Wednesday, January 25
Arcada, 16:00
Most of the morning disappeared in a meeting with Ira, Matthew and Niklas about the Quality Circles. I had asked for the meeting because Nathalie has told me to take over the chair of our “circle” from Lars who has disappeared to Iceland and, even after several discussions with him before Christmas, I have no idea what it should do.
We eventually agreed that, whatever we do, we should all do the same thing. We agreed on a process, and the role of the quality circles within that process. Finally, in Matthew’s words, we agreed to “ask management to order us to do these things”.
At midday I went to find Elisabeth engaged in coaching the teams from Concepts and Innovations in the art of pitching.
In the afternoon I rewrote the course description for Social Media Analysis because, it seems, it lacked a certain something. By the end of the afternoon it sat on ASTA in a state of relaxed completion, filled with detailed information and a clear timetable.
I look round for somebody to take some of the drinks I brought back from India. Jutta has taken some and Nathalie’s children have developed a taste for Horlicks. I lay them on Liisa’s desk with a packet of porridge in the hope of tempting someone else. Nobody at all shows any signs whatsoever of temptation.
I will discover that I can no longer load music onto my phone, do some tests, and determine that the driver on my laptop has stopped working. I will spend the journey home listening to music already on the phone: The Brides of Funkenstein’s second album Never Buy Texas From A Cowboy.
I will discover that I like it much more than I remembered. I will decide that I regard it as a forgotten gem of the p-funk era.