I have been focusing this weekend on studying material for my interview on Wednesday. There is a lot of material that I have been going over. I found a 100 year strategic plan, a master plan that details out their growth for the next 20 years, several newspaper articles, and many PDF’s on their website. And as I have gone through these readings I have found references to subjects that need to be researched. Since this also involves an outside consultant group that has been working with this organization, I also went through their website all of their materials.
Much of the material that I have read has been a refresher course in Lean. Though many of the names have been changed from the Boeing terms, it is basically the same thing. It was good to make the connections and learn about what they are emphasizing and at what level of Lean maturity they are currently at.
Today, I am going to go back and dissect the original job requisition and make a list of stories about each item I find. They want to hear about my Lean experience and my consulting theory of practice is, so I need to detail these out a bit.
A friend of mine, that works in HR there, is going to bring me a packet of information for my review today. Then tomorrow I will have a phone conversation with another person who had the same job a few years back. It is great that I have two networking contacts for this position. Hopefully these networking contacts will tip the scales in my favor.
And if I have some additional time I will review the two books I have on hard interview questions. And if more time still exists, I will review some of the reference books I found in my studying that I have in my personal library.
This will end up taking me about 5 full days of preparation. This time is precious, I have to make sure that I am prepared for where ever that interview might go.
I am excited and would consider this a step up from my Boeing job. One reason is because at Boeing I was supporting the military industrial complex. This always had a negative feeling to it for me, generally I would just ignore this feeling, but it was always there. Since this position is in Health care my efforts would be going towards making lives better and everyone that works there is aligned with this idea. This feelings much better to me, something that I can be fully committed to.
I have always heard that you need to treat the job search as a full time job. I have to say that I am glad that I have chose to have other areas to also pay attention to. The problem is not around putting in the 40 hours a week, this is easy; the problem is around this search becoming so all consuming that you do nothing else. Then it would be easy to get so burnt out that the amount you are accomplishing goes down, even though the amount of hours stays high.
I surf this edge of being all consumed. This week because of the interview my focus will be on the search as much as I can make it. Next week I’m sure I will focus on the remodel and doing extra exercising. I have felt myself getting burnt out and a bit depressed as I entered July and I still haven’t heard anything from anyone. Getting this interview has been helpful.
What I need to realize is that all of these: getting depressed, getting burnt out, feeling lifted because of getting the interview, are mind states that I have control over. With practice I can lift my spirits even if I hadn’t got called for the interview. I had already started focusing a bit more on the remodel: first because there was a need to get certain jobs done for the tile guy; and secondly, this was also a way to get away from the job search and recharge my batteries. Remembering to make the time for exercise is one of the best and easiest recharge activities.
It is important for me to have areas that I can go to get some reprieve. many people have given me advice about what I needed to do. All of this advice has been given from a good heart. But if I did everything that I was told I needed to do it would have taken an 120 hours a week since getting the warn notice, I would still not be caught up, I would be a mental vegetable, and I would not have fully participated in the last few months of life.
Today’s Quote:
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
-- Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)
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