The New Year is here. With it comes a sense of the new. In our case, new jobs come close to coinciding. I recently started a new job, working as a Field Service Technician/System Administrator for a large "contract employee" company. It's been an interesting transition. Working at M$, had a much different sense of "team". I think that we created that feeling ourselves, rather than there being any inherently default teamness there. We were a new group of "Orange Badgers" creating a new team, and we pulled together to help each other out. I don't get the same feeling here. Some of that has to do with the environment. We are spread out much thinner, and across a much larger distance. Instead of walking down the hall and grabbing someone to help lift that 85 pound server, or troubleshoot that pesky hardware problem, we are not just in different buildings, we are in different cities much of the time. In fact, there are members of the team that I have never met, save on the phone. That just doesn't provide the same sense of "team" that I have been exposed to in recent years. I've only been there a while, so I expect things to change, but that's where I am right now.
Yvette is also changing jobs. She was recently asked to come on board as a staffer for Overlake Hospital. She will be interacting with the charge nurses on each floor, then calling staffing agencies to supply the nursing staff that is needed. This is an exciting opportunity for her with a large (and growing, if you've been past recently) company that is firmly established. Right now, she will be part-time, with about 20-25 hours per week, but that is expected to change rapidly. Her biggest challenge with this is going to be the change in hours, as she will, on occasion, need to be at work by 4 am. So, be praying for her.
