In life we are always looking what’s ahead of us, we try to leave the past behind and move on. However, there are a lot of changes and challenges waiting for us, no one can figure whether they are right or wrong, they just exist and that’s what’s fun about it! Sure you can stick around, look for signs, evaluate the warnings and make a Pros and Cons list, but in life you have to take your chances because this world keeps on turning and quite literally nothing stays the same.
I star work in a completely new department tomorrow. As part of my work contract I will be spending the next 3 months in a completely new environment with completely new people and a different skill set required.
Am I terrified? No! I love change and throughout my life I’ve had to deal with it all the time! I usually follow these 3 simple steps:
1. Be open. People in your new environment will be as eager to meet you as you are to meet them. Introduce yourself to everyone and try to keep an open relationship with everyone at the beginning.
2. Be curious. Learn and explore, the best thing you can get out of a new experience is… experience! New skills, knowledge, contacts and ideas - none of these will hurt you!
3. It’s temporary. This one depends on how you live your life! I am spontaneous and hate stability and stagnation. I love to be on the move, constantly exposed to changes and new experiences. I never stick around doing the same thing or living in the same place for more than 2 years - so if you want, you can believe that every new challenge and experience is temporary!
You don’t have to feel trapped, changes can be good !!
Environment
Work environment will often define your whole experience at a company. Your space, your tools and the people who surround you often influence your productivity, decision making capability and your mood. These three factors then define your efficiency and can often distract you from achieving your goals. Or at least, that is how I see it.
A negative work environment, no matter how hard you try, will influence your mood and the shear enthusiasm you bring to a company as a young professional. Negativity floating in the air can easily kill all your creative instincts and your idea breeding mind, things which are apparently sought after in virtually any industry around the world.
In my work environment this negativity is induced by 3 different groups of people I named using popular internet identified tribes.
a) Haters
“Haters gonna hate” is a theme behind a popular meme. This group of people is trying to convince everyone that they hate their job. They are constantly complaining and dissing the company they work for. Are they doing anything about it? No! As simple as that.
b) Wasters
“Wasters gonna waste” - I sense a potential for a new meme. This is a group of people going by the title of “Project Managers”. They all have their own area of expertise which leads to a stable job and a salary. They spend their days in Dilbert-esque manner, and do about 2 hours of valuable work a day.
c) Hipsters
“Courage the Cowardly Dog” must be their cartoon of choice. People who are generally scarred of everything and dislike everyone else around due to a difference in opinion/style/attitude. They are real pessimists and you can either be like them or be against them.
This is just a juvenile description of my observations at work, however as far as I am aware this is an unsustainable problem in any non-tech, middle and large size organizations.
Personally, I could ignore all the people who create this bubble of negativity if there were enough people who were enthusiastic about the work and the company. A group of driven, dynamic engineers fueled by the passion for the brand and reminiscence of the heritage, unfortunately that’s not the case.
Tools and space also play an important factor in your daily routine. I can’t write much about them as I work in a huge open space office and use a very specialized set of tools which I actually like. With teraflops of computing capacity at my fingertips, farms of workstations and a unix machine, a geek like me can’t really complain.
