No, I’m not giving up on my weekly updates. Have a little more faith in me…don’t expect me to give up until at least February. 🙂
What the title alludes to is the fact that this upcoming week is my last week at Intrado (previously West Corporation). It’s been a personally interesting ride to say the least.
I started as an architect, but soon found myself in an engineering role. I excelled in that role in part because I continued to apply the architecture mindset and applied that to the engineering designs I produced. I’m proud to say that many of the designs I contributed to are continuing to provide value to my co-workers.
Thinking back I feel that my personal growth while working in this position was equally half technical and half business/political. Early on, a lot of the discussions I had with directors and co-workers showed me that the human component of engineering was critical for projects to succeed. A solid technical design will never succeed if there is a well-placed individual who has their own plans. Teaming up with these individuals opened my eyes to their point of view and gave me a chance to advocate for my positions while finding a “happy medium”.
I’m hoping I’m leaving Intrado a better company. The past three years have been rough on all my co-workers, but I truly think that Intrado is finally turning the corner. Some have asked why I’m still leaving if I believe it is getting better. While I am comfortable that my position and employment is safe within Intrado, I feel that I’ve reached the end of the benefit I can provide. I’ve been the “automation advocate” and championing the “Digital Transformation” process, but there is only so much one person can do. I’m hoping my departure will rock the boat enough that multiple others will rise to the challenge and provider a larger group of experts.
And I realized that for the past 18 years I’ve had a 35 minute commute to work (either Intrado or Maryville) – excluding the ~3 years I worked from home and rounding to two 30-minute commute sessions each workday, I have spent a total of 150 days (over 3700 hours) sitting in my car for work days. I’m looking forward to my next employers office which is roughly 12 minutes from my home, even in inclement weather.
So, what else besides my job?
This week I started a number of conversations helping my parents sell their house and get completely moved into the assisted living apartment. We’re starting to work with the estate sales team while we work on some known things to fix up. We know we have some electrical that we’ll have to clean up before putting the house on the market, but some of that are things that Dad and I can do ourselves and we’ll leave the big work to the electrician.
As a late Christmas gift to my parents, we’re paying for a year of the Cox DVR service for them. Many of the shows that Mom loves are (in)conveniently timed at the same time or when they are at appointments. Now they can keep up with their shows as they have been used to when they had DirectTV.
Kris is still under the weather, but she did take herself to the Urgent Care office today and they have her on an antibiotic – I’m hoping she continues to improve, I’m not use to seeing her this sick.
Jilli and her friends headed back to college earlier this week. They left early to miss the snows coming in, but she ended up leaving some fairly important items (her winter coat!) so we have to get them shipped to her soon.
Lizzy took a placement exam for High School Saturday- she came out tired but in good spirits so I’m hoping she did well. To celebrate her “survival” we went out for lunch at Raising Caines – always a good choice IMHO too!
Finally, thanks to everyone I have worked with at Intrado. I wish you all the best and I hope you’ll keep in touch.