Taking care in caretaker

Now that the election has been called and Parliament has been dissolved, Canberra enters a special time called "caretaker" in which the public services continues day to day functions, but can no longer have ministerial or cabinet approval on more substantial issues. This means that policy directions, stakeholder consultation and major projects are all basically put on pause while the country works out who the Government is going to be for the next couple of years.

For a policy area like the one I work in, this means that things get very, very quiet for a while. This has already started, and the feeling on the floor is rather frivolous and festive.

The problem for me, is that because I'm on a temporary task force at the moment dealing with a very specific issue, and I've also just lost the only other member of my team to the restructure, I still have a metric butt load of work to do. I'm finding it really challenging not to get caught up in the relaxed mood of everyone around me when I still have a lot to do!

To this end, sound isolating canal phones and the music on YouTube are my best friends.

Here's what I'm listening to right now:

A little warning on that, the visuals are a bit whack. Plus, you know, it's dubstep so it won't appeal to all tastes.

The upshot of this for blog readers? The frequency of posts will probably bump up a little bit in the near future. We're also getting closer and closer to completion on the house, so there will probably be lots of things around that to blog about.

For example, the real estate agent has advised that she will be sending out an email about the estimated completion date today or tomorrow, which I'm really looking forward to. Hopefully this will inform the timing of any more furniture purchases!

Now, time to eat some lunch, and then make annoying phone calls that I don't want to make.