I have both boys with me again today, after a week and a half off, to recover from my dental surgery. They immediately started fighting each other again.

Thankfully I have more energy this week than last, given I’m now back to eating solid foods. Dinner was hearty – tagliatelle with lardons, mushrooms, and creamy blended spinach with steamed salmon, and garlic dough balls.

I’m going for my cyst removal surgery at 13:00 tomorrow, and then have a work call at 14:00. I hope the operation will be as mild as the surgeon promised. It had taken so long to confirm the surgery, that I didn’t want to take ‘emergency’ leave on short notice with my new boss. It seems everyone is nervous and on their “best behaviour” with the new guy. I was just reflecting the other day, that the headcount is down by 25-30% in the space of ~12 months. At the end of last year, our headcount was 850-900, and we are now down to 600-650. When I look at the Plan for the upcoming financial year (which has already started), more cuts should be coming down the pipe, and so it feels like it is a bit of a “kill or be killed” environment. And literally all of my peers my org seem to be expanding their remit, including the most “senior” (read: old) ranking officer, whose title seems to get longer and longer as he adds scope to his purview, despite the fact that he should clearly have been fired a long time ago. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks he’s incompetent and bad at his job. At least one of the Finance team had previously shared with me that he expected this guy to have been fired in calendar Q1 or H1 this year. And yet, he is clinging on, with an ever-longer title: “FP&A, Rev Ops, Deals Desk, Pricing, Procurement etc” (really??!). But one thing I have to ‘admire’ about this guy, and I acknowledge his superior skill at… he is really slippery, and great at deflecting blame, muddying the waters, and digressing from the issue by throwing out red herrings whenever he’s potentially at risk of being criticised – which is frequent, because he doesn’t oversee anything properly, and everything he touches just doesn’t work. He’s a special kind of cockroach who can survive a radioactive blast. Mad skillz. Almost gotta respect that.