Here We Go Again...

Well, I suppose it's time to come clean.  

Back in October, while I was on my vacation, the rest of my coworkers got some news from our employer.  Don't get me wrong here - I would love to do another 15 years at this organization.  I have been treated very nicely, I love the work I'm doing, I'm good at it, and there is the possibility I might be able to stay.  

And I say this because I've found this organization is unlike so many others I've worked with.  They're impressive, technologically, and they listen and do make changes.  I'd be honored to be able to stay.

If they chose not to keep me, that's not going to change my opinion.  I'm an adult.  While the situation isn't what I'd like, I have found many people in the organization are just plain old good decent people.  No head games, no dead air, we;re updated regularly on what's happening.  

But the notice that my job might go away has me once again tuning up the resume and getting my name out there.  What I have noticed this time is there appear to be some real changes with the search tools that are now available.  And not much in the way of improvement.  I get it.  Artificial Intelligence (Sorry, Apple, it's Artificial - if I wanted "Apple Intelligence" I'd go see someone at the University of Minnesota - they know a hell of a lot more about useful apples than you do - I didn't drink your Kool-aid.  And now, with Jobs gone, you need some significant help.  End of digression #2) isn't worth it's IQ in pennies (that's right, not quite 2 cents).  I get it.  Twenty years in IT, who in the wide wide world would not want to leverage that knowledge?  ME.  

The irony?  One of the main reasons I left IT was I was tired of getting blindsided, dealing with people who were at best able to spell the word Ethics.  One former supervisor newly hired and promoted to do the job I'd earned took me out to lunch, then told me to tell him honestly what parts of the job were the most interesting that I'd like to keep doing?  I told him I enjoyed the daily contact with my fellow employees, the desk-side give-and-take as I learned what it was people wanted their systems to do, figuring out how to do it, and learning how they could adapt what I had figured out to do what they needed.  I enjoyed keeping things running, keeping things easy to use, and keeping up with the skills I needed to help my coworkers get the most from their technology.  I told him I was as excited about keeping existing systems going as I was about new technology - his favorite bit.

Three days later I was called into the HR department and informed that because I had told my boss I was not willing to change systems, I was being let go.  When I asked what exactly I had said that was the trigger, the manager read a sentence which I had not, and never would say.  I asked if he had played a recording of that sentence, and the manager said that he had not recorded it.  So I then asked if anyone else had ever reported me saying something along those lines (knowing I had not), and I was told that the manager had said he was not going to be able to work with me.  So I asked if there was a reason that they were willing to let go an employee who had worked for many years and received many good reviews and recognition, and I was told "it's his department now."

I know that sounds pretty terrible, but I learned a very long time ago about leadership basics.  And one of the most critical things that most leaders learn (and some, unfortunately, never do) is that good leaders are first and always good FOLLOWERS.  How's that?  It's pretty obvious when you think about it.  A lot of people will think of leaders as the person at the head of the line.  Good leaders will also follow other leaders - otherwise the person at the head of the line is out for a walk, a disruptive leader is leading the group somewhere else.

It follows pretty logically.  But a lot of leadership examples don't look for it.  In Scouting, I learned that you might be a patrol leader, but you're not in charge of the show.  You might be given a piece of the show, but it's your responsibility to do THAT job to the best of your abilities and make sure it fits in with everyone else's pieces.  But while in college I had a management professor who lit the candle for me there.  "No one gets promoted unless there's someone capable of doing their job - great leaders insure their organization grows through competence and training."  

While in IT, I borrowed many ideas from other leaders.  The idea of a "beer truck book" came from one of my friends who used that to define the collection of knowledge that someone would need to step up and do his job if he was run over by a beer truck.  One presumes any other truck that would damage him would also bring the book out.  But mine, well, I use another title.  I call it my "Bag of Tricks".  On Day 1 whenever I start a new job that involves working on a computer, I open a document and start taking notes.  Any question I have to ask, anything I have to hunt down, knowledge that I need to know, I make a quick note.  

The easy thing is that, in Word, if you know a few easy techniques to setting something like this up.  I use styles in Word - one is the "Tip Header" which is where I enter the title of the tip - "Help Desk Help" - and then I use another style for "Tip Body".  Then I can use the Table of Contents Feature, I use the Tip Header as one of the levels of the the Table of Contents, then I can go up to the top of the document, build the table of contents, and update the entire table, it loads all of my tips.  

I know, I know, bragging.  But hey, I have to build my new Health Care resume somehow.  The trick with AI is it is, right now, so utterly focused on my IT background that it's throwing all sorts of IT jobs I'm no longer qualified for.  So there's the challenge, 

But the good news is that, while I've got about 7 weeks left, I've also got thirteen weeks of severance if they don't keep me, and I've got vacation time that will also get paid out, 100%, if I'm laid off.  So while I don't want to wait that long, I have a safety net.  

So here we got again...