2016-07-01 at

Yawn 4

An evening of small talk. A bit of personal housekeeping. I have a lot of housekeeping to catch up on. No significant progress otherwise. We're officially in purgatory.

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Wake. Wash. Administrative chores. Psychical evaluation of some staff. Data recorded. Reflection. Redesign.
Let's see what gets in the way of that plan.

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My dear lady with the hidden heels. You were already a giantess. Now you're simply "up there."

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OK, next fire. We're hiring accountants again!

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Friday run.

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Enforced feeding time. Then chores.

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Social worker: I think you abuse the term 'social work'.
Me: Look, one should be able to run an organisation by email. Having to step onto campus to engage in grubby chit chat and negotiation is completely normal for a startup. However. It's still more socially engaged than sending email, so as far as I'm concerned, it's social work.

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Done with chores. Wither rest and redesign?

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This project has officially reached ridiculous proportions.

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Red or yellow alert? Decisions made but I expect to confirm comms soon. Time to get up for networking. Some old family friend / babysitter popped by the office.

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Looks like a yellow. Need to hire for August anyway.

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Awake for no good reason. Back to bed.

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Reinvention of wheels. More planning. Less sleep. Such are the circumstances.

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Just to briefly reminisce. In May we hired two great staff as the backbone of our executive team. on their first day at work, I initiated an orientation, assigned some homework, and promptly left for the first vacation I've had since we got serious about this project one year ago. I figured the following month would be hell, so I should take time to visit loved ones and just look at pretty things for 36 hours in a nearby resort city. So that was the weekend off. Right on schedule, June was hell to pay. The entire month was spent mediating a half-dozen senior staff disagreements, twiddling with capital controls to detect and mitigate immediate systemic failure, and haggling with old and new investors alike. What a zoo. Of course, I set it up and delegated bits of it here and there, so ultimately all errors of judgment fall back upon me. Anyway, it's important to be nonchalant in times like these as I find that work can easily get hampered by sentiment. I demand less sentiment, and more productivity from myself. But that's always difficult when the nature of work is managing the sentiments of others... as I must spend hours each day modelling their sentiments, analysing strategic opportunities, and engaging with these sentiments to effect change upon our organisation. Well, well. I remain appreciative of all the help we have had from all stakeholders, internal and external.

X: Lol first taste of management. More to come! Kipidap!
Me: Boring. Nothing new. I have been doing this shit since form 1.
X: Lol really? Doesn't look that way from your post. By right if u have been doing this for a long time you should know this kinda stuff best kept in a diary not on fb for public view :p
Me: It is called public relations. You must always be selling.
X: To me it's just shows ur poor management skills to your investors / stakeholders
Me:I am certainly not shy about that. That is the position of my product :p
X: The only thing to be ashamed of is shame itself. ;) That's why most people around here disappoint me. Too much shame. Ding a ling. Ding ding ding, ding ding...

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Unit online, and reporting for duty. OK, who else is at work?

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Well at least reporting has resumed, and new information is tricking in. And today I got more sleep than I have had in any of the past ten days or so. So yay.

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Everyone's a smartypants, from within and without the organisation... that's wonderful, but no one's doing anything about it. If anyone wants to implement some of these great ideas, I just manage it as venture capital at the level of individuals' wages. No biggy.

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If a plane's missiles fail, there are guns, if the guns fail, you can kamikaze. So every staff's utilisation eventually stabilises at their level of competent delivery. :)

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X: I hear Z is in DefCon 5? The place look great from the outside.
Me: We've been between DefCons one and two since February. It's a startup - the default is supposed to be three. Four and five don't really exist until you've paid back all initial capital.
X: Are you getting enough sleep?
Me: Not less than before, no... just the usual. :P
Y: There must be more that we can do.
Me: Well, I'm running at 100% every month, so you're welcome to do more if you've been holding back.
Y: Staff should be at 100%, owners should be at 200%.
Me: Negative. If you're at 200%, you have a language error.

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I tend not to do well in competitions, because I don't care much for winning. Sometimes I find myself ahead of the pack, but it is often accidental. Mostly I concern myself with losers who want to win but can't. Why do you feel that way? Why do you value winning (why do you retain the construct of a race)? How can we help you to get what you want? Those are more interesting questions.

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Let's see how long it takes to rebuild a financial controller. Three candidates in talks. Not particularly optimistic. On the bright side, I stopped caring many months ago, so I can still focus on being a broker of opportunity. :)

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X: You're the brains of the business. It needs a heart.
Me: Negative. The business is designed to have a heart of steel. I am that heart. We're looking for brains, because the same actor can't play both roles at the same time.

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Installing new management trainee...

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I got more brushes. Who wants to paint?

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