spring cleaning

Since I was chained to my desk today, waiting on phone calls and such, I was able to clean up around my (temporary) office. Here’s something I didn’t share with you, poppets, and I hope you’ll understand why.

For the past few months (since January), I’ve been an acting Area Manager. What’s an Area Manager? Good question. For us, it’s the position between our front-line managers and the Director. It’s the equivalent of a vice-president or deputy director. It’s been an eye-opening experience, and I’ve really enjoyed learning to view everything through a very wide system lens. It’s also been a humbling experience that has taught me just how little power those in this position wield. Honestly, I consider myself an ambitious person; so, I’m a bit surprised at myself wanting to get back to being with front-line staff. I think I miss having an immediate team, attaining goals and ticking off projects, chatting with the coffee klatch. Or, maybe it’s the fact that this is an acting gig, where I’m constantly trying to figure out if I should take on a project or not (Will I be able to finish in time? What are my parameters? Should I make a decision that someone else will have to live with?).


The main thing I’ve learned is this: I am very good at my job. Perhaps it’s the vigour of youth and the tenacity of personality, I don’t know. It’s certainly not the strength of memory or experience, that’s for sure. What I do know is that my team will have some catching up to do when I return. I’m looking forward to reviewing their checklist of accomplishments for the past 6 months.

Also, in my captivity, I’ve been poking around the site. I’m thinking a slight redesign may be in order.
- I’m sad to see the blog roll so stagnant. I never did find a suitable replacement for del.icio.us and so my links suffer from static issues. It’s too bad there’s no easy way to have facebook/twitter produce a widget that would do this.
- I’m also annoyed by the flickr pics which are woefully out of date. Flickr became especially annoying when they made you create a yahoo account. Which I already had but they wouldn’t allow to merge. So, that died. Wish there was easy way to just have the photos pulled from elsewhere.
- I used the randomosity link to click about some old entries and was appalled – appalled! – at the amount of typos/errors/missing words. Poppets – why do you even come here?! Yuck.

I need to pay some attention to this space. I’ve added it to my ever-growing list of life-maintenance items that quickly fall off the table. I need to catch up on my reading, writing, cleaning, and laundry. Anyone looking to be my Friday? Because, while I seem to have come to grips with managing people, I have lost the battle in managing my life.