So this is what management feels like
January 26, 2012 at 7:37 am | Posted in Career Moves | Leave a commentTags: career climbing, career evolution, management, work life, working
try not to be like this guy. Yea I know, typical to use an Office Space photo on a job post. Deal with it.
When I first took my current job, I was really excited to be working in education. Having been a consultant, I had many clients that covered different issues, so I had gotten a taste of many different causes that matter. But of course, you connect with some more than others, and for me education, with all its layers, was something I could really sink my teeth into.
So I took all the tasking skills I had built in my 5 years of working and came to where I am now. I was excited to concentrate on one topic. What I hadn’t prepared for was the fact that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on just a handful of projects or do the deep work myself. Nowadays I am managing what seems like dozens of projects all at once and a team of consultants and one part timer to help complete the work. I have gone from building web sites, designing brochures, pitching media, and writing content to instructing others on how to get these things done and reviewing them. I have had to let go of a lot of the pieces I love all to ensure that the bigger picture is always clearly in sight. Don’t get me wrong — I still do plenty of work in these various areas, but I just don’t have time to spend all day on the phone calling reporters, or creating our newest publication. I am now more than just a tasker. I am an idea person, and a strategist.
Now I understand what it means to be a manager.
So maybe I don’t get to dive deep into projects so much anymore, but I know that my experience and expertise are appreciated. But of course, I have a lot to learn, and I still look to my higher ups for guidance on how to build these non-task related skills. And being fresh out of the strict tasking phase, I can relate to newer workers about the stresses of completing tasks when they are coming down from all different people who expect different kinds of results.
But now that I have taken this step back and seen where my work path has gone, I can focus on where it is going. In reality, I have only been working for 7 years, and I have a lot of years to work. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to dive deep into a project again.
Life’s Inventory
January 24, 2012 at 7:31 am | Posted in Life and Living, Relationship Woes | Leave a commentTags: bride, life planning, wedding registry
photo via pacificgeek.comphoto via pacificgeek.com
It has been a while since my last wedding planning update. I have done a ton of planning, but I’ve also done a ton of other things as well, so wedding stuff at the moment falls in line with the rest of my to-do list. Perhaps it’s because of a longer engagement, who knows? All I know is I have booked all of my vendors and feel like I can do some of the more relaxing parts of the planning process, like working on my registry.
I remember when I first moved out, when I was still with my ex. I remember building my furniture collection much in the way as I did in college (hand-me-downs and DYI). I wasn’t about to spend money on nice stuff. I didn’t have the money, nor did I have the space. I always had it in my head that when I got engaged, I would register for nice stuff. Of course at that point I thought I would be marrying my then boyfriend, and follow the typical course of life (marriage, house, family, blahblahblah).
So now that I am actually engaged, reality is quite different that what I imagined. It is not easy building a registry, attempting to predict what I will need in my married life. What is really going to change once I get married? Not a lot at first. So do I really need dinnerware for dinner parties that I may or may not hold in the next five years? And how do you even buy plates when you don’t know what your future kitchen will look like once you get to the point of buying a home?
So I’m struggling a bit on this one. I am finding myself spending a ton of time trolling through merchandise online trying to figure out what a good wife needs. I tend to lean towards kitchen gadgets because I like to cook. But what about bathroom stuff, or other stuff? I just don’t know. How do you inventory a life not yet lived?
And I know that I should just take this as an opportunity to upgrade, to make those incremental improvements to life that I always talk about. But it’s such a strange custom to me. Tell people what you want, have them buy it and wrap it, and then pretend to be surprised when you open something you asked for? And then followed by a personalized thank you note, as though I will remember in five years who got me that food processor?
I don’t know, but it’s putting a lot of things into perspective for me. I don’t know what is on the other side of this wedding, because wedding planning isn’t marriage planning. Perhaps this custom will help me consider what tools I need in my toolbox for a successful marriage, but I’ll take the gifts in the meantime.
What the $@#% is going on?
January 19, 2012 at 7:33 am | Posted in Life and Living | 1 CommentTags: blogging, censorship, freedom of speech, journalism, PIPA, piracy, SOPA
If you tried to search the Internet yesterday, you may have found yourself blacked out or blocked from the resources you rely on everyday. And if you have been living under a rock, away from the media, people and technology, you may have missed the launch of an advocacy effort to put an end to two pieces of legislation that would disrupt our economy, our daily lives, and compromise our freedom. But why would this happen in America, home of the free, land of the brave? Because of a few bad seeds who redefined the term piracy (I really preferred the childhood definition that connect pirates to Captain Hook, but I digress.)
I have written in the past about my unfiltered lifestyle. I’ve also blogged about the things I don’t blog about. I have, in my own way, censored myself. And we all censor ourselves, just some more than others. I happen to censor myself as little as possible while some of my friends share significantly less than I do. But the point is that I am choosing to censor myself when I deem it appropriate. I am of legal age which means I can say what I want when I want because I am old enough to judge when it is appropriate or not. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. There are always going to be those who break the rules, who rip people or companies off. But we live in a country that has prided itself on freedom, and if this legislation does pass, we are going back on the very principles this country was founded on. And while the intention of the legislation is aimed at piracy, the, perhaps unintended consequence is the freedom to post, link or write what you want without big brother monitoring.
But this isn’t a new debate. This is actually a reborn debate that has just reached new heights in the digital age where information sharing has gone to unbelievable extremes. I remember my first journalism class in high school and learning all about the history of censorship and how it related to the print press as it was. I remember learning about propaganda and the role it played in several world wars. None of this has changed. There are still debates on how the news is reported, how images of people jumping out of the towers on 9/11 were hidden after many had already seen the devastation happen in real time. Fair and balanced is a thing of the past, if it ever existed. Even in America, freedom of speech is constantly in question. And today, more people are speaking.
At my last job, I was doing some international media work, which was an interesting experience. I learned just how lucky we are to live in a country that doesn’t block internet content, where media stories aren’t all controlled by the government, where a little blogger like myself can voice my opinions for the entire blogosphere and internet community to hear if they choose to listen. So while the world keeps changing and evolving, I am sure we have not seen the last of this debate. I just hope that our country, our government makes the right decision and does not punish the innovators that have created the new information world just to rid the world of a few questionable sites.
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez. Fonts on this blog.
Entries and comments feeds.
