Update on my new job

I have been on my job for a little over a month now. As I wrote earlier, in the first couple of weeks, I really did not know if or how I would learn everything I needed to know about the areas the organization works in (drinking and waste water systems in rural areas, which is all new to me) and how the organization operated. Many times I had thoughts of despair and even just considered literally running away from the job and the office suddenly, hoping that nobody would say anything about me just abandoning the job. (If you know my story from kindergarten about me jumping up and shouting “Mrs. Tartar!” in the middle of a classroom-wide project, this is the same feeling of panic I was experiencing.)

I still have a lot to learn, and I am still trying to get straight what has been told to me so far. But I seem to have reached a basic understanding, which feels good. It was just a matter of time – not so much forcing more and more information into my mind and pushing my brain to understand it. My mind just needed several days to absorb and organize it. I am pausing a bit at this place to let this much information sink in and while I concentrate not so much on learning the next level of information but more on learning my duties and what in the communications area I can contribute to the organization.

By my fourth week in my position, I passed one milestone and was feeling a lot better about the work – not so bewildered by how I was going to get settled and how I would find my place. For the entire third week on the job, my three other coworkers in the office were away in San Diego attending a conference. So I was all alone for five long days in the office (I didn’t mind it a bit). I spent a lot of time reading back issues of the magazine that I am now the editor for. So that helped me understand what types of stories I needed to be looking out for to put into future issues and how topics were written about (or how I could help improve the coverage of topics). It also helped me learn about the subject matter, but in quite a non-linear way, which isn’t exactly the best way for me, a linear thinker, to learn. So I didn’t retain much from my reading about the subject matter, but still, this was a valuable exercise.

After a lot of reading, I needed to get into the editing of articles for the upcoming issue of the magazine. All feature articles, in theory, are supposed to be written by staff in the organization’s regions (or someone they designate, such as a freelance writer, which happens in some cases). At first I was afraid to start editing these articles because I felt I didn’t understand the subject matter well enough. But once I started the editing, I realized editing them was exactly the best way to start learning the subject matter. I’m taking a fresh approach to how articles are appearing in the magazine. While there’s not a lot I can do about their content, I can at least put interesting and sometimes funny headlines on them. Just because the subject matter is technical and on water and waste water doesn’t mean articles have to be boring, does it?

I’m also feeling more comfortable with my place in the office and my duties. I’m learning what decisions I can just make and implement on my own. I’m gathering information from my coworkers and then using that to make proposals about new things that can be done and how things can be improved. A lot of my new comfort level has to do with the fact that I also have a lot of work to do now. I have three major projects to work on at the moment:

• Editing the summer issue of the magazine
• Re-establishing the organization’s web presence, which essentially means overseeing the redesign of the web site. For this, I am the overall project manager, and I have hired a freelance web designer for that part, who happens to be Sarah’s cousin (Pam, in California), which is, well, by design. When I started in the job, two other web designers with some connection to the organization had submitted bids for this project, and I went to Pam, whom I knew did this type of work, and asked for a bid from her. She was proposing the best tool for what I wanted the new website to do, so I went with her.
• Being in charge of logistics for the organization’s annual conference, which will be held in Rosslyn (across the river from D.C.) in mid-September. I am working with Joy, the coworker who lives and works in Colorado. Although these duties largely aren’t communications-related, there is still a lot I can take the lead on in the planning and implementation of this conference. I am doing a lot of the work and am taking a leading role in establishing a set of five new employee awards for the organization. So this area is a good chance to show how I pay attention to detail, can take the lead and that I can get things done.
  

I feel a lot of pressure now, mostly from myself, to show what I’m made of, to prove myself, and to show how I’m worthy of the title “Communications Director.” After two or three weeks on the job, I really felt like I should have been producing – having something tangible (as communications staff) to show. I couldn’t quite do that right away with the magazine or the website. With the website, I could put a temporary site up (currently there is essentially no site up), but I am deciding to do the thorough redesign first and launch the site after it’s all done later in the proper way. But I am finding a few areas, such as the conference, to show some tangible results.