Friday Freewrite Vol. 1

Well this is neat...I was paying a visit to Janet at Fond of Snape and found that she'd done a neat MeMe - so of course I followed the source link and found myself at "A Life Less Ordinary"...a blog that I'm going to need to start reading! The MeMe hosted there is called Friday Freewrite, and I'm excited to participate!

So here we go...here's what is given as the directions:

Freewriting is writing, without editing, whatever comes to mind for a predetermined amount of time without regard to spelling, grammar, structure, etc.

I have set my timer for six minutes...let's see what comes spilling out of my mind.

I had my six month review with my boss yesterday...hard to believe it's already been six months! My payroll changeover was in mid-August (I forget the exact date) but I had a three week transition with closing out my old job and didn't really start until September, after Labor Day...and so here we are, with a lot more time gone by than I'd realized.

He started by asking me what was working well for me and what wasn't. I shared that I have a frustration over being involved as a project manager or team member or team lead for so many initiatives right now that I feel like I'm doing a lot of work but not accomplishing much. He promised, in the future, to ask me first before volunteering me up. He also explained that the reason he'd volunteered me for so many projects is to give me exposure to as many higher level managers as possible, so I'm in a good position to move up and move on after I've been in my job for 12-24 months. (At AA, we're encouraged to move around pretty often.) I expressed that my pleasure in my job was getting to work with a diverse set of people, and feeling like I am well accepted and respected.

His feedback for me was that he noticed that I was a bit timid for the first few months about fully participating in meetings, but that he figured that was because there was an enormous learning curve and since I'm the lowest level manager in most of our groups, he though I was probably feeling a bit intimidated. DING, DING, DING. Hit that in one. He followed that up by saying, however, that he'd gotten great feedback on my work from all of the project sponsors I've been working with and that he has noticed that I've been far more participative in the past few months and that he's even been impressed that I've slipped into a role of facilitator in some higher level meetings, to ensure we're staying on track and accomplishing our objectives. He told me that I should continue to get involved in as much as possible and he thought I'd be on my way to new roles before I knew it.

Since I just recently earned my PHR, he also asked me to look at my score report and let him know what areas I wanted to gain more exposure in so he could hook me up with the right people. Is this man not a dream to work for? It's a fabulous change from some of my prior bosses, and I'm so thankful to be in this job...and working for him!

Ok...six minutes. There you've got it! :-) By the way, if you're looking for a great online stopwatch, look no further!