#56 - Impact statement

Wednesday, February 29

Today I am thankful for a pool.  And a hotel that does not cater to tourists.  And the fact that it's February and there are no tourists in upstate NY in February.

Tuesday night was super busy - I walked in from work, made dinner while doing laundry, and when those 2 things were done, I slept.  Today I got up at 4 and hit the fab at 6:30 like always.   It was a very very busy day in the fab.  A very very busy day out of the fab, and I had 5 hours of meetings on the calendar that I couldn't skip.  It was a day, like many, that was destined from the start to end with more things to do than it started with.

Today was the first day that I had a tough customer meeting where I was the face of my company.  It snowed today, starting about 10am, and several people (including my boss) had to head home because schools and daycare were closing early.  So at this meeting from 1-3, I was the main guy from my company.  It was not easy, because we had some bad news for the customer.  And we had made some mistakes that we had to talk about.  But it worked out.

After the meeting, I called my boss to debrief.  We talked for an hour.  About a lot of things.  At the end of it, she asked me to take on a new responsibility.  Which I was okay with, as long as it meant that other things could drop.  I don't know which ones yet, but there would be things that I could not do if I had to own that project.

What felt the best was that she referred to my work so far as "instant impact".  I hope to be able to gather the forces around and start to coalesce some improvements.  It's not a matter of making a plan and forcing it on people - it's a matter of pulling things together, because many of our problems have to do with people being separate.  So we have to come together into one team.  We are already there as far as desire goes, and actions are starting to follow.

The pic today is again from my commute to the airport on Friday morning.  I always wondered where those beautifully snowed-on houses next to a frozen lake were in movies.  They are here, about an hour's drive from NYC.

The pic is blurry because it was barely dawn and I was driving (slowly and cautiously).  The scene was just too pretty.

Alas, with that snowfall (I don't think I can call it a snow storm here) and the snow that fell today, snow is simply another weather pattern.  Common, to be dealt with.  I hope I always enjoy the beauty of it, but it certainly is not a special treat any more.  This is my 4th snowfall in NY in a total of 31 days.  And this has been a warm, dry winter.  Winter 12-13 should be fun.