Well, I've been on the job for almost one month now. Everyone I run into keeps asking me how the new job is - I guess maybe because I told everyone who would hold still that I was looking for work a couple of months ago hoping that all that networking would result in someone knowing something or someone who needed the kind of help I could provide!
Nonetheless, I originally thought the task of adapting would more or less end at the goal: get a job. Nope. So wrong.
In my old job, I had been around longer than my boss and so he often times looked to me for answers. Now, I find myself looking for the answers. It has been so long since I have been up against a learning curve like this to learn a new organization, a new supervisor, a new peer group, a new building culture and new on-the-job skills! For example, the website I now administer runs on Joomla!. I find this program to be buggy, hard to navigate and poorly designed on the user-interface. As a result, I had looked at it a couple of times, but never used it because it was too messy. Alas, my new webpage is set up on this and requires me adapting to this format.
While, admittedly, this is an example of only one portion of my new job I have to adapt to, I think it is a perfect example of how a person's ability to shift and adapt to an environment is key to their success. I had a couple of options when I learned Joomla! was the program running the site I was now responsible for: 1. Run for the hills. Avoid the task and keep my sanity; 2. Beg, plead, negotiate or pay-off someone to move the site to a different program; 3. Convince the boss that someone else should take it over - maybe the technology guy? or 4. Dive in, head first, and learn how to run the thing like a veteran programmer! So, you ask, what did I do?
Well, thank goodness Borders was having a sale! I flew over there, picked up the heftiest book I could find on Joomla! (which, as it turns out is NOT worth its weight in gold!) and started studying. Between my new "work bible", some handiwork on online searches and lots of support from fellow web-designers. I can now at least functionally navigate the site modules. I'm still learning all the ins and outs of Joomla!, but from where I started, I'm doing well! And, the more surprising part - I'm loving the challenge it brings!
So, as it turns out, adapting hasn't stopped at the acceptance offer or the first day of work; it is a continued process which finds ways to weave itself into my life, suffocating out the passive options of keeping to what's safe or comfortable.
The good news for you, readers, is that means I have plenty of material to keep blogging about, so stay tuned!
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