It was a roller coaster of sorts on the job front the last two weeks. On two particular days nobody could've told me I was on a tropical island with Diamond Head in the distance and billions of gallons of blue Pacific Ocean surrounding where I live. It was get up, go to work, PT, come home, eat, sleep, and do the same thing over and over until today. I was getting mentally drained handling everything under the sun that after one staff meeting, our Deputy Commander and Command Chief saw that I wasn't on my usual point and decided to drive over to my building on Pearl Harbor to see how I was doing. When they walked in, I half-jokingly said 'Looks like this is going to be a discussion about my walking papers,' to which they both said something to the effect of 'No, nothing like that' and 'What in the world are you talking about?'
Turns out it was a motivational visit and it was a good one. My boss - who I have the utmost respect for and who played the biggest part in me getting selected for this job when both of us were still on the mainland, is someone I could usually talk to. But in this scenario there were things I could say to these two that I couldn't say to the boss directly. The Deputy and Chief also have my utmost respect because they're always sincere whenever we talk one-on-one about things - whether professional or personal, and it was great to get their perspectives and advice on the situation. Regarding the boss in particular, I felt he was starting to lose faith in my management of the several projects that are simultaneously on-going. My own assessment is that I'm handling them just fine, but the impression I keep getting from him is that he's disappointed because my suspense on closing the projects are taking longer than he sees they should be. ...and they're beyond my control!
Having been an operations leader for over a decade, I feel very confident in managing the business end of my duties. I get paid well to do what I need to do, and if I felt I wasn't up to speed, I would quit, or resign, even retire (because I can).
But the motivational discussion that lasted nearly two hours served its purpose to get me out of my tunnel vision and focus on the end goal. I was grateful they took the time to come over and talk about things. I got to show them my facility and the progress we made improving and furnishing it, and the status of where I was at for each project. In the end, I found I still am good in everyone's eyes, and that I maintain standards that are high which sometimes gets me in trouble around here and should keep things in relative perspective. If you've ever worked here, you know what I'm talking about. Everything is on 'island time.' Everything. I just need to remember to look around and throttle back to a pace matching the environment, and that it's ok to do so. But the important takeaway from this visit is that the boss is good with my performance - he's just got a lot going on right now.
I should've known that.
Anyway, that makes this beer taste that much better and I'm glad it's Friday. ~
But the motivational discussion that lasted nearly two hours served its purpose to get me out of my tunnel vision and focus on the end goal. I was grateful they took the time to come over and talk about things. I got to show them my facility and the progress we made improving and furnishing it, and the status of where I was at for each project. In the end, I found I still am good in everyone's eyes, and that I maintain standards that are high which sometimes gets me in trouble around here and should keep things in relative perspective. If you've ever worked here, you know what I'm talking about. Everything is on 'island time.' Everything. I just need to remember to look around and throttle back to a pace matching the environment, and that it's ok to do so. But the important takeaway from this visit is that the boss is good with my performance - he's just got a lot going on right now.
I should've known that.
Anyway, that makes this beer taste that much better and I'm glad it's Friday. ~
