Since the start of the year, my full-time position has been evolving.
A previous employee in our department was charged with fraud last fall. As a result, many of the policies in our department needed to change. Our department is a small (four employees) IT department in one of the faculties at the University of Lethbridge. Previous to these fraud charges, a single person controlled purchasing, receiving and inventory.
In the last six months, I have been made steward over all the technological equipment used by our faculty. This amounts to hundreds of items on three campuses with a total value of roughly $250,000. As steward, I have been responsible for auditing all of the equipment we have on all three campuses, reconciling these records with those in the central Financial Services department, developing a new policy manual with the financial analyst and the department supervisor.
In addition, I am also responsible for receiving all new shipments, tagging them and recording their details (serial number, P/O info, etc) in our tracking software; managing salvaging old equipment; tracking purchases and flow of consumables (such as printer toner); filing copies of receipts for purchases made with professional supplement funds.
As a result of these new responsibilities, there has been a shift in my duties. As the responsibilities and steward position evolve, less of my time is focused on web design. This is not a bad thing necessarily; after all, working on the same website for five years can leave much to be desired. Also, working on the same website for five years has stifled my enthusiasm for web design in general.
Because of all of this, I have come to realise that I do not think my career future is in web design. For that matter, I do not see my career future being tied to any single industry. While I do believe I have strong skills in web design, the industry does not allow me capitalise on my many other skills. The new responsibilities I have do allow me to do just that.
Acting as steward and working on these small projects these past few months have helped bring enthusiasm into my work life; an enthusiasm that has been gone for a long time. In fact, it has given me hope that I can actually take my career somewhere.
As a result of all of this, I am undergoing a personal rebranding effort. I am analysing how I am branding myself and my skills currently and doing what I can to change this in order to highlight my strong skills and accomplishments.
I fell good about this decision, and I hope to see myself better off.
You are clearly growing, and evolving with the times. Not only is website design on your resume, but also management and financial responsibility. These go a long way in career development. Good luck and lots of success.
Did you get a raise through all this change? I am very happy for you!
not yet he hasn’t…let’s hope it translates into that!
We may see something this summer. My boss is currently in an acting position, and we have to see what happens with his position first.
That’s all really cool (and mind boggling, every serial number?–I think we had one person to audit the computer equipment in the one building I worked in at Stanford, though I guess she kept all those machines running and connected too.)
I guess I’m surprised you call this rebranding. I only think of a person as being branded when he or she is selling their creativity. A financial steward I don’t think of as a brand. A steward must convey integrity and resourcefullness, but other than that, he could hang-glide or not as he pleases. A hang-gliding designer conveys something about the way he designs.
Does this mean you’ll take down the hot pepper site because it doesn’t fit in with the image you want to project?
I feel like I have to get all my questions in, now that you’re not going to be The Designer anymore and have in fact been feeling bored and limited by it all.
So, we all know you designed this OT template, which we love (me and all my subjects) I love the look but I’m more caught up in the functional design, several features are quite remarkable about it.
I find the list of 100 recent comments to be innovative. It certainly invites me to read what people are talking about and talk back. It makes it easy to see if discussion has moved ahead in any thread I’ve been following on OT.
I’m also fascinated by the related posts feature. Today there’s only one relation, but often there are five. Do you chose them yourself, or do they generate automatically from word patterns? A forum I used to post on did related posts automagically somehow, but they weren’t usually so pertinent as your related posts are.
Which brings us to one of the central enigmas about Kim. He’s a community builder, a creator of networks. A fomenter of discussion (with the famous five-line provocative posts.) He reaches out to new participants, always welcoming them, thanking them for commenting. Advocate for society Canadian, with the blogroll and the dot ca. OTOH the other side of Kim is the homebody. Mostly holding discussions with his Mary and in-laws. Interested in things family. Taking a vacation to some place with a trail, taking pictures of his kids. Very much a homebody with a trusted circle.
I’d be very interested in Kim’s comments about how he created a real social space in this blog, was that intentional or just happened or how he comes up with his good ideas.
And his or Mary’s comments on his homebody/Patrick Henry-ness, if either feel like it.
“Does this mean you’ll take down the hot pepper site because it doesn’t fit in with the image you want to project?”
That’s part of the rebranding. It won’t be taken down, but it will change. I’m not sure to what degree yet.
I don’t plan on being a steward forever, and I am not going to rebrand myself as a steward. The rebranding will be more about less focus on web design skills, and more focus on other (more employable) skills.
Related posts are created automatically. With over 700 posts, I’m not sure I’d be able to keep track of them all to do it by hand.
The “social place” was intentional. Much of what I have done here was to encourage new visitors to not only come here but to return and to participate in old threads/posts.
Hmmm, I don’t know what to comment about the homebody aspect. Let’s see. Kim just is. He is a great companion and father at home. There isn’t anything he *doesn’t* do. Except birth and nurse the babies. He loves to play with the children (hmmm wonder where he got that???? lol). He loves to work in the garden, to see things grow. We don’t get out for family hikes a lot, though we want to more. Mianly though, because of his arthritis, it hurts him to be on his feet too long. He loves to camp and he has at least two (can’t speak for Aisling here) who share that passion. We don’t camp enough. When I was sick lat week, he stayed home and did all the housework and feeding of the children, made sure Sinéad did her schoolwork, kept the children happy and entertained, looked after me, etc etc. He is a very patient person. He truly is. He and I don’t fight. We argue sometimes (well we can’t avoid that, he is very opinionated and so am I) but we don’t hurt each other with words or emotions or physically. We never have. I can always count on Kim to uphold and honour me. He treats me truly, as someone of value. He is like this with the children too.
Like I said, he loves growth, and not only in plants and gardens. He loves to see development, in our home, in our community, in cities, etc. etc. He truly desires to be the best home teacher and Elder’s Quorum President he can. His greatest desire as EQ president is to help the brethren be the best they can be as individuals, husbands and fathers. It’s not just a facade, it is how he feels. Hmmm…don’t know if that is the homebody aspect of it.
Kim’s attitude at work and in his calling is the same as at home. I don’t been he wants to rebrand himself at home, lol. He just likes learning, doing, experiencing more. And so, seeing his children grow and learn and experience new things is something he enjoys. He teaches them French in our homeschool. He does Science experiments with them too. He is teaching Sinéad how to ride her bike. He built our fire pit and loves to cook things over the fire.
I don’t know if this is expounding more about his homebody characteristics. As a husband I honestly could not ask for better, because he not only loves and supports me, he encourages me to challenge myself, mentally, intellectually and physically. He supports me in my role as a mother, he supports me in my callings, he is patient when I am not (and yes I am less patient than he is).