Adjusting To New Things

Apparently, things are going pretty well at my new job. I say that because by my fourth day there, the head of the project looked at me and said, "I've been hearing about the great job you've been doing for us."

I met our clients for the first time on Friday (unheard of at my old job) and things have been getting more ludicrous ever since.

Take today for example. I was informed that I'm in charge of five projects, two of which are ending on Friday. The other three hit on August 12th. How much do I know about these projects?

Absolutely nothing.

On top of that, I've been repeatedly told that a) I'm going to be the subject matter expert for the main part of our current project and b) the eventual goal is for me to assume all client interaction duties for the entire project to free up the project head to do program management stuff.

I also sat down with the project head to discuss some updates to a design we're working on earlier today. When he stated that I'd have to get a specific computer program on my computer in order to work on the designs, I told him I'd already done that. He cackled like a kid that's gotten away with a crime, said, "I love working with you!" and gave me a high five.

Have I mentioned I've only been at this job for a little over a week?

Currently, I feel like I'm surfing on a tidal wave while I get hit in the face with an information water hose at my job. That's not really surprising given the short time I've been there. When I'm not there, however, I'm constantly making mental adjustments because the new gig is so ridiculously unlike my old job. There isn't any "proving yourself" period before you get to do different things at the new place. They throw stuff at you and if you catch it, they keep on finding new stuff for you to do to see if you can handle it. It's pretty incredible, but it's definitely requiring me to make adjustments. A couple of specific things that I'm having to adjust to on the fly are:

1) Everyone is friendly at my new job. That's a ridiculously crazy thing to occur because of how short our deadlines are and how much work people do, but it's the truth.

2) Nobody's questioning my abilities, holding me back, or trying to make me fit into a role that I don't like.

3) There's no pecking order anywhere. If you need something, you find the person that knows about it/has it/knows who knows it or has it and you talk to them.

4) Everything is employee-driven (i.e. "Here's this thing we want you to do. Go take care of it and if you have any questions, just ask.") and based on performance. There's little to no politics because everyone's in the same boat. I'll be asked to help out on other people's projects (or assigned to them) whenever I have time and/or I'm needed. That all translates into everyone working on the same thing (getting everything done as quickly and efficiently as possible to put the best product out there) and there's little to no time for bullshit.

5) It's EASY. This freaks me out to no end right now. I'm even doing busy work (quality assurance work on broken links on webpages) and I don't mind. I sat down with another business analyst and we talked about an updated web page design today. In the middle of it, I was bowled over mentally because I realized that I was being treated as an equal and he cared about my input. While the people I used to work for were awesome people, the pecking order there was ridiculously obvious and there was little chance for promotion or more responsibility in the project and little to no recognition for plain ol' getting things done.

At my new job, they had an ice cream social last Thursday because one of their contracts celebrated it's eighth anniversary. They have an Employee of the Week feature on the company web portal (I already signed up for it...yay, networking!), and even though there isn't a lot of banter and talking around the cubicles (mainly due to time constraints and high cubicle walls), I'm noticing that other employees are still legitimately interested when they ask how my weekend went and what I did.

Back to how easy the job is for me. It's very hard for me to explain the emotions that go along with this revelation. I busted my hump for three years at a job where I had to literally sit down and fight myself to do my work every. single. day. in. the. office. Three years of that...

...and I walk into this job and within a week I get more recognition, more responsibility, more variety, and more things to learn on the job than I've gotten in the same time frame. How?

Just by being me and doing my job.

And I can handle everything they've thrown at me so far. Pretty easily.

There just aren't words, you know? I keep calling my parents and talking to my wife about what's going on at my job every couple of days because things are changing so rapidly on multiple levels. It's such a huge, dramatic shift that I spent a decent part of last weekend stressing myself out because I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. But, I think the shoes are either too comfortable on the feet that are kicked up on a desk to drop or that they've already been taken off while I get to run around barefoot. I just haven't fully noticed that part yet. That's what it feels like at this point, anyway.

There's other stuff going on: we're working on getting a new car (and I'm humbled yet again by the generosity of my friends because I'm borrowing a car for a month or so in order to buy another car during the August sales period to get a better price on it and the owner of the car gave it to me with no questions asked), my daughter finished her Kindergarten Aptitude Test and we're waiting on her scores (I'm not worried at all), my son is turning into a complete and total Mario Brothers fanboy (we're borrowing Mario Kart and Mario Galaxy from friends at the moment), my wife is slowly recovering from her car accident (nothing serious has cropped up, but she does have days where she's uncomfortable), and we're working on cleaning up the house and sorting out our stuff in the storage unit. Our container garden is hanging in there (we've picked some tomatoes, our kale and carrots are growing nicely, our yellow peppers might actually fruit, and our basil plant is going bonkers), and everyone is slowly adjusting to me being away at work during the day (although I still miss my kids a boatload).

My sister posted this the other day on Facebook: "When you are standing on your own on the mountain, it's really nice to see a friendly wave from a nearby peak."

I have to agree. I just have to get used to hanging out with other mountain climbers, hot air balloonists, pilots, people with jetpacks, and anyone else who's jury rigged a way to get up here. It's a really nice feeling and I think I'll stay here for awhile.