Last week I had a lot of free time to take courses on project management and watch videos of company meetings and read about events in other departments. I have learned more about the company in these past few weeks than the 3 decades I have spent in my career. So much has happened on the sidelines that I was aware of in the periphery but now have more understanding. This lull period is normal as I recently moved to my new department where I spent time learning new things and taking online courses until a project has finally been assigned to me.
Since then, I have scheduled several meetings with the business team; project leaders, project owners, and the main business sponsor. I also met with the IT teams; domain and platform managers, squad leads, and some engineers. I have been reading the project documentation and attending some seminars on this new area of the company business. This realm is so much different from the area I have been working on for the past decades of my career. It is a new world for me with a different vocabulary, area of focus, business, and IT resources and it feels like I was hired by an entirely new company. I find myself the rookie in the field.
It is a rare chance for me to have a new lease of life in my career; as if I was handed a second act for me to fulfill. I have learned many new things I am obviously a novice in the arena but my experience and skills in leading projects will sustain me in this endeavor. Oftentimes I am the oldest person in the meeting by my biological age as well as the longest-serving employee as most members are less than 20 years in the company. I guess it is this seniority that I get the respect of the team.
I do feel the years in my situation not succumbing to anxiety or excitement being new but instead jaded and calm with the experience I have gained working in Asia and the different projects I worked on worldwide. I am the old man who still has a bag of tricks in his sleeve perhaps like Joe Biden who is running again despite his advanced age. I do feel the bias that most people have toward the so-called elderly despite having spunk left to get things done. The challenge is reframing once usual reactions to a project not as the bright young genius but as a veteran old hand that ensures respect and courtesy.
This is the advantage that I have in these moments; as a senior; to be calm and calculating and strike at the precise target that my experience and intuition would guide me. My initiative to learn new things like AI and keeping abreast of new technology will also give me an advantage not sinking into a situation of being obsolete and behind the times. I think my new boss is starting to see my value. I have always brushed aside my age; trying to be one of the boys but my colleagues are younger than me and have polite deference if I don't perform the way a younger person would.
This may be the root of my debacle when I was overwhelmed due to my age when it was really poor management with the lack of preparation and support from my previous supervisors. My age has slowed me down, causing me to be confused and out of touch when the issue was really management incompetence; the inability to manage seniors and instead shut them away and replace them with younger people to hide their inefficiency. But that is the way of the world and one has to rely on his wits to survive.
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