I’m exhausted. This is literally the longest January of my life. At least that’s how it feels.

My chest feels a bit tight, and I have to tell myself to breathe… breathe in deeply. I sometimes deliberately expand my chest and rib cage when I breathe in, to get a little stretch, and then let my breath out in a deep sigh, to get a release.

I suppose it’s a different experience to hyper ventilating. Yay me!

Let it never be said that I’m not Ms Look-on-the-Bright-Side. [.. .. ….. ……]

I’m so down that I’m literally randomly hugging people at work. I hugged two women yesterday… one I barely like and don’t really rate, one who I at least like if not necessarily rate.

***

Switching gears… a funny thing happened at work, which amused me. In an internal meeting of the company’s “Senior Leadership Team”, someone was presenting some findings and suggested that we brainstorm ideas… When FZ, our fearless Product and Technology leader, decided to chime in with some feedback, where he effectively said that the meeting was not a good use of our time – the time of ~40 of the most expensive people in the company. If we are trying to move faster, having a brainstorming session with ~40 of the most expensive people in the company, is not a good use of our time. When the VP said his intention was to get feedback through breakout sessions as a next step, FZ responded: “That scares me even more. That you are going to waste even more time. That you haven’t clearly thought about this yet.” You should have done this work in advance, and I expect to be informed of your findings, and your progress, rather brainstorming new ideas at this stage. Booyah!

What a smackdown! Telling it like it is! And setting the bar high! I was laughing and found it hilarious.

When he asked: “Does this resonate with people?” I nodded. Because it did really resonate. It’s true. We can’t still be discussing and solutioning. And the team is fat. And we spend too much time chit chatting, and doing show and tell, rather than problem solving and executing.

I felt a bit nervous about nodding because the guy being criticised by FZ had been relatively supportive of me, in my recent year end review, and my agreement was basically dinging the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), who I kind of need on my side, to not ‘knock me’ when my boss (hopefully) makes a run for my promotion. At the same time, our Commercial org is just the Wild West. There are too many Commercial people doing… I don’t know what… basically, not selling. And being all “kumbaya”, sweeping things under the rug, pretending everything is fine when it is not… is literally, not the way to solve problems, or bring us to the next level.

Anyway, I was delighted. And I ran out and gleefully told my colleague and friend about it. Damn straight! Man, what a champ! A really nice smack down! Although then there was a moment of tension when the guy responded tersely to FZ. I don’t if our CRO then took it up offline with FZ later on. But honestly, I think we need to be mature about things, especially among the senior leaders of the company. You need to either row together, do what you say, or go home.

We are neither a big conglomerate, nor the civil service, where we can just sit around and do nothing. I did not join this company to be a middle manager, surrounded by over-entitled, egotistical mediocre people who want to work 4 day work weeks, and rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic, and not deliver.

***
Separately, later that afternoon I received an email saying that I’ve been enrolled into a leadership programme. Given the fact that our company heavily skews towards men, and several people, including my ex-boss (who was an ex-banker and definitely used to being in a man’s world) said that this place is “a boy’s club”… I think it’s net great. But looking at my peers, I’m a little bit underwhelmed by the company I am in. I mean.. really?! Not underwhelmed by the ‘level’, because it was only C-suite direct reports who were selected, but by the calibre of the people. I almost suspect my boss has just signed me up for this so he can say that despite the fact that I don’t currently have direct reports, by attending this leadership course, I should be well equipped to be a senior leader of the company. Part of pre-emptive “objection-handling” to my potential promotion run.

Maybe that’s just me giving him too much credit. I feel I give too many people too much credit all the time. And I keep getting disappointed.