New Manager

Our manager retired just about one year ago. I thought he was going on a long vacation, so he asked me to be acting manager. Then a week before he went on vacation, he announced his retirement. So, the Acting Manager position became an ongoing thing. It's been quite a learning curve since then.

I actually found that I enjoy management. A couple of years ago I knew I was starting to feel burned out on doing desktop support. All the skills that I had acquired organizing cultural events, participating in political campaigns, producing books and publications and strategical thinking from kali started coalescing together.

More recently, I applied for the permanent position and after 4 different interview sessions was given the position! whoo-hoo!

But I have to say, wow, what a time to be a new manager! Absolutely one of the most challenging situations I've been in with the budget crisis abound, but also getting in on some of the green IT projects that will save the campus hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's exciting every where you look!

At around the same time as the acting manager position, I entered a leadership development program on campus. We split into groups to work on various projects. Ours in the Green IT project, exploring how and why people adopt technology. It's quite fascinating, getting this in depth view of the campus workings. Our project is in its last weeks and it's a crazy crush of work.

For more of my group, Green IT will end with the end of this project, and for me it will only be the beginning as I've been tasked to find a way to develop ways in which the campus will adopt these technologies that will hopefully save the campus hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

I had to talk to my staff today about how the budget situation will play out for us. There are alot of questions I just don't know the answer to. And I had to tell them, I just don't know. All I know is that it's bad, and really really bad, like never seen it this bad before. All I can do is to keep them as informed as possible on the changing landscape. It's certainly not an easy time to be a manager, much less step into a brand new managerial position. At the same time, the amount of hands on experience I am getting while learning on the fly is astonishing. It takes alot of focus and concentration, planning and replanning and then preparing the staff to be ready for who knows what. No one can guarantee anyone a job, what you can give them is that you'll treat them with as much honor and respect as you can.

There are always lessons to be learned. And in rough economic times, one is tested on how well you've learned those lessons.

jubilation

Have I mentioned how facebook has a way of sucking you in?

It's kind of crazy as I find myself adding people I haven't seen in ages, it's like looking through the roladex of your life. And even though you don't really hang out with most of them that often facebook is a place to poke them and send them other cordial, cute messages and play silly games like biting vampires or parking cars. For someone like me who loves little things that occupy less than a minute or two of attention span, facebook is a complete time sink where you can also peruse what people are up to.

Not so much for my generation who are in our 30s, but much more so for people in their 20s, you can find just about everyone you may have ever known. For me I can't really expect alot of people to be on facebook necessarily. My generation still knows what actual privacy is.

But one day while I was sick I decided to cruise through the searches and see if I could find people I knew from junior high and even elementary school. I found three people and two of them wrote me back.

One of them is Josh Staub creator of Jubilee Animation and the writer/producer/director/animator of the award winning animated short, The Mantis Parable. I've only known Josh from four square games and tag and I remember we worked on a project together in like 5th grade but I don't know exactly what that was about, but I do remember that even in 5th grade he had a drafting table like serious artists and wasn't just for doodling.

I hope to get a copy of The Mantis Parable soon with a review here soon.

got to get a copy

I had a meeting with my director the other day. As we chatted about how I was doing in my new acting role, we also discussed how I was transitioning out of my old work. She immediately pointed to what looked to be a copy of a magazine article. I couldn't read it from where I was sitting, but she said it was some sort of "list on how not to fail".

On the list was "don't take your old job with you."

This is a tricky thing when you stay with the same employer and especially tricky at the university as often when you leave one post it's not like they are quick to fill your old position.

The "don't take your old job with you" would seem an obviously thing to do. When you take on a new job that has a learning curve and added duties, why hang on to your old job duties and basically do two jobs. But logic often doesn't get implemented in reality.

I think at the next meeting, I'll ask her for a copy of that list. I'd like to know what else is on there.