Work is in a weird state.
We got acquired a few months ago, and I think that was a good thing.
It is harder to notice when you are in it, but there were a lot of problems. Morale was bad. Innovation was stifled as we would only do what a customer asked instead of being proactive. Decisions were discouraged, so that none were ever made. It was depressing.
But it became really depressing when I noticed.
This really happened on Tuesday when the new company had someone over to examine the corporate culture. We were first made to fill out a survey about the old company, rating aspects of it on a scale. Most of us noticed that it was rating pretty poorly. So the round table afterwards became a gripe session. This was escalated by the lack of managers present. I hear that the afternoon discussion was not nearly as illuminating. They say that no names will be recorded, but it is really hard to complain when the manager responsible is across the table.
Since we still have the same managers, decisions still aren’t happening. (A meeting happened where only the organizer showed up, and the managers “forgot” about it.) The new company claims to really like innovation, and I believe them. I feel empowered, so I am taking the lack of decision as a sign to create my own project. I’m looking at rewriting the UI to be more standard, and allow the OS to handle globalization and 508 compliance for us, and still be cross-platform.
I complain about this, but it still a nice company. We are getting a social activity tomorrow. Pizza and An Inconvenient Truth. It’s a nice perk.
Still, I have to start improving myself. I really do want to be more innovative. It’s been beaten out of me, so I’m working to get it back. The new company has career counselors, so I’m interested in that.
Or maybe I should look somewhere else entirely.
I’m not sure what I want. What do I want in life? As a cliche, I’m going to say “I have to find myself”. Maybe the European trip will help. But that is going to happen in Autumn. I need to start focusing on the now.