March Notes: Friction, Weddings, and Toddler Logic
The case for some grunt work, wedding season, and why OG doesn't feed herself at home
I felt like I had moved to a new country with a different language after I joined Amazon. People routinely talked about PDPs, GVs, ROOS, and so on. One of the first pages I bookmarked then and still visit often now was an acronyms wiki.
Because I had not started on the graduate intake program, I learnt Retail and these acronyms the hard way. Preparing the weekly business review (WBR) was a primary source of learning by doing. My first few iterations took 8 to 10 hours. I reviewed previous WBRs, figured out which systems the data came from, and slowly learnt how to put it all together. Why did sales spike last week? Why did we miss profitability goals? After making sense of the story, I would write it all down in a document that the team would review together to keep our fingers on the pulse of the business.
It got quicker as time passed. I was down to 2-3 hours by the end of my first six months. In that time, I developed a good intuition for which metrics to start with, how to slice them, and how “deep to dive”. While there was some formal training as well, preparing WBRs and answering callouts contributed a lot in teaching me to diagnose the P&L and write the Amazon way.
Fast forward to 2026. Over the past several months, I have enjoyed working with several colleagues to automate WBR production. We have built and launched tools that generate a decent WBR in 10 to 15 minutes. In fact, we’ve not had a human write the WBR for my product category since November. Instead of opening multiple tools and bridging data, our teams now focus on discussing insights and identifying corrective actions.
I appreciate the time savings and the fact that we’ve removed what people sometimes described as grunt work. But I also sometimes think back to my experience as a new hire. That grunt work was exactly what I needed at the beginning to learn the ropes and develop my judgement. There was tangible evidence of my onboarding as I got faster and better at understanding root causes and producing a good document. If I was onboarding an experienced hire to my team today, how would I onboard them differently?
This question reminds me of a different time as a young child, when I was taught the long way to do arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) even though calculators already existed. After explaining the basics, my primary school Mathematics teacher would randomly call on a student to practice their arithmetic in front of the class. As we strengthened our foundation in the basics, our teachers gradually introduced calculators, initially allowing basic ones and then progressing to scientific calculators. Why? Because calculators are great but it is still useful for children to develop their intuition for the basic laws of mathematics.
Future onboarding journeys might include parallels to my journey with arithmetic. New hires might be asked to deep-dive metrics on their own (the long way), write short bridges, and have their bridges evaluated by AI tools. They will probably get quicker, more granular, and more helpful feedback than I did. Over time, they too will learn and develop their judgement, guided by colleagues and a teacher who is always available.
Not all friction is bad. The easier things get, the more intentional we have to be about preserving the difficulty and intellectual grappling that develops our skill and judgement.
My 2026 wedding season kicked off this March with Inigo and Isabel’s union. A weekend of celebrations in sunny Madrid was exactly what I needed after several grey weeks in London. It was my first Catholic wedding and the service felt deeply spiritual, set in a grand cathedral that matched the occasion. The officiating priest was Inigo’s brother, which was a very nice touch. It was also my first Spanish wedding, and I was surprised to find the earliest bus would leave the reception at 9:30pm. I was doubly surprised to find that it was nearly empty as most people got the 12:00am bus instead!
I was there with colleagues I’ve worked closely with for years - people I speak to almost every day, and it struck me how fortunate I am to work with people I enjoy spending time with outside of work.
Two weeks later, we were off to Fatoumata Sy’s wedding, which felt like a homecoming. The ceremony was intricately designed and set in a literal palace but it was also incredibly warm. It felt like we had just gathered to hang out with our friend. She spent lots of time with us and her husband eventually had to come and peel her away when their car was ready to leave on the second day.
At both weddings, I noticed the care with which the seating was arranged. Each table struck a thoughtful balance: enough familiar faces to feel at ease, and enough new ones to make the conversations interesting. I left both weekends having met people I expect to stay in touch with. Another thing I appreciated at both weddings was the time given to friends to speak about the couple. Hearing different perspectives from people who know them well added colour to the formalities.
Now that it’s three months into the year, I can say with some confidence that my relationship with my phone has genuinely changed. I’ve tried to break the habit before and always drifted back. What made the difference this time was starting from an honest place, as I wrote in January: I am addicted. Making peace with that led to the next insight. There are no safe levels of endless scrolling for me. Instagram. Threads. Facebook. Twitter. Even Substack. One minute will eventually turn into sixty. And so, they’ve all been gone from my phone since December and can only be accessed from my computer or tablet.
Even with the apps gone, I still catch myself reaching for my phone the moment my thinking gets hard and my brain wants something easier. That’s where Foqos has helped. Once activated, it turns my phone into a brick until I physically get up and scan a QR code somewhere in the house (or in the office). I found it while looking for a free alternative to the more popular Brick, and you should take a look if you’re working on using your phone less too. You don’t need to pay for Brick. It does exactly the same thing and it’s free forever.
I had OG alone for a week this month while Busola celebrated with Teniola, her sister, as she turned 40 in Canada. We had several hilarious conversations during that week including this one that made it into my journal:
“You feed yourself in nursery. So why don’t you feed yourself at home?”
“I feed myself in nursery. But this is my house. I don’t feed myself in my house.”
Reading:
My favourite book this month was Jessica Radloff’s The Big Bang Theory. I enjoyed getting a look behind the curtain of the show and it was the first time I thought about the actors as people rather than the characters they played.
I re-read Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary in preparation for seeing it at the cinemas - hopefully over the Easter Weekend. Where The Martian had Mark Watney keeping himself alive on Mars by deploying all his generalist scientist skills, Project Hail Mary ups the stakes: all of humanity might die if Ryland Grace does not put his big brain to good use on his interstellar adventure.
Listening:
Bill Gate’s Source Code was my companion on many long drives in March. The narration by Will Wheaton is great and it’s insightful to think about how many things had to happen for Gates to become who he is.
I’m currently loving season 3 of the Economist’s Boss Class. This season focuses on where AI is most useful to managers and employees right now. It’s a much more measured take on AI than the trendy “this will change everything” and “here’s why you’re using Claude wrong” articles that all over the place these days.
Cheers to the new quarter!