Weaknotes, Be Kind This is My First Attempt

An unashamedly honest look at the haphazard world of running a Social Enterprise.

Monday:

Much like people with real jobs, Monday was spent not thinking about work and the pressures of delivering. I made the deliberate decision to clear my head of work-based decisions and to not think about anything else than what we’re doing in the garden. This is a different kind of sustainability; growing fruit and vegetables to sustain us through autumn and winter, and hopefully recouping some of the investment of money and time.

There are four raised beds, each of which seems to be going great guns. Bed One is growing Onions, Garlic and Tomatoes. Bed Two is growing Peas, Carrots, Spring Onions and Chives. Bed Three is growing Beans, Tomatoes (Bushy) and Salads. Bed Four is growing Tomatoes (Vine), Celery and Cabbage. Becoming sustainable is becoming a reality, in the garden at least.

Tuesday:

Tuesday, and the return to work, was a bit of a shock. Everything I had put out of my mind for the whole week came flooding back as I received a panicked call from a client before I’d even left the house. This panic continued into the day as everything seemed to be going wrong and all of the things I’d assumed I would slip back into seamlessly got further and further away from being resolved. Rather than hitting the ground running I hit it face first.

I left the office at 6pm dejected and feeling like I was further behind. If I hadn’t had the help and support of my colleagues I may possibly have chucked it all in there and then.

Wednesday:

So how do you follow-up Tuesday? I was determined to find my mojo on a grey, stuffy and intermittently rainy day. I rinsed my inbox, replying to everyone who was waiting for something back from me whilst I waited for replies to important emails that still havent come. Weirdly though, that act of cleansing started to help me find my mojo again, and a period of reflection — NOT INTROSPECTION — driving home from a noisy office to attend our weekly Power to Change: Open Working session helped enormously. I arrived in time to face up that most daunting of sights, a clear page, and began writing these week notes.

Thursday:

Thursday was a buzzing day, we’ve had a large donation of machines and we were absolutely bowled over with the quality of the laptops and phones. These will be in the hands of grateful recipients as early as next week, and it’s days like this that make me realise why we set Solidaritech up in the first place.

Friday:

I took Friday off as a work-from-home day. I’ve been a bit guilty of overlooking getting back to people but clearing some if not all of the email backlog and getting into some artworking for future projects has hopefully helped to reset things and find my mojo.

Conclusion and Theme Finding:

As ever there’s a lack of time, a lack of resource and a lack of certainty for the future. How do we find peace with the lacks, concentrate on what we have and still deliver for the people we serve? I don’t know, but we do. Sharks aren’t a nice analogy, but the way that they have to keep moving or otherwise die does seem to strike a chord with me. And, all going well, we’re gonna need a bigger boat.

I’ve also been thinking about Long Covid. Not least because the Cabinet Office are refusing to disclose their WhatsApps to the Covid Inquiry. Our Chair has come down with The Unprecedented Lugy, but all of our team members, in one way or another, are also still dealing with the thing we like to pretend is over.

I’ve been suffering from burnout since The Pandemic. I cant do what I used to, and I didnt even have a bad bout of it when I finally got it. But the stress and anguish of working 80 hour weeks trying to make Solidaritech work and keep my own business afloat has cast a long shadow. My partner — who works in schools — also suffered heavily. My daughter, who was just getting into the swing of her secondary education when it hit, is now doing her exams. She’s found the school environment has changed for her, and she works better on her own, lockdown style.

So, all in all, it feels like Covid’s long shadow is still cast over our metaphorical raised beds. The jury is out on how it will affect our harvest.