After seething with frustration for much of the week I feel calmer now, and quite tired from all the unecessary adrenalin. By the end of today it became much clearer to me that there is a lack of mutual understanding of our roles amongst the Cluster Unit staff. I thought we had clarified who was responsible for doing what, especially my role, during a previous meeting. I realised today that I had actually only clarified to me what each person's role was, and had fallen into the trap of confusing agreement with understanding. There is a sense of urgency now about organising training as we approach January, but I have the impression that everyone is waiting for me to take the lead and make it happen, when I'm still floundering around trying to get to grips with the awful communications in the college and identifying the key people. So, my colleagues are (in my mind) gossiping with each other about how I don't seem to be making anything happen, without of course talking to me directly about it, while I'm wondering why they are not making things happen. It's up to me to bring some clarity, and I've spent part of this evening coming up with a way to facilitate exploring everyones understanding of the situation and to make sure we all really do understand our roles.

If I've learned something from this week it's that feeling frustrated is a symptom of a communications problem for me and my lack of understanding, and not necessarily an indication of a failing or lack of understanding by them.