Rambling About Interconnectivity
One of the most impressive things about my company is how the space itself is organized. The offices are arranged on a ring, and the small size of the company means that it’s often easy to find your way over to another department. While often the politest option is to send someone an email or a message on a messaging service that all employees have access to, we are often encouraged to walk over for a conversation. So far, in my re-training process, I’ve had several opportunities to shadow other employees and gain a better understanding for the reasoning behind the process, as well as expand my view on the scope of our mission. Being able to be in their space, see where they do their work, grab a chair, and watch them walk through how they complete their job has been really helpful in filling in the blanks of the company procedure. I have realized this summer how much of what I did last summer was based on rote memorization of the necessary steps to take in response to certain incidences – a sort of “brute forcing” of my work. Now, by having somewhat of a deeper understanding, I am more confident in exploring, and less reliant on asking constant questions to my managers. While my managers are always happy to help, it feels good to be more independent and confident.
In another discussion on the interconnectedness of the office environment and how it aids me in my work, I can talk about the individual projects I work on. What I am actually doing is usually database entry or pulling from a database to create a detailed report, but each one focuses on a different and new aspect of company function. Each is like a stepping-stone towards a greater understanding of the systems the company uses. However, that learning comes with a cost – I’m usually left floundering for the first day or two of a new project. Each project begins with a meeting in one of the many conference rooms or in the office of my project manager, but the end of the first day usually finds the manager at my desk, looking over what I have done. This was exactly the case on Friday – a new urgent project right before the weekend had me attending a meeting first thing in the day and left me on my own afterwards. A few answered questions over the messaging service, and a brief meeting at the end of the day had me feeling more confident about what I had done and what I would be able to do in the coming week.
Another interesting part of this most recent project has been that my manager was working alongside me the whole time. This is an urgent project, and more specifically, it is her urgent project which I have been brought in to help with. This is the first time my manager has worked alongside me, and it has been fantastic. Not only has she been extremely open to questions and quick to respond, and we commiserate about tricky problems in the messages. It was an excellent way to end the last week.
Sounds like – despite the fact that you’ve worked there before – you’re still learning about the organization (understanding the organization better, more specifically) and growing. So without explicitly stating it, you seem to suggest that collaboration is valued at this organization; that there is some concern for relationships (e.g. talking to one another versus messaging) and not simply completion of tasks. I encourage you to think about whether the nature of the organization’s work requires particular attention to some issues/items versus others, whether the nature requires a particular style of leadership (or particular approach).