I Can Haz Employments!

I got a job. Actually, I got an AWESOME job! It’s doing something I have always thought I’d be good at, and which I’ve done as part of other jobs. It’s something I can TOTALLY market myself doing for future job hunts. It’s something where the everyday tasks DON’T make me want to kill the folks with whom I work hardly at all!

But more than the job, the PLACE is also very awesome. It’s small – I like small. (don’t tell that to T.E.) It’s focused on what you need to do, NOT “be here for 8 hours every day, regardless of your workload, just so we know where you are.” There’s the opportunity to work from home pretty much anytime I want to, and there’s days off! Sanctioned, approved, “no really, we do think you should take time off” days off! And the people I work with are ALL. TOTALLY. GROWN-UPS. I manage things, but I don’t have to manage people – the people are grown-ups and they want to be grown-ups. The culture is one that rewards grown-uppy behavior. It mocks those who want to be baby-sitted. We’re one step away from arming the staff w/ behavior-modification squirt guns, except that we don’t need to because everybody has such adult behavior!

I <3 my awesome new job.

I’ve been there for just over a week, so right now I’m in that place that I hate, where I’m new and don’t know anything and can’t really contribute. Every time I think of something else I could do I run forward until I’m jerked back, ‘doggy-in-a-Looney-Tunes-Cartoon’-style by the leash around my neck that is “I have to go get someone else to show me how to do this before I can actually do ANYTHING…” Which sucks. It gets better and better, though. On the first few days I could only go about 3 feet from the stake by the doghouse door, but at this point I can get all the way to the back of the yard. I’m hoping by the end of the month I’ll be able to give the mailman a good growling-to!

Once this awesome job hit my radar (the process to get hired was VERY long and drawn out. Many conversations. Many emails saying “I’m still here and still awesome. Just sayin’…” Plus also the company had the whole “I need to hire someone because I’m overworked, but I’m so stinkin’ overworked I have no time to do the work to hire someone!” conundrum going on…) I also started reading this business book. Now, let me start by saying I totally hate business books. For all of the many reasons that one could hate a business book, such as that they’re boring and condescending and chock full of lies and all anecdotal (oh wait – I already said ‘chock full of lies’…) and soooo boring! I’ve had to read some in the past and I got through them, but then when it was over I blotted out all the info from those books as a terrible dream that was, as I’ve mentioned, just chock FULL OF LIES…

But this book? This new book geared toward the people in business? This new book is cool. Stinkin’ cool. And it’s not really just a business book. It’s a book of wisdom and smarts! It’s a book of ‘here’s how to do something that EVERYBODY HAS TO DO ALL THE TIME IN LIFE.’ It’s all about how to make changes. It’s subtitle is “How to change things when change is hard” and I always think “when the heck is change NOT hard???” (Answer: never. It’s always, always hard.) I’m half-way through the book and I’m actually retaining information and, even more shocking for me, spitting these knowledge nuggets out to other people! Heck, I’m borderline annoying in the way that I’m always quoting this book. Next annoying step: when I start buying this book as a gift for others, even though they never asked for it and probably also hate business books because all reasonable people do.

I don’t know that I’ve ever promoted a book or CD or anything on this blog before. This is a first in 5 years of blogging. Feel free to hear a drumroll in your head, or even make the drumroll sound with your fingers on your desk. Or with your mouth if you have the skills. (dirty) Ready? Here it is, my first ever pitch:

Read this book: “Switch: How to Change Things when Change is Hard”, by Chip and Dan Heath.

Tangent: yeah, I know, I had the same reaction. “business book writing brothers? Really? Named ‘Chip’ and ‘Dan’? Really too? But now that I’m more than half-way through the book I think of them as the witty, brilliant Hardy Boys of business book writing. In my head I even heard the voices of Shawn Cassidy and Parker Stevenson talking to me about how to affect change. Just makes it all that much more awesome… End tangent.

…where was I? Oh yeah – I haz a job and is getting up in the morning again, which is hard, but I’m loving it, so it’s totally worth it. Next stop: place-to-live-ville!!!!