In Medias Res #19- Hitting My Stride

When I first started my position I will admit I felt somewhat incompetent. Had grad school given me enough content knowledge to reasonably do my job? Yes. Had my grad assistantship provided me with enough professional experience to be able to operate effectively in my new work environment? Of course. Nonetheless I felt meager and uninformed when I first got here. My professional orientation did quite a bit to mitigate this. I started to learn the campus, build relationships, and situate my work in the context of the institution.
There were plenty of times when I felt like an imposter though. Sitting in my first crisis management meeting, discussing a student who I had worked with intensively up until that point, I felt like a moron for not seeing the signs of depression that the student had been exhibiting in egregious ways. My first major student program was for all intents and purposes a wash. The activities were poorly facilitated. The time was poorly managed. No one was really satisfied that any of the identified goals have been achieved.
Now all of this happened early on in my time here. As I got to know the campus, my colleagues, and my students better I learned what I need to focus on and what will take care of itself. My programs now-while by no means perfect- are better administrated, and I regularly receive positive feedback. My students are operating as organizations and as individual peer educators with remarkable efficiency. I am so proud of them, lately. I find myself gushing.
In my own work, specifically in the institutional change work I have been tasked with, I feel competent enough to be able to navigate the waters of bureaucracy to effect real change. In the last month three major organizational outcomes that I have been working on came to fruition in such radically positive ways I was blown away. I still struggle. I still feel the pang of incompetence. But, dear reader, I think I’m hitting my stride.
Yesterday was probably the best day that I’ve had at work since I’ve started. Two major institutional policy changes that I’ve been working on since I got here, and expected to be working on for the next few years, came up for review. And lo and behold, my recommendations were accepted. So now I need to find something new to work on.
My supervisor and I were discussing this morning our recent success, and he suggested he believes it is a byproduct of my ability to navigate the campus culture. Our conversation meandered to another new colleague (we actually started the same day) who has not found any sort of institutional fit. Others have been bubbling over about how this individual should maybe start looking at other opportunities. This is after less than a year!
When I interviewed they told me that the organizational culture was strong. This has its plusses and minuses. Obviously, for someone like me where the culture is a snug fit, I hit my stride a little bit sooner. It seems too like people who fit tend to stay here longer, sometimes for their whole careers working their way up. For others though, especially those who are resistant to the culture, I get the impression we chew them up and spit them out quickly.
For me, I’d rather be at a place where there’s a strong culture that I feel comfortable in. I’m sure to a certain extant it quells dissent, but I’m a strong personality. I’d probably get into quite a bit more conflict otherwise.