Look inside

It has been a day of professional introspection, which comes with the end of year review.

Fortunately, I’m lucky to have a good boss with whom I have spoken regularly throughout this year and we both knew what was going in there. It’s one of those reports, where you have to self-assess yourself, so I volunteered that I had excelled in all areas and was obviously the lynchpin of the entire operation and that the business was lucky to have me. It’s a testament to our working relationship and the year that we have had that we were both able to have a good laugh about that one.

Unfortunately, the self-assessment does need to be grounded somewhere in reality, so I answered honestly. In reading my answers back, I realised I had beaten myself up in a lot of areas and in the one area where I had performed well and exceeded target, I hadn’t made much of it. If that isn’t my personal life bleeding over into my work, I don’t know what is!

Reviewing a year, which has been incredibly difficult for all the obvious reasons, from a professional standpoint does seem a little redundant to me. We were always going to struggle and so I hope that the wider view of the company doesn’t centre around target-based reward and instead focusses on the attitude and commitment shown to the cause by its employees.

I ground out a 5k at lunchtime, which felt every inch of my first run in a week, but I got round and felt mightily better for the experience. I also took a wander after work to head into town to get a couple of bits for dinner and it was so nice to see this festive little scene.

With working winding down (a little), I am hoping to turn my attention to making it a cracking Christmas for my little motley band.