I’ve been working up the hours this week to make up for having today off. Weather-wise, I’m really glad I did as we woke up to a fresh covering of snow, and then pretty much blizzard conditions by breakfast time – so much so that we were halfway tempted to knock any kind of travelling on the head. But travel we did, donning our waterproofs and our boots and trudging out through the snow to the station, and the train to London. We were very glad we did actually, because it was absolutely beautiful out there and I’m sure we got to see more of the snowy landscape by getting the train.
In London, we made our way south to Clapham Junction, for my catchup section of aspergers coaching with Bill both as nervous as hell. I think I was nervous, not because I’m not used to and comfortable with Bill as a coach but because I was also taking Em along with me. And Emma was nervous because she was meeting someone new and didn’t really know what to expect.
We settled our nerves with a hot chocolate and and double chocolate chip cookie in Cafe Nero, before wandering up the road to our appointment.
Bill was as just the same as ever, and remembered me immediately – then again apparently I’m quite hard to forget! 🙂 The format of the session was based around helping me regain confidence in myself and my work situation (with reference to certain ‘killer’ questions of: how do you deal with difficult situations/people; what are your strengths/weaknesses). He has this way, a very coaching way of asking a question that leads out the perfect answer that made me realise that I do actually have alot going for myself and I am good at what I do. I think the intervening time of being on short-term contracts and that insecurity hand led to me thinking negalively about what happened at Blackwell over the short-lived Production Editor job and the subsequent being-replaced-by-a-machine redundancy.
The other focus of the meeting was to allow Emma to see a bit more how my mind works, and to help her deal with my little peculialities. She was also able, by observing Bill’s coaching style, to see how ask me questions to get the most out of me.
After fearing the day (last night before bed, my head was buzzing with uncertainess) we both had a really enjoyable time and learnt such a lot, it was well worth the time and the money.
