Today, I learned some things.
I learned that a guy that I used to work with at another company, who was a very gung-ho, true-believer type, was recently named as a vice-president for that company. He's responsible for a whole mess of applications and customers. From this, I learned two things: the company still likes gung-ho true believers, and I can simultaneously mock his style and envy his results. I'm not sure what the psychological evaluation of that dichotomy is, but I don't think its very complimentary to me.
I learned that my current company isn't telling the same story to everyone who's involved with this new service delivery scheme; the basis of which seems to be that its better to deliver exactly what the customer wants, right now, immediately, via the methodology of having everyone available all the time, than to deliver what the customer wants, over time, in a phased, process-driven approach. Less delays, sooner satisfaction. The problem is that the people who are actually going to participate in this seem to be hearing that its not so much an experiment in improving service delivery though elimination of roadblocks and procedural delays as a death march -- no slack time, always someone to call back, something to follow up on. Whats particularly ironic is that it uses as a bible a book about a similarly named process at another company which does nothing of the sort -- they push the idea of incremental improvement, all the time. (Who gets to decide whats an improvement, its not clear, but apparently however they do it, it works. At least for them.) We're not doing that, but we expect similar, if not better, results.
And I learned that I am not attitudinally suited for the job I do. This is not a new observation, but it hit me again. How many times I need to be hit, I don't know.
I talked to my wife about it. She said that I got beaten up today, and I feel unsettled as a result, because I don't usually get beaten up, and, because some degree, maybe even much of it, was warranted, I feel shaky about my capabilities. I shouldn't, but I do.
Married someone smart. But I knew that.
Still and all...I think I need to be giving some thought to post-work life. Because it's coming, and -- on days like this -- it seems that'll be sooner than I think.
4 comments:
Exciting -- change is an adventure sometimes...
I think so, too. Course, I also believe that the only type of person who welcomes change is a wet baby, or an incontinent adult....
I don't see it as a dichotomy so much.
You mock his gung-ho style because you have no passion for your current job. It's hard to be gung-ho about something that brings no enjoyment to you.
You envy his results because you would like to have passion for your job. If not this current one, then one in the future.
And that's my armchair psychology for the evening!
It scares me sometimes to realize that NOTHING fills me with passion. Thats one of the things that life coaches talk about when discussing how to make choices for retirement -- 'think back to when you were passionate about something -- what was it?' I totally don't remember being passionate about anything. I don't think that approach would work for me.
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