On the new job

I’m going to be a project manager for Ticketmaster starting in March. I’m really excited about this for several reasons:

• I won’t be managing people anymore.
• I’ll be managing projects, which I’ve always loved doing. I get a big kick when we all pull it off in the end.
• I’ll have the opportunity to really build those technical skills I’ve been worrying about.
• They’re excited about me and my pending LIS degree.
• I will get to use my pending LIS degree.
• It isn’t where I work now.

I posted on my other blog about how things at my current workplace have been going. It’s a rather whiny post, so I’m not going to link to it, but really the gist was that I’m tired of managing people. More importantly, I’m tired of managing people new to the workplace. Most of the folks I manage are fresh out of college – some are still finishing college – and this is their first “real” job. Thus, some of them have a lot to learn about professionalism.

Now, a school pal just posted on his blog some interesting comments about professionalism (and he always posts great stuff, btw), and I have to say that I agree with him. The concept/dogma of professionalism can be used to choke people’s ability to communicate and grow. How often have you or someone you know been written off with a “Oh, that’s just not professional,” when really, it was just what they didn’t want to hear or they just want you to comply obediently?

I guess the professionalism I’m thinking of is really just maturity, as applied to the work place. The ability to choose your battles. The ability to communicate a complaint or a critique without coming off as a total asshole. The ability to accept change. All of these things are hard to do – and I don’t think anyone completely masters all these skills – but the idea is to try. I guess I got tired of working with people who don’t even try and can’t understand why they should. Not to say that everyone I worked with is like this. It just that I’ve been in my current spot for 7 years and after a while, you get tired to teaching a few people every few months that they can’t, say, call someone a lazy bastard in an email that’s sent to the entire division and not expect to get their hand slapped for it.

I’m sure Ticketmaster has a handful of people who struggle with professionalism (at least my “lite” concept of it) too, but at least it won’t be my job to teach it to them.