Facing Everyday Challenges
Here I am now, having just completed my second week in management, and I’ve discovered a few things that are … unexpected. For example, as an organization, we make a great deal of effort to ensure that new employees complete a full day orientation, which is followed up by a day-two orientation after six months. This day-one orientation includes a description of their benefits, union affiliation, and an overview of the organization in addition to other items of interest. When you become a manager, there is no orientation, no step-by-step guide to learn the things that we don’t know—whether we never had an opportunity to learn them or never had a need. It’s a bit difficult to muddle through some “management” tasks when the only help available involves calling your previous boss—who has moved on to something else—or contacting the employee relations division of our human resources department. There’s no training, guidelines, or oversight to tell new managers who to call if you need cubicles reconfigured, or confidential documents shredded (with certification), how to handle employees that abuse company property, or how to quickly and seamlessly flow from one meeting to the next (both of which run long) while assigning tasks to keep staff busy and juggle no less than 50 tasks at one time. And don’t forget to take time for lunch.
Right. I think that I’ve gone to lunch four times in the past two weeks. There are some days that I can barely make it to the restroom.
I have this worry that I’ll somehow fail. Even though everyone has been telling me that I’m doing fine and that they feel I’m getting a lot done, there are some days—like today—that I feel like I have gotten nothing at all done. Today was difficult because I had to come in late (I had to order a cake for a retirement event tomorrow), then by the time I got to work I had about an hour before I had to go into a meeting. A meeting that was scheduled for 30 minutes, but ran for 1-1/2 hours, which cut into lunch. Unfortunately, my team had arranged to take me to lunch and with an overly long meeting, I was worried that I messed up everyone else’s lunch schedule.
My team taking me to lunch didn’t go as planned. The team asked me last week if they could take me to lunch for my birthday. Besides running late—and they were great about waiting for me instead of just blowing the whole thing off—the restaurant we had originally planned to eat at was closed. We made a quick, last minute decision to go to another place, grabbed one of the people I had been in the meeting with, and ended up having a great time. Sorry, Butter Café, maybe next time. Thank you, Casa del Rey, the food was awesome.
Meeting in the Middle
It’s been challenging to bring it all together. Between work, school, and home, trying to keep everything running smoothly without anything being forgotten or dropped is extremely difficult. Sadly, my grades are taking a beating at the moment. I missed a discussion board (10 points) and a media assignment (20 points), plus half of another discussion board (5-10 points). As long as I keep it together and maintain my grades at their current level (or better, which means busting butt), I’ll pass this class with at least a B—I was hoping for better, but time constraints being what they are, I’ll take what I can get.
I have three more weeks of this class and one more term this year and then I’m off until January. By that time, I should be in a much better place all around and I’ll have a solid six months of management experience behind me. Come January, I’ll have six more classes to completion of my (first) Master’s.
I say first, because my intention is to continue my education and complete what is called a dual degree. The dual degree program that I’m interested in will give me both an MBA and an MPA, if I’m reading the program outline correctly. That will give me three Master’s degrees by the time I’ve completed my educational career.
Looking to the Future
Since, for the first time ever, both my husband and I are in a somewhat comfortable place financially, we’re considering a few decisions about our future. For starters, I plan to replace my 20 year old minivan with a brand new vehicle. I’m still trying to decide what I’m going to buy (I really want a 5 passenger, 6 cylinder crossover).
In addition to a new car, we’re talking about selling our house. When we bought our place 10 years ago, we secured a 20-year fixed rate mortgage, but since we bought a mobile home, our interest rate is considerably higher as our house is considered personal property. If that’s correct, we should still qualify for a first time buyer program. I’m hoping that by the time we decide to sell, we’ll have paid enough on our house to at least turn some sort of profit. We’re not intending to sell it, our goal is to sell for scrap. We know we’ll never make money trying to sell it outright.