What will the year ahead hold?

18

Today was my first day back at work, the first day of 2020 in the office. I’m guilty of checking (but not answering) my email once or twice over the holidays.

It’s hard not to sometimes.

Not because I’m addicted to my email, but because it’s easier to know what you are facing after a couple of weeks away than to come back and be blindsided by something unexpected.

Luckily there were no impending disasters waiting, though there were a few things either of concern, or unexpected. But no bombs lying in wait. Well, not big ones anyway.

One of my rocks has gone on leave until the fall, another is leaving for a year very soon, and the third rock who keeps me grounded (as much as I can be), announced today to our manager (and me via bcc) that he is starting pre-retirement in April. So that’s not great, well, not great for me anyway.

So, some catching up, a few check-ins with more remote facilities, one currently experiencing “Snowmageddon 2020” as it was put, with the community basically isolated due to a lack of safe road access in or out at the moment….well, in “is” out, there is no “or”, since there is only one road.

A request for a lab and a seminar room at UBC to put on a workshop this summer came back positive for either week that I want, and I already have a full roster of participants in hand, as long as a couple drop out…in other words I have too many and I didn’t even throw the net that wide.

The latter part of 2019 was frustrating for me, with rampant poor communication. I cornered my manager in December and we agreed to weekly meetings, just short ones, a half hour should be enough, on Monday mornings when presumably we will both be in good moods after a weekend (his excellent suggestion), to check in and make certain that things don’t get as bad as they were ever again, and to set the tone for the week. Today was the first of the year and it went refreshingly well.

It was an excellent beginning!

Wall-E lives at my desk, just below my monitor, and he and I pondered what lies ahead for 2020 in regional fisheries and for the people who give their all to work in the field, despite what some uninformed people in the public sphere seem to think. Every year we are expected to do more, with less. Some people are leaving, some people are going on extended leave, and I can’t help wondering who’s going to keep me sane?

I guess it’s going to be you and me Wall-E.

Let’s hope the crystal ball shows us some good things ahead.

(6/365)