A few things I’ve been thinking about this week. The sixth post of a series inspired by Jonathan Rothwell.

I got an email this week from a certain multinational company in which my correspondent was “really sorry to tell you the sad news” that replacement heads for my electric toothbrush are being discontinued.

“We know you are a regular toothbrush user and know that this is disappointing.”

This may be the platonic ideal of a first world problem.

This week, I overheard an annual appraisal for someone working for an IT firm, being conducted (unduly loudly) in a public place. The appraisee was asked about their personal development plan and responded that they’d struggled to work out what to include. The appraiser suggested that it can be helpful to include a plan to attend courses for things that are regular familiar tasks: sometimes people can develop bad habits which a bit of refresher training can help to correct, and occasionally people pick up shortcuts they’ve not previously discovered.

My initial reaction to this was that it was insightful advice that I’d never considered, and which is probably transferable to medicine.

Half an hour or so later, it dawned on me that while the advice was interesting, it was completely the wrong response to the point the appraisee was making. The appraisee had raised uncertainty about what professional skills they’d like to develop, and instead of exploring that topic, the appraiser just dispensed a bit of off-the-cuff “how to tick the box” advice. The appraiser had effectively shown a complete lack of interest in the skill development, and career development, of the appraisee.

It surprised me that it took me so long to notice this, and made me worry that maybe I do similar things at times in my own job. Hopefully, this experience will remind me not to.

After two years of pandemic, I’ve finally tested positive for covid for the very first time. I have no symptoms and was testing before visiting family, like a model citizen. I’m also open to all jokes about my lack of symptoms being attributable to me having no sense of taste to lose.

I know Wordless stats are dull, but I’d been successful in my first 43 days of playing, and was peeved this week to fall at the 44th hurdle (frame).