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The Redundancy Cycle

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I logged on to LinkedIn this morning and the first post I saw was an old colleague of mine advertising a role. Mid-weight designer at the agency I was made redundant from nearly 2 years ago. The role I was doing that, at the time, was deemed redundant! What a slap in the face. Except that, no, it's not a slap in the face. It's part of a common occurrence known as the "hire-fire cycle" , or "cyclical redundancies" . Hiring speeds up during times of growth, and firing rears its ugly head during times when business is stagnant. There are peaks and troughs, and employees oftentimes bear the brunt of these.  In my case, I fell victim to the "post-COVID" boom in hiring. Between 2020-2022, tech and creative companies massively over-hired based on inflated growth assumptions. It was a time of massive excitement; new clients, an ever-growing team, record profits and lots of parties. But this came to a staggering halt, the "boom" only sustainable...
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Why is women's sport still the butt of the joke for insecure men?

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A locker room, a phone call, a gold medal winning team and a President.  Missed the story? This Guardian article covers the situation well, if you'd like to get your head around it before reading on. I mean, I don't think any of Donald Trump's behaviour should be looked upon as representative of the wider population, either in the US or across the world. He is, at best, a senile, dementia-ridden, almost-Octogenarian who has lived a life free of repercussions for his bad (illegal) behaviour. At worst, he is a racist, homophobic, sexist, thieving sex offender who threatens to kill anyone who disagrees with him. His comments about the US women's Olympic ice hockey team should be disregarded; it's the reaction of the some of the men's ice hockey players that bothers me. Call it "locker room talk" or "nervous laughter", but surely we're way past the point of making women's sporting achievements something to laugh at? I'm sure I don...
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We need to talk about working from home

I'm coming to end of a fixed-term contract and its continuation is a little up in the air, so I've been back in the job hunting game, scouring LinkedIn and all of the usual design jobs boards on a daily basis for potential opportunities. I've seen plenty of roles that I'd be perfect for, either because of my specific experience (I have a bit of a sports niche) or because I think I'd be a great cultural fit. But more often than not, my application is halted before it's even begun due to the same few words: *insert number* days in office, London. I could write an entire blog post about the problem surrounding most creative jobs being in London, freezing out talent further afield. But that's not the issue here, the issue is having to work in person at all*.  I'd never call the COVID-19 pandemic a blessing. (That would be a particularly hard statement to make as somebody who's suffering from the effects of Long COVID - but we'll circle back to that l...
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