Deep

Delayed post from yesterday:

It’s clear and sunny on the flight to Denver right now. I’m strangely hungry, I ate a salad at TGI Fridays but I guess that wasn’t enough substance after the copious amounts of ham, meat balls, turkey and other food from the Easter festivities this weekend.

I had a great time this weekend, much more so than my birthday weekend. I’m still upset about that – that weekend started off “great” (rolling eyes) as major project issues came to head on Thursday late in the day as I was driving home… It continued to progress to another (separate) project issue that came up Friday followed by roughly 4 hrs of work on Saturday and Sunday (with one trip to the office on Sunday) to try and bring a project (which I was told was under control) back to something manageable on Monday morning. Anyways, enough about that – all is done, water under the bridge as they say.

I am certainly ready to return home for good. I am very tired of dealing with people by phone and email. I am learning my capabilities to manage projects from a distance – it is much easier to do so when you can sit down with the person/people for 5-10 mins and go through in detail what is needed. Talking over the phone doesn’t have the same effect.

Throughout the course of my 6 months away from home, I have come to appreciate a lot of things along with learning things about myself:

I like my space – apartment living is not for me. As much as shoveling and cutting grass is “not fun”, there is something about having space that you can call your own that makes it ok.

I don’t like being by myself. I know, weird when I can be so quiet – but spending an hour FaceTiming Gwen everyday isn’t the same as being able to talk (or just listen) as we make dinner, do laundry, shovel, etc. I truly underestimated this fact going into this adventure.

Combined with number 2, when there is no one (or nothing) to occupy my time, I tend to be consumed by work. I need to draw better lines between “work time” and “personal time”. It’s too easy to say “hmm, nothing to do, might as well read email” or “work on this report” or whatever might need to be done.
The philosophy in Montreal (at work) is very much “production, production, production” whereas other modification centres (such as Tucson) it has a more relaxed or realistic feel. I guess I feel I have better control over the destiny of the projects there than in Montreal where it is very much “here is what we want and better get”.

I have difficulty delegating. Big surprise, I knew this already. However, I have learned why this is – I expect people to be autonomous like myself, to be able to act with little direction provided, search out potential solutions and then talk to the proper people to validate if those solutions are viable. I guess I need to learn how to delegate better – provide guidance and training and check in more often.

I guess it is all part of the experience of working away from home. You get to experience new things and learn about yourself in the mean time.

Well, time to iron some pants for work tomorrow. Hope to blog again soon.


Adam Coolidge, E.I.T.
Certification Specialist / Program Manager Montreal Completions
ACS-NAI Ltd., EMTEQ Canada
Office: (514) 855-5001 ext 50665
Cell: (204) 226-2761
Email: acoolidge@emteq.com
Website: www.acs-nai.com