Cow’s Life - Thinking Outside Of The Barn

When I took the new teaching job back in Jan this year, I was fully expecting to work as a low key technical trainer and just do my teaching.

Just 2 weeks ago, my role and responsibility suddenly changed. Now, I am appointed as the new education manager of the new organization we are building as the result of the recent acquisition. So forget about staying at home and teach. I have been flying non stop in the last 2 weeks to attend summit meetings to lay out plans to build this new organization. Like a few years back when I worked on a high profile DC job that nearly destroyed my mental heath, here I am again, sitting with a full room of execs and VPs throwing big words at each other and demanding big dollars without the politeness.

I was much younger then, less mature and was very much afraid of these big boys. 4 years have passed and I noticed a huge difference between me now and the me then: I don’t give a fuck of what’s going on… Last week, I booked a 5pm flight to come home. The partner who owns the organization suddenly asked me to stay for one more day for a meeting that I was never invited to. I flat out said that I had to go home tonight. In front of all the VPs/Execs, he yelled at me, “Christine? Do you want to get fired?” Crap! What do I care?! I quit once remember? So I threw my hands in the air, “Great! FIRE ME!” Everybody busted in laughs and continued with whatever they were doing… I ended up delaying my 5pm flight to 7:25pm, attended the meeting for 2 more hours, gave my opinions and flew back home.

One thing I learned from these Big Boys in the last 2 weeks was that these guys all have big nasty attitude and have “I am the Boss. Don’t mess with me” written all over on their foreheads. As opposed to the file and rank employees like myself, we are used to the concept to “perform well” and to “please our boss and others”. The more we try to please others, the less respect we get. It’s week 2 into my new job and I have been putting on a big nasty “Don’t mess with me or no education for your people” banner on my forehead too. It’s been working quite well and I have networked with quite a lot Partners and Execs in the last a few days to talk about Value-Adds and importance of getting their people trained… I know.. I know.. It’s all corporate buillshit… Even though I am working in a cut throat environment right now, nothing is like working on a fucked up slavery client project. To be honest, I don’t think these big guys jobs are that hard. The consultants who are working on the fields truly have the hardest jobs. So my hat’s off to those of you who are still out there busting your asses everyday. It’s a great job to start your career with, but don’t stay out there for too long… I know I will never get back to the consulting career again…