2025 Weeknote 35 : Labor Day delay

Weeknotes 4 Minutes

August 25 – 31

My weeknotes capture events, thoughts, and other items from the past week, often focused on work, but with personal stuff, too. Learn more about weeknotes.

Professional weeknotes

  • I talked with the Digital Service Network (DSN) this week, for an upcoming piece about how we handle hiring in our own digital practice. We build culture with each hire, so we show culture during job postings and interviews. Should be a fun little project that I’ll share in the future.
  • Our Atlassian work across the county is ramping up. We completed a nearly-2-year licensing battle just last month and now we’re ready to start expanding to other agencies and build out some internal tools, as well. This week we started to identify and prioritize who’s going first.
  • With a successful go-live in one of our major agency clients, a pair of project managers are starting to boomerang back to our team. This is the start of a reconfiguration of the team in part because of the shifting assignments, but also due to the next point…
  • I’m continuing to study “squad” models as a potential reconfiguration of our GX and DS teams. As discussed by prominent digital thinkers in the government space, one of the chief mistakes tech groups in government do is organize around functional skill sets rather than organizing around products and delivering value through those products. What’s sometimes called the “Spotify model” may be what we need. The trick is figuring out which elements are meaningful to us, which aren’t, and how to reconfigure jobs and teams and management.
  • I was excited to see several folks head out to do some real-world public-facing user research. Our Animal Control (dog shelter) folks need some changes in their web presence, but rather than eyeballing it and guessing, we sent folks out to do on-the-ground face-to-face user research with people coming in to adopt dogs. My hope this is the first of many research activities to come.
  • And as expected, the week ended with a slow Friday because of the Labor Day weekend.

Personal weeknotes

The saga continues

I’ve been having daily talks with my father, in the wake of his Tenessee-Two-Step, when he broke out of assisted living in under 24 hours and headed home to Ohio (in our last episode). It’s been an unusual experience. At first, all us kids were mad at what happened. But as I had more time to reflect, I realized he’s had one helluva ride since my mother (his wife) suddenly went into the hospital for nearly a week in mid-June.

Since that surprise he’s…

  • lost a sense of safety around his wife
  • he’s lost his job (he resigned)
  • he’s had to switch insurance to Medicare (no small feat)
  • he’s had to rollover some retirement stuff
  • he’s come face-to-face with his own mortality in a way that’s eluded him until now, and then suddenly…
  • he loses his home as we shipped him south (which he agreed to, of course).

All this in about 2 months. That’s too much even for a person that’s deeply in touch with their emotions and can express them. But when you’re not experienced with processing emotional stuff… man… all that’s gonna come out in unpredictable ways. And so it did.

Something that has surprised me in this process has been the way I’ve handled it. Initially I was on the same track with my siblings—frustrated, angry, and worried. There are still some raw feelings in the family. But then I realized that if my father were on one of my teams at work, I would be treating him with a lot more grace than any of us wanted to at home. And why is that? Why is it okay to treat family worse than colleagues? Well… it’s not. So I changed my approach.

I don’t know what happens next, as discussions are continuing and plans are not yet fixed. But my bet is something big changes in September.

Prepping for 40 miles in California

I’m still working out packing lists, test packing, and trying out different bags as we prep to head to California for our 40-mile coastal hike from Half Moon Bay up to San Francisco. The packs have been a real problem because I have a long torso and less than 30 liters to carry. Most packs are designed for torsos that are 2, 3, 4, or even 5 inches shorter than mine. I’m looking for the right balance of compromises. So far I’ve tried:

(I’m becoming a fanboy for Gossamer Gear, clearly.)

In between packing and re-packing, I’ve been studying the California Coastal Trail. It’s a patchwork of trails and roads that don’t entirely connect. So to complete the walk from Half Moon Bay to San Francisco, it requires a lot of analysis and planning, especially when you aren’t from the area. This is where Google Maps satellite data, AllTrails, and even YouTube come together to help build a custom trail.

Only 22 days to go.

Oh boy! 9/9 is nearly here, too.

For those that do not celebrate, you may not know that September 9 is going to be the next Apple event, announcing products like the new iPhones and more. Not every year produces an exciting update, but the rumor mills seem to point to a bunch of new stuff. That said, I’ve been avoiding all the rumor sites because I prefer the surprise. I just wish the Apple events were live again—the pre-recorded stuff is well-done, but dull.

Are you and your credit card ready for the early-morning pre-orders? Nine-nine, baby!

About this week’s header photo

After a very hot summer that made fires unbearable most of the time, this week’s cooler weather gave me a chance to stock up on some firewood and sit outside in the smoke. It’s not camping, but it’ll do.

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