Sweats to Suits Your transition from campus to the workplace

It’s Just Cookies

The theme song for this blog entry should be the Sabre Dance.  If you’re unfamiliar with this Armenian movement, listen to the first minute on-line.

I have now reached six months in my new job.  I know this because this is the second time I was prompted to change my system generated password. I know you are thinking, “Joy, just look at a calendar like a normal person.”

So, back to the song.  It fits with an expression my coaching professor used to say all the time. “Leaders have a lot of plates spinning at the same time, but GOOD leaders know which plates can fall.” For the past six months I’ve kind of felt like this guy in the picture, minus the Saved by the Bell Zach Morris-sized phone.  Between school and work I’ve felt like I had to keep all of the plates spinning because I didn't yet know which ones were more critical, or rather whose plates were more critical. I have a much better sense of this now, but it took time to learn who was a dinner plate and who was a bread plate - and when I didn't know, I asked!

Why Cookies?

So, why the title of the blog entry? During an internship with Nabisco my manager once said (during a particularly stressful acquisition with Kraft Foods), “Guys, we’re not performing brain surgery.  It’s just cookies.”  I was a little closer to the confections at Nabisco than I am to the semiconductors our guys develop, but the point is the same. Keep things in perspective. Focus on adding value and as my executive coach used to say, “give yourself some grace” if things don’t go quite like you planned.  I used to tell the students I coached that it takes six months to feel as though you’re not drowning. Testified! I finally feel like I am coming up for air or for cookies!

Back to Writing

I was inspired to get back to writing for many reasons, but most prominently among them is that my mom, a recently retired educator, has finally decided to publish a children’s book she had nearly finished when my younger brothers were born.  After reading numerous sup par children's books (her words, not mine) to my niece, she decided that it was high time to find an illustrator and get that book on the market.  I thought, shoot (very Texan thing to say) – if my mom can focus on a book, then surely I can get back to writing short blog entries on a semi-regular basis!

Thanks to those of you who inquired about my job and completion of my MBA over the past few months.  I look forward to getting back into blogging now that I have six months of stories to tell. Stay tuned!