Top of the World
I'm roughly two weeks into my new job and now that I am here, I can let everyone know that I accepted a role with HealthSource as a Change Manager. HealthSource provides supply chain, procurement and financial services to the four northern region district health boards. In other words, we are the pivotal connection between New Zealand health care workers and patients and the disturbingly fsked global supply chain. Basically, if you're anywhere north of Hamilton and you've had a covid test, we made sure there was a swap to tickle your brain. While the title is Change Manager, what the leadership here is asking me to do is not all that different to what I did at IAG. The big delta will be that at IAG I had a team around me. Here we have a change capability greenfields (YEAH! I get to decide) and but it's also completely empty of structure, resource, and people (BOO! I have to do all of it). The job will be to not just build the plane while flying it but also dig up the ore and manufacture the parts. It's a bit absurd, to be honest.
And I'm so happy.
It's moments like these where my knowledge of change resiliency makes me giggle at myself. Look at you, silly lady, all rose coloured glasses, enthusiasm, and optimism. You could get a contact high just drifting over to my desk and chatting me up for a few minutes. Even the tiny fly in the ointment (a heinous commute), I've somehow managed to dismiss in the name of enjoying watching people adapt to face coverings and social distancing. I use the time to read the news, do my 10 minute Calm exercise, and play games. GTD app fired up and absolutely chockers with tasks, music dialed in, phone sussed, computer configured to my exacting picky geeky preferences, coffees and teas and 1:1s sorted for the next 3 weeks... it's SO MUCH FUN!!!
Let's take a minute to remind everyone how we get this pop at the beginning of every positive, self-initiated job change, and why it never lasts. As usual, hastag science. When everything is new, adrenaline kicks in so energy is boundless. Everyone is on their best behaviour with smiles, welcoming attitudes and platitudes about how much they are looking forward to working with you so add a dollup of dope dopamine. If you've got experience, you look around and see all the many ways you can contribute, low hanging fruit hanging from the ceiling of every room just waiting for you to pluck, taste and share. Finish it up with good ole denial, sticking the head firmly in the sand, bum up and wagging as we pretend that we never had any thought to accept a role somewhere else. It's perfect I tell yoU!
Soon, however... very soon... oh boy. Deep breath.
Reality is never as good as our dreams, right? The reality hits that this person and I will never get along. The reason all these fruit are hanging there is that actually they just aren't ripe yet. The commute really does suck. The intranet is worthless, my desk chair is horrible, where's the shower for godsakes and why is there never any blue milk in the fridge? It's always some damn thing. Maybe you'll slip into imposter syndrome or go the other way and start thinking everyone around you is a complete and utter idiot. Sometimes the things that make you sad are real. Other times you'll make a category error, mistaking something that's actually small for a Big Effing Deal. And sometimes, you'll just make up your misery out of whole cloth with a bit of positive bias backward thinking, reminiscing about what you gave up. They understood me. They had a full comms team. They listened when I told them what to do.
I know it's coming. In the usual Toast pattern of oversharing, I sketched my change curve on the white board next to my desk. That X so firmly at the wee bump in the beginning will start to slide soon. I can already see where my head and heart will probably drift. The key theme will probably be loneliness. We have no change team, one lovely but overworked comms person, no training folks, a tiny PMO. Unless I find someone soon, there's a really good chance that I'll spend months and months with no one who even knows what I'm talking about half the time. You better believe I'll be calling on all my friends and peers to let me bang on and on about what we're doing here as an outlet. I'll have regrets, I'll get nasty and then apologise, I'll whinge and moan and bitch every time ATHop does it's usual fuster with the trains.
I know it's coming, but not today. Today, there is jasmine on my desk, a ton of really cool work to do, and I am being paid to do something I love for a company that is critical to our nation's pandemic response.
It is a really good day.
"It brings a whole new excitement going to somebody else's field and just taking it over and making it your own." ~ Deon Butler
