Major Incidents vs Mornings With Young Children

So here's the thing. No one likes major incidents; by their very definition they are the serious stuff.  But there is something that’s tougher than dealing with even the trickiest major incident. Want to know what it is? Getting my children ready in the morning. Don’t believe me? Here’s a look at how I handle major incidents versus mornings with my children who will hereafter be known as Holy Terrors 1, 2 and 3.

Major Incidents

When dealing with a major incident here’s what generally happens:

I get a heads up from the service desk or support team tech. I take a few minutes to sanity check what’s gone wrong, the impact and who needs to deal with it. I make sure a major incident has been raised and then ping out a quick comms to the key stakeholders and VIPs.

Next step is to sort out a conference bridge and get everyone online. I ask for a quick status update and if we know what’s gone wrong, if we know how to fix it or have workarounds and if we have an estimated fix time. I ask the teams involved if they need any additional resources or third party support.

Draft another comms, this time to the business (which has been templated to kingdom come) and ask someone to quickly sanity check it before issuing it via the service desk mailbox. I check to make sure the service desk IVR message and intranet have been updated so that the IT department doesn’t get overloaded with calls.

Return to the major incident call and check in. At this point one of the following things is happening:

●     We know what’s happened and we have a fix. I work with the team to ensure that the right testing is carried out and get an emergency change raised.

●     We have no idea what’s gone wrong and are feeling a bit panicky. I calm things down by reminding everyone that it will be ok and we will figure it out. At this point I’ll look at who else needs to be involved and also check in with the business to give them an update. I’ll also make sure that everyone is appropriately caffeinated.

●     Someone is unsettled and / or venting. I thank them for their feedback and steer the call back to the fix effort. In a previous life I have been known to accidentally hit the mute button on anyone ranting at my people.

I continue to send out updates while the issue is being worked on and stay with the team during the fix effort.

Once we think the issue has been resolved, I let the service desk know and call a handful of users affected to make sure all is well, then I send out a final comms stating that normal service has been restored. I then make some notes on what happened, what the cause was and how we fixed it before scheduling a quick catch up to look at any actions that could prevent a future occurrence.

Morning Routine

Getting three children ready and out the morning? Different ball game. Here’s how it should look:

06:15 get up, sort self, get kids breakfast, straighten hair and leave at 7:15 so I can drop kids with our awesome and long suffering childminder for 7:30 so I can get to work for 8:15 ish so that (a) I get a parking space and (b) I can leave at 17:00 ish to get back to said awesome childminder on time as she finishes at 17:30.

The reality? It goes something like this:

06:15 Alarm goes off. Check work emails then hop in the shower and get dressed. Try and ignore HT3 banging on the door saying they need to come in because they’re lonely and they need me.

06:25 Pick up HT3 & wake up HT2 and HT1 using best Mary Poppins voice. HT2 refuses to get out of bed initially, so I coax them out by bribing them with the promise of chocolate / tablet time / games time later. HT2 will stomp down the stairs and go back to sleep on the sofa. HT1 will start to faff saying that they’re tired and hate mornings. I tell them that I love them but they need to move.

06:35 All 3 kids sat at the breakfast table. All three will moan about the choice of cereal despite it being what they chose when we went to ASDA at the weekend. HT2 will then want crumpets. HT3 will demolish cereal, fruit, toast and a yoghurt and will still claim to be hungry. HT1 will pick at her cereal like it’s something out of a bush tucker trial from the jungle / I’m a sleb. All three will complain that their orange juice either doesn’t have enough bits in it or has too many or that they want apple juice instead.  

06:50 I tell all 3 kids that they need to get dressed into the nice clean clothes that I got out the night before all ready for them. HT3 will get dressed but will claim they can’t find any socks. HT2 will sit in their batman pants til we’re due to leave the house. HT1 will help the younger two for which I am eternally grateful but there will also be a lot of makeup and phone related faffing. They will also update me on what’s going on in the world. Currently, it’s all about the James Charles and Tati Westbrook falling out on YouTube. I try and make supportive noises. There will be at least one further sock-related emergency despite the fact all three of them have multiple packets of socks in the same colour.

06:55 I start trying to straighten my hair and put on makeup so I don’t frighten the horses. I try not to think about the unfolding chaos that is undoubtedly unfolding in my absence.

06:56 Blood curdling screams from the direction of the kids’ bedrooms so I abandon hair straightening and make up. Separate kids and try and figure out who was attempting to kill who. Calm things down only for the same thing to happen two minutes later when I leave the room to grab my laptop.

07:00 Remind all 3 kids that they need to clean their teeth and brush their hair. HT3 will refuse point blank so I will have to do it for them. HT2 will moan about the taste of toothpaste. HT1 will claim that they can’t find their hair brush / bobbins / clips despite being laid out for them the night before. They will allege that someone had crept into their room like a ninja and stolen them. At this point I’m wishing I could give up pretending to be an adult and go back to bed.

07:05 Give kids 10 minute warning and ask them to put their shoes on. Take out lunch boxes from the fridge and hand them out. HT2 will then decide they hate everything in them and want school dinners instead. World War 3 ensues when I tell them to suck it up. I drop the Mary Poppins act and start using my Batman voice.  

07:10 Give kids 5 minute warning and tell them to put their shoes and coats on. Try and locate my shoes that should be in the shoe basket but usually end up in HT3’s toy box. Locate shoes, my work pass and about eleventy billion bits of tat.

07:15 Tell kids to get in the car. None of them are ready, HT1 is faffing with their hair, HT2 is still in their pants and HT3 is refusing to put on their school shoes saying they’re uncomfortable. Reiterate the importance of Mummy getting to work so she has money for useful things like food, clothes, toys and paying the mortgage.

07:20 Tell kids to hurry up. Threaten to drop them off directly to school in current state i.e. shoeless / batman pants / not enough makeup.  

07:25 Start losing will to live. Attempt to get kids into car and at this point HT2 will make a break for freedom, whilst shouting “you’ll never take me alive!” They also may or may not be shoeless. Sprint down the road after them wondering if it counts as my daily cardio.

07:30 Finally get all 3 kids in the car. Drive to lovely childminder whilst answering eleventy billion questions from HT2 about Star wars and football. I rock the Star Wars content but my football knowledge only extends to Ireland in Italia 90 and Manchester United in the 90s. HT1 will be texting furiously and HT3 will be singing along to the radio. She’s going through a Justin Bieber phase at the moment so FML.

07:40 Drop kids with childminder wishing her good luck. All 3 kids complaining about “ mummy being stressy.”

07:45 Get back in car. Try to find inner calm.

07:55 Start driving to work. Attempt to find inner calm / enter zen like state a complete failure.

08:10 Stress levels at DEFCON 1 level so decide to give mindfulness app a go.

08:20 Give up on mindfulness. Decide coffee is the only way forward. Wonder if Starbucks do a size bigger than venti. Make mental note to tweet them about it later.

08:30 Make it to work car park, taking the last available space and sprint into the office so I can leave at a reasonable time and do the whole thing again at the end of the day only in reverse. Sprint back outside to make sure I’ve not parked badly. Head to desk to deal with email mountain. Realise I’ve left my laptop in the car so slink back outside to retrieve it.

09:00 Catch sight of self in works loo. Still not wearing any make up and have mad hair that’s only straightened on one side.

Final Thoughts

I wish there was a magic wand I could wave to make everything run more smoothly.  I adore my family and I love working in ITSM so the craziness is definitely worth is. I guess the thing is - if you’re struggling - know that you’re not alone. For every perfect professional or alpha parent, there’s the person who had to talk someone down from ranting at senior management or the mum that left the house missing a shoe / laptop / makeup bag and yes - I’ve done all three. The thing is - just keep going - it will get better and if it doesn’t? Call me and we’ll go for coffee / vodka / cake and we’ll commiserate together.

What do you think? What’s harder - major incidents or getting your kids ready in the morning? Let me know in the comments or reach out to me on twitter - I’m @vawns