Meanwhile, back at the farm

I’m transitioning responsibilities this week and moving into a new role at BYU-Idaho. To date, I’ve been working with the Academic Technology department here on developing a strategy for the future of what they call I-Learn.  I-Learn is a conglomerate of Blackboard 8 and other learning tools like a flash media server and Adobe Connect.  Most of what I’ve posted here recently has come from activities, research, or task forces that I’ve been a part of.  This has been an exhilarating experience for the last 10 months and I’ve enjoyed it a great deal.

As I move away from I-Learn into my new role, I can’t help but think of this graphic from whatconsumesme.com that I ran across recently on twitter:

I’ve now been working at BYU-Idaho for just over a month.  This is a fabulous job and exactly what our family needed after the untimely, but not unexpected, termination of my employment from Sento.  I believe that through divine intervention, this job was an answer to prayer and it has worked out on many many levels for us.  For that, I am grateful.

It hasn’t all been sugar and spice however.  I worked at Sento for 8 years and it was really my only real work experience.  I learned a lot there, but one major disadvantage is that I only saw one view of the world – a world constantly struggling to stay alive.  In that environment, anyone that has the wherewithal and the guts to step up and get things done gets recognized and appreciated.  I was really used to that.  When stuff needed to get done, you did all you could to do it.  Although business politics existed, they were easily surmountable if you were reasonable and presented a good case.

As with any company or organization of the size and scale of BYUI, you just aren’t going to have the freedom to grow, develop, and just plain get things done.  The barriers are tall and their roots are deep. Worse yet, the barriers are not always apparent, documented, or well known unless you have been in the company for many many years.  Often, I find myself like the proverbial cow bouncing along an electric fence inadvertently getting shocked when all I was trying to do was get some tastier grass.

Learning the culture and unspoken/unwritten boundries of any new job is difficult.  Lately, I’ve been trying to bump less into the fence and just be content with the pasture I’m in.  I’ve found that I’m less frustrated and generally more happy.  So the lesson to be learned here is to work within that you can control, get over the occasional hand slapping, and keep your head down on the work you’ve been given.  Trying to be a hero constantly is not always the best approach. The key is to keep your eyes open for opportunities to get that tastier grass, and when they come, take them.