to see Leprous last week. It's always great to see live music but the precision in their musicianship was something to behold. Especially Einar's vocal performance. Not a single note missed.
  • One comment they made was how difficult it is to tour in Ireland. The boat/ferry situation is so bad, slow and difficult for them. Mostly because there's no high-speed rail from London to Holyhead. Ireland would do well to think about UK linkage from an economic standpoint. A giant bridge or tunnel would do us a lot of good.