Work Update

You guys. Sorry I've been MIA. 

Things have been...busy. Work for one, is busy. 

I may have landed the job of all jobs.

I have to do a ton of trainings. I got a kick out of the image they used here for the "Work/Life Balance" training video. Like, if this doesn't scream work from anywhere, I don't know what does. 

I'm 5 weeks in and loving it so far. 

I'm drinking the Kool-Aid over here and got myself some swag! I got a new v-neck shirt and this hoodie. It's nice to be able to wear comfy clothes during work! 

I'm surprised on so many levels.

The people have been nothing short of amazing.

The environment is friendly, empowering, engaging, fun. 

I'm very busy. Have I said that yet? 

My days are filled with meetings. Days FLY BY. . 

I'm not essential in all of the meetings, but the meetings themselves are essential. What's nice is that there's a full team who is working on any given project so I'm not responsible for everything. It's so nice. I don't feel alone.

I have a team of project managers asking for statuses of things. Implementation architects asking me for specs from a client. 

People actually follow up on their action items from meeting notes! 

Which...yeah...I write a lot of notes and do my best to capture as much of our discussions as possible. Writing up the meeting notes helps me tremendously with learning terminology, semantics, acronyms, etc. 

We use a shit-ton of acronyms. Google is my friend. 

And I prefer to actually write notes vs. type. 

It can be overwhelming at times, but then again everyone is super helpful!

Working remotely is still amazing. 

It's nicer than before though because there are no guilt trips at this place. Everyone is everywhere and it's completely natural to have people be remote. Very seldom are people in the same room. 

Our clients are also so huge that their team members are all over the country. 

It's just the way life is now. 

And I'm not complaining. 

We don't even have an office around me.

And even so, most people don't keep their cameras turned on. That was a huge thing at my last place of employment. Like "if we're going to be remote, the least you can do it turn your camera on" and it's like - before COVID? Before the world shut down?

We NEVER did video calls.

We basically ONLY communicated via phone calls or email. Meetings were generally saved for presentations or whatever.

I try to keep my camera on for at least the beginnings of meetings. Only because I'm new and I want people to know who I am.

I'm still able to throw a load of laundry in or start dinner if I have a moment.

Take the dogs out. 

Run errands.

Go to kid stuff. 

I still very much make my own schedule, but I'm also in a lot of meetings. Generally if I have enough notice, I can make anything work. I was clear that I refuse to miss out on my kids' activities and things because of my work. 

My parents never came to anything.

Anyway, 5 weeks in and I'm LOVING ITTTTT.

I did another trip to Boston recently and had just as much fun - although it was shorter - just one night. 

We will do another one in October. We are hoping to extend this one by a day so we can actually enjoy the city. 

Yeah, I want to actually go to a business meeting early. To hang with my peeps. 

Because they are legit. 

My team is young and diverse. It's so refreshing.

I work for a team of women leaders. For the first time in my career, the 3 levels above me (and I'm at the VP level), are women leaders. 

For most of my career (almost two decades!), I've worked for older, white men. I'm not saying that's bad. I'm just saying there's not a lot of difference of perspectives when you're surrounded by older, white men. 

And being younger, female and ethnic? 

There's a lot of opportunity in this space. 

On the daily, I'm just learning all things FinTech and Banking. I've never been on "this side" of the business world. 

I'm starting to grasp everything and I'm definitely understanding more and more each day.

I'm excited to see what this place has for me. I've heard more than once that because of our growth and the way we're set up, if I was interested in another department I could always give it a shot if what I was doing was not working out.

Granted, what I do is account management and I can absolutely do that. I don't see myself leaving this area unless it's to move to the marketing department for some reason. 

I enjoy this role - at this point I'm still in the learning phase but I'm feeling good about it. 

I'm really grateful for this job and that I can use it to distract me from reality for most of the day. 

Not to mention the compensation is legittttt.

Compensation comes in many forms.

The salary alone is crazy. But for us it's so much more - PTO is doubled, health benefits. Perks. Discounts. Bank products at a discount. 

But not gonna lie, the paycheck is going to allow my family a bit more freedom. And I'm super proud of myself for being able to support my family the way I can. 

I hope the girls see how hard I'm working for them.