Tag Archives: work

Do not disturb

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For almost a year now I’ve left my phone on ‘Do Not Disturb’ all day. I only ever change it when I’m expecting a call. Other than that it stays muted. I have gone into my settings and set up ‘Allow Notifications’ so that, “Notifications from selected people will be allowed, all others will be silenced.”

This is a game changer for me. My phone is not the distraction it used to be. At home, I still get family notifications. At work my family, bosses, secretaries, and teachers can still get messages through. But everyone else has to wait until I look at my phone. My attention is no longer dictated by other people’s schedules and expectations to communicate with me. I don’t get distracted by spam calls and texts. I check my messages at my convenience not someone else’s.

It’s amazing how this little choice has made me more efficient and less distracted.

Fuelling my disillusionment

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A few months ago I wrote the following in response to a LinkedIn post, and then saved it in my drafts. The problem is, I didn’t copy the link to the original post properly. Furthermore, if I recall, it didn’t really answer the question that was posed. It was tangentially connected but not completely on topic.

I’ve edited my comment slightly, and I want to share it since I’m wonder if ‘it’s just me’ feeling this way?

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

It’s the doing more with less that fuels my disillusionment.

  • Greater and often unrealistic expectations of parents and universities.
  • Greater student social-emotional as well as educational needs.
  • Greater demands to prevent litigation (more documentation, more protection of data, more health & safety requirements… all ‘necessary’, but time consuming.)
  • Greater demands and expectations from the Ministry of Education, and Worksafe BC.
  • Greater costs – pay hikes, heating costs, perishable supplies. Even with no cuts to education, less money gets to the classroom.
    I could go on. I’ve watched my role shift from educational leader to middle manager of an educational machine. I feel like a shield trying to redirect and manage the above impacts away from teachers so that they, rather than we, can do great things with kids.

Still an important role but a lot less personally rewarding.

Am I the only principal feeling this?

Sick season

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One of my secretaries was sick all last week. Last night I had two messages from teachers telling me they’ll be away today. One of them doesn’t even work in my building on Mondays so it’s not like they caught it from each other. It’s that time of year when colds and flus start spreading like wildfires through students and staff.

I got the flu shot this weekend, I work out regularly, try to eat well, and I take vitamin and mineral supplements. I am careful about touching my face, and keeping my hands clean. I try to do everything I can to prevent myself from getting sick.

Does this mean I’ll escape the contagion? Only time will tell. You can do everything right and still get sick… but I know that I’ve significantly increased my odds of staying healthy, and if I can’t avoid the sick season altogether, hopefully I’ve at least reduced how hard it will hit me.

I’m just grateful that the people I work with stay home when they are sick. In my younger years I used to ‘soldier on’ and just come to work sick like I was doing everyone a favour. Now I realize that I’m not just helping myself recover, but I’m also helping prevent others from getting sick when I stay home. I appreciate everyone else doing the same. It makes the work environment better for everyone.

Constant interruptions

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I was reminded yesterday of the never ending flow of interruptions that a school principal can be faced with. My day went well enough, nothing major happened, and I had some positive interactions with both students and staff. But I was a yo-yo bouncing in and out of my office, feeling like I was always working on a task other than what I wanted to, or planned to, be working on.

At one point I washed my coffee cup to fill it and then ran two errands with an empty cup in my hand, because I was distracted before filling it. At another point I was holding an HDMI cable that I was taking to a teacher and was interrupted a couple times, and even went back to my office holding the cable, before finally taking it to its intended place.

And this is often the norm. Being pulled one way when trying to go another. Starting a task and finding it undone an hour later. Creating a quick ‘To Do’ list, only to make it a ‘To Do Tomorrow’ list.

At one point I was asked a policy question regarding funding for an online course. I was pretty sure our system was trying to charge a student for a course I thought they should get for free. I went to the OneNote where I keep my links to the BC government policies. I got several 404 errors on the website. This even happened to my 2025-26 policy link I added in April. It seems the Ministry has made updates again and changed the main links.

I searched the website for the specific reference. Couldn’t find it. I asked Copilot to look for me. Copilot agreed with me, but didn’t provide links to the actual policy for this specific situation. I asked my online principal’s group chat, and this usually very responsive chat stayed silent for an hour and 40 minutes. Then I got an answer agreeing with me with a comment that this principal also couldn’t find the answer when she asked previously, and had to get a response from the Ministry via email.

What should have been a simple question took me almost 2 hours to answer. And I can’t even count the amount of other things I did in that time, including a 45+ minute meeting and a 10 minute phone call to a parent that I played text tag with trying to find a good time that we could both chat.

Yesterday was a good reminder of the constant interruptions, redirections, and multitasking expectations of a principal. Sure there are those moments that are efficient and effective, but for large parts of any given day, with countless ‘other duties as assigned’ tossed unexpectedly onto my ‘To Do’ list, or rather the ‘Gotta do this first’ list… most of the time the interruptions are the job.

Experience is something you get right after you need it.

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Ever notice how many jobs say, “Experience required”? Who are all these experienced workers looking for new jobs?

How many jobs want you to have a degree first? I understand a doctor, nurse, lawyer, architect, or engineer needing a degree, but how many corporate jobs really need a prospective employee to have a degree?

I love the quote, “Experience is something you get right after you need it.”

At some point in your life you are going to learn something on the job. You are going to figure it out either just when you need to… or just after you’ve messed up the first attempt.

Hiring is going to change. You aren’t going to see companies focusing on degrees and academic accolades. Instead, you’ll see people with micro credentials or niche skills being hired because they have learned skills that directly relate to the job expectations. Or you’ll see jobs being offered on a trial basis and companies willing to hire based on characteristics like flexibility, ingenuity, and creativity. ‘Come try this out for a 3 month contract, and we’ll see if you’ve a) Got a good head on your shoulders, and b) Fit with our community and values.’

Don’t worry about experience, you’ll get on the job. Just come with the right attitude and an affinity for the job. The first time you try something, that’s when you’ll get the experience. Before that, it’s not schooling or past experience, it’s evidence that you are a learner and you are willing to put in an honest effort. That’s what will get you hired.

27 years

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Today is my 27th Wedding Anniversary. Including the time we’ve dated, I’ve now spent more than half of my life living with my wife. What a wonderful adventure it has been! I feel blessed to have found such a wonderful person to spend my life with. And together we’ve raised two amazing daughters that I couldn’t be more proud of. Tonight we celebrate as a family, breaking bread together at one of our favourite restaurants. Tomorrow we head off early to go to a funeral of a friend’s parent. The contrast in celebration is stark, and an important reminder to appreciate all that we have, while we still have it.

I’m also days away from my 27th anniversary of being an educator. And here too is a similar contrast, as I plan for this to be my last year before I retire. I don’t leave counting the days, I leave feeling like there is still more work to be done. I leave with a reminder that I’m going to miss this as much as I’m looking forward to the freedom of not working daily.

How did I get to two milestones of 27 years and still feel like things have only just begun? How does time go so quickly? How am I the parent of two adults in their 20’s? My oldest daughter is a quarter of a century old. My young wife and I are both in our late 50’s. She has been an amazing educator for over 30 years. Those just don’t feel like our statistics, those are the stats of older people. I saw a T-shirt on an older man, who rode past me a few days ago, and the message on his shirt said: “It’s weird being the same age as old people.” I haven’t connected so quickly to a T-shirt slogan in a long time.

All that said, today is a day of celebration. The past 27 years have not necessarily been easy, but they certainly have been rewarding and memorable… and I look forward to the next 27 years of finding joy, showing appreciation for what I have, and feeling younger than I am.

What happens in between

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Well, today is my first day going back to work after the summer break. While the first day of school isn’t here yet, I will restart my regular morning routines and get myself ready for the craziness of September. This time of year always comes with excitement and a touch of nervousness. What will the new year bring? What’s in store for the next year?

Preparation starts in the mind, it begins as a seed of promise waiting to blossom. It will be a great year.

Then the actual planning begins. But the reality is that preparation only takes you so far, then it’s up to you and your team to execute; to hit the ground running; to make the students feel welcome… and to help your students see the potential for the great year ahead that you see.

And it all starts today.

It’s also time for something else. Tonight my youngest daughter returns from a 100 day trip to Europe. This is the longest she has been away from home, and after a fabulous adventure she is on her first of two flights back to us. It has been amazing to follow along on her Instagram travel account, and also get occasional early morning video calls of her sharing her location and what she’s doing. Seeing tiny snippets of her day.

As my new school year begins, my daughter’s European adventure comes to an end. It’s a reminder of the cycles we go through, the starts and finishes. We often focus on the beginnings and endings, the big calendar events….

What’s important to remember is that the adventure is what happens in between.

Feeling underutilized

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This morning I saw a news item on LinkedIn News, “Are workers being underestimated?”

“The majority of U.S. professionals (58%) believe they have a wide range of skills that are being underutilized in their current roles, according to LinkedIn’s latest Workforce Confidence survey.

This sense of untapped potential is especially strong in certain fields: Nearly two-thirds of workers in the administrative and support services industry (65%) say they’re being underutilized, along by 63% of those in retail and 62% of those in transportation. Education and oil, gas and mining follow, both at 60%.”

To me this isn’t an employee but rather an employer issue. It’s not a worker issue to resolve but rather a leadership issue. I think in many cases the enthusiasm of a worker to be innovative and try new things, which magnify strengths and utilizes untapped skills, are quelled by a drive for consistency and minimum competence. Instead of promoting opportunities for innovation, large companies want to minimize uniqueness for the safety of not taking risks and making mistakes.

‘If I let this employee try this unique approach, other employees will try less effective approaches’. Or, ‘I can approve this additional cost request for one employee, but if others ask it will be unsustainable, so it’s better not to try and end up with cost overruns’. Or, ‘If it fails it will make us look bad’… Or, or, or… it’s always easier to turn down differentiation than to allow unknowns that are not a guaranteed success.

So, innovation is deemed too costly, or too much of a risk, and employees feel like the potential they have is underutilized.

We need to create an environment where ‘Yes is the default‘. Where innovation and failing forward is seen as opportunities to grow… and where those we work with feel like they are being better utilized.

Work lurks

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I have gotten a lot better at leaving work at work over the last few years. I’d happily stay at work some days past 5:30 or 6pm, knowing that when I go home I can let things go until I arrive back at work the next day. That never used to be the case. I used to regularly respond to emails and continue to work well into the night.

What started to change this for me was my Vampire Rule for Email that I started for my staff, essentially never contacting them for anything work related after 6pm (unless like if I was a vampire, they invited me in… If they emailed me a question for example). After doing this for a few years, I realized I deserved the same courtesy. So, I’d stay at work a bit longer, knowing that if I was caught up enough on important matters, everything else could wait until the next day.

It’s a little different in the summer, when I’m off for so long. Today I looked at my growing unread emails, and realized there are a few things I need to deal with. Today I did a few quick ones, but I’ve got a few that need a more thoughtful or time consuming responses. Now it’s in my head and I know that if I don’t deal with them tomorrow, I’m going to spend some mental energy thinking about the fact that I need to respond.

Essentially, I either deal with it quickly, or work just lurks in my brain rent free, with niggling reminders that there is stuff I need to do. Because I don’t have an official work day coming up anytime soon, the idea that there is work on my plate stays on my plate and on my mind until I get it done. My choices are get it done tomorrow morning or think about it the whole weekend.

I’m definitely better at letting go and having mental breaks during the school year, but on holidays I still need to do these mental gymnastics to keep work from lurking in my mind when I should be enjoying my break.

Existential Drift

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We aren’t getting rid of doctors, or plumbers any time soon, but large organizations have already started to reduce staff in areas that we thought only humans could do. Not only are robotics and AI taking over manual labour, intelligent agents are also taking over white collar jobs. The CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, recently said, “AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years”. Marketing and content production, data analysis, bookkeeping, and customer support are just a few key areas where layoffs have already begun. This isn’t some sci-fi future prediction. Rather it is a reporting out of current trends.

A combination of AI, robotics, and automation are redefining work. The cost to society is ever-increasing layoffs and unemployment statistics, leading to jobless members of society, with little or no prospects of retraining or alternative careers. What does our society look like when unemployment hits 20%?

At some point we are going to have to start thinking about Universal Basic Income, and ways to ensure that massive unemployment doesn’t lead to poverty and an ever-widening gap between those that have financial success (or at least comfort) and those that are barely surviving. But even if these low or no income people are provided for and supported, another question arises:

How does a large unemployed segment of society cultivate personal purpose and meaning?

Many people see purpose or self worth through their work. Creative expression and acts of service will fill some of the gaps but there will also be a fair bit of existential drift.

I think we are already seeing this drift occur. Work isn’t enough. I remember about a year ago I saw a video of a girl who got out of school, got a job in her field she studied for, and was questioning her entire existence. She couldn’t afford to rent a place in the town she worked in. She spent almost 2 hours commuting, 8-plus hours at work, and came home exhausted, barely making enough to pay for rent, food, and paying off her student debt. The comments were contrasted between people saying ‘welcome to life’ and others admitting that it’s definitely harder to make ends meet now than ever before.

So we have a growing number of unemployed and a growing number of people losing sight of the purpose of working just to barely make ends meet. Where do people find purpose and meaning? How is meaning being cultivated?

I have concerns rather than answers.