Job Hunt the Development Stage!

I was on the hunt in my prior blog.  I had some great specifications that were modified to meet my changing business requirements.  

So the specifications were in.  Now I had to develop my job.   Develop my job?   How on earth do you develop your own job?!!!  You go to an interview, you find the job, you get hired.   The development is done.  The job has been predefined.  Or developed by the hiring manager.  So – yes if that is what you are thinking, you are right.  My job was predefined.  I had requirements / they had requirements.   It worked out and here I am, a proud employee at Westcon.    So my job description has been developed.

So what exactly is the development stage?

It is that nervous time.  That time where you are meeting everyone. 

Overall Development

1. Developing abilities.
2. Developing relationships within your new company.
3. Developing an understanding where you fit into everything.
4. Developing an understanding of your company itself.  Learning the big picture.  What is your company’s mission statement?
5. Developing an understanding of the organization chart.

Day to day development

1. Developing an understanding of how the SAP system for YOUR new company is configured.
2. Developing ABAP Requirements
3. Developing Programs
4. Developing role within various program teams

How am I going about it?

Relationships / organization chart

Too slow.   Well at least it feels like it is too slow.   I am learning about my company daily.  I am interacting with people from different areas of the globe.   For me, I had some of the skills from playing with the SAP Mentor team.   BUT it is now a part of my daily life.   I have to think about where my co-worker is located.  Am I asking for a meeting at 1 AM in the morning? 

I have this cool new fangled thing.  IM.  I sometimes have 3 conversations going at once as well as a meeting.   That’s not normal.  In fact it only happened once.   But it takes some getting used to.  My old company did not have IM until I was leaving.   So I am learning how to multi-task even more than I did before.  DARN IT!  I thought it would be less because I was working from home and people wouldn’t be coming up and asking about other projects.   Sure.  Welcome to the new age.    IM is actually very cool.   I love the easy way I can talk with people.

Meeting my co-workers is so easy.   I have worked closely with several of them already.   We have Webex and IM.    It’s amazing how much you can tell about a person by how they talk via IM.  Yes, that is the real them.  Send is pressed too soon sometimes.

I still don’t really understand the organization of my company.   I probably won’t real soon.  Why?  Because I am a normal weird programmer.  That is lower on my list of priorities.    I just like to design, code, and have my work appreciated.   Who, where they are – doesn’t matter as much.

Company vision

Can I admit the truth here?  I guess I will.   I generally know the company’s vision.  I got a great video from them even before I started.   But in detail, and how I can help it happen.   Ahhhh….   I guess that is one of the many things I still am in process of developing.

Where do I fit?

Gosh I don’t know.  I make it up as I go along.

Day to Day

This one is easy.   Day to day I start to work on projects.  

Day to day – I develop.  I don’t just mean programming.  I don’t mean I developed the job description.   I don’t mean totally development of yourself.   It’s a blending of skills.  But in order to develop your place in the company, you have to understand the company, develop relationships, and well everything above and more.   So to me it is developing your place in your new company.   To me development is knowledge.  And learning is never ending.  You have to love it!

So by the way – this is one of those projects that are never ending.  Long and you have to break it down into smaller pieces.   For me that is hard.  I want it all and I want it now.   That’s not so much going to happen for a while.