This experience may feel familiar to my fellow CS folks. A slight murmur of butterflies as I open slack on Tuesday morning returning to work from a long weekend in celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. day. A quick glance over the channel notifications and the dreaded “system issues” posts slap me square in the face. A couple of deep breaths and the slightly frantic typing begins as I delve deeper into what type of potential disaster I am looking at.
Admittedly, I have anxious tendencies. I realized this when I asked my sister if she imagined how she would escape our car as it drove off the bridge we were crossing and plunged into the lake. The look on her face as she shook her head and said “uhhh, no.” was a pretty clear indicator that only I was preparing for the potentiality of such a fate. At least I would be prepared. Thankfully, this was far from a disaster and was quickly responded to by a fabulous development team.
We’ve all been there, issues outside of our control that will now dictate your attention until resolved. After a long but productive day of fire taming, I call up my grandma to “spill the tea” as my niece says. Giving her the run down of the day's events I have an aha moment.
At the end of the day this is an opportunity to flex my project management skills. I needed a good challenge to keep me on my toes. De-escalating situations is a survival skill I picked up as a kid and honed through years of experience as a private
client banker. Let me tell ya, people can get very angry, very quickly when it comes to their money. I have a good relationship with this customer and this is an opportunity to strengthen that relationship. Mindset can be a truly transformative tool. Challenge accepted.
Happy Adventures,
Sara