Thursday, June 12, 2008

A little success story

I feel as though I’ve reached a major milestone at work. For the last couple of years I’ve been talking up and even going as far as channeling a new director coming in to take over our department. I picked out the person and talked to him about how perfect I thought he’d be for the job long before an inkling of a job opening existed. And today it finally happened. He is now the new director of my department. It’s like I willed it to happen. How the powers above me got on my wavelength I’ll never know, and right now I don’t even care. I just know that our current guy is leaving on August 1, and we have a younger, smarter, harder worker to take his place.

This new guy is innovative and has the corporate visibility to get his innovative ideas accomplished. The old guy was just that. Old. He let things just sit. Today, I was trying to find out what happened to a product I helped develop over four years ago and with a little digging, it turns out it was never approved and signed off. The old guy’s email Inbox is a deep hole. Emails come in and are never responded to. In fact they are completely forgotten. So many times he asks for things to be sent to him again because he can't find them in his deep Inbox hole.

As a contrast, just a few minutes ago I asked the new guy for some information, and within a minute I had a response. Now, there’s a big change right there. Responsiveness. What a simple concept. It makes the person who needs the response feel important rather than brushed off with nary a nod in his/her direction.

Needless to say I’m happy about this outcome. I know I won’t be around long to reap the benefits of this change, but at least I’ll have played a big part in making the change happen. That kind of legacy is perfect for me.

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