Meeting #2

My second meeting with CS was a phone meeting.  It had been an exhausting day and I wasn't quite sure how I was going to stay awake and focus on the phone - but it turned out okay.  It sort of helped that the previous week at work had been bad - really bad.  I have very few hours left to charge to shuttle for this fiscal year (until end of September) and didn't have another project to charge in the meantime.  So that means that I'm charging "CM" - effectively an internal overhead code that upper management does not like to see on your time card.  On top of that I hadn't really found anything to do with my CM time yet.  Therefore the week at work was spent largely being bored and irritated by condo issues, since I had no other distractions.  I don't do bored well.  Seriously - I have nightmares about having nothing to do. I fear boredom more than I fear being accosted by a praying mantis bearing mayonnaise and flip-flops.

Anyway - I managed to get my homework for the week done and the meeting fell into place from there.  While I do prefer a face-to-face, the phone went better than I had expected and felt productive.  The main topics were finding the themes in my achievement stories and talking about the rationale behind my value rankings.

CS and I seemed to pretty much agree on the achievement story themes.  One observation she made was that my desire to "help" others felt more genuine/altruistic to her from my stories than I had led her to believe in our first meeting.  I guess I've been seeing this trait as part of a need for external validation.  I don't simply enjoy helping others - I also enjoy the way it makes me feel to have had someone successfully follow my advice, etc.  It was nice to hear that perhaps there was something more to that trait then just stroking my own ego! It's certainly true that all of my achievement stories have a social theme to them.  I'm definitely not someone who could sit in a garage inventing something for years on my own and emerge 15 years later completely satisfied.  I need connection with others and social feedback.  I feel the best about my achievements when they are placed in the context of other people - not necessarily in a competitive way, but I need to feel that what I've done is somehow relevant to others.

These are the notes that CS took on the achievement themes:

Summary From 2^nd Meeting

Some of the themes that emerged from your achievements exercise are:

·        You like situations where there is a well defined beginning and end

·        You work best when you’re getting direct feedback from others

·        You like to achieve personally, but you also like it to have an impact on others – either socially, the team, the group you’re in

·        You like to bring people together to provide a value to the group

·        You like to make a difference/have an impact in what you’re doing

·        You like to document significant things in your life

·        You like to tell stories that capture significant things in your life

·        You like to take chaotic things and bring order to them

·        You like to be part of a team/group when working

The next topic was my value sorting and the top three values.  At first glance the top three don't seem particularly work-related, but there was no escaping that these are the things that matter most to my in my life right now.  Growth covers so many things really - and I feel if I can find a career in which I am growing, both personally and professionally, then many of the other top ten values will follow.  It's a little silly, but I remember the year that I learned how to both drive a car with a manual transmission and knit with such fondness.  I remember being really happy at the end of the year that I had these two tangible new skills.  It's been such a long time since I've felt like I've learned something and become competent at it.  Perhaps that's a side-effect of having two small children - I always feel like I'm behind the learning curve and have no idea what I'm doing! It would be so nice to have a job where I could grow and gain a little more confidence at some aspect of life.

The top 3 values at this point in your life are:

·        Growth [New training & learning, change & variety, personal development]

·        Serenity [Order (tranquility, stability), living in the present, simplicity, just having fun]

·        Balance Work & Life [Time flexibility]

Regarding some of the other values that are important to you (close family, self-esteem, team, recognition) - you believe those will be positively influenced by getting these 3 in line first.

We wrapped up the conversation by talking about potential jobs that might be better tuned toward my top values and the themes from my achievement stories.  I had just attended a meeting at work with my advisor regarding a project that we are funding him to do involving the search for Earth-like planets - hence the appearance of that in the list.  I'm sure I was babbling about planet-searching pretty incoherently. 

One other thing that came up was my leadership skills, or lack thereof.  It had been an interesting week in that my bosses at work kept talking about how they really saw me as a leader and someone who gets along will with others and who would be a good manager.  In direct contrast to that assessment, a situation at the condo completely blew up which resulted in me resigning as a trustee on our HOA board.  I was very upset by the whole thing (it had been brewing for a long time) and have a hard time not seeing it as a failure on my part in terms of dealing with difficult people.  Again, my confidence has been shaken.  Perhaps an area where I have potential, but need some development?

We talked a little about potential job situations or having a job that includes more of what is important to you. I’ll just document some of the ideas here so we have a record - I just want to capture the ideas for now without limiting other ideas. It’s not yet time to start evaluating these  - we want to keep open to all ideas at this point. Some initial ideas:

·        Academic teaching and advising in a non-research oriented school

·        Finding technical projects where you can have an impact and the problem interests you (vs. Navy nukes)

·        Working on finding planets (work your advisor is doing at Draper) (is it planets they’re looking for? I wasn’t sure)

·        Personal financial organizer

We also talked about your potential leadership capabilities and your concern about dealing with conflict in a constructive manner.

The conversation wrapped up with my homework assignments, of course.  We are going on a family cruise at the end of August, so the next meeting will be three weeks away.  CS also wants me to do the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).  I've taken these tests before on my own - but I'm interested to see how it turns out this time and to really explore what the results mean.  I'm hoping to gain insight, not only on what type of job might suit me best, but also on why I experience the difficulties I do with certain personality types.  Some pretty interesting things to think about!

HOMEWORK

1.      Write about 1 or 2 ideal jobs and talk about a day or other period of time in the life of this job. What do you do? Who do you work with? What do you accomplish? How do you feel? How does it fit with the rest of your life? How does it match with your values?

2.      Go through job postings (on Monster or other job boards) and find descriptions of jobs or parts of descriptions that appeal to you. Circle what appeals to you and note why that’s of interest. Try to find 5-10 job postings that have something that’s of interest to you.

Be sure to complete the MBTI on-line assessment before you leave on your vacation, so I will have the results before our next meeting.