Spring Break was the first time it hit me.
Spring Break began two days after our inauguration. Inauguration was incredible—both my parents came up, great food was served, President Thomas gave a unique introduction (you had to be there), thank-you’s and pats-on-the-back were shared around the room, and everyone left feeling good, excited about what was to come.
Two days later, on a Saturday morning, I keyed into the office at 9:00am. I had been in a few times before, but this time the office was empty. I went to my office, sat down behind my desk, and began to _______.
No amount of transition or instruction beforehand can adequately prepare you for this position. It is a learn-on-the-go job. Many jobs work like this, with the expectation often being that with time one will improve his/her performance.
But the ASUPS President (and all other Exec positions, for that matter) has only one year in office, and needs to figure it out on the go, diving in immediately. And at that moment, sitting in my empty office at the beginning of Spring Break, I realized how steep the learning curve was going to be.
It's Gotten Easier to Use This
And a month later, I’m happy to say that a lot of the discomfort has faded away. It doesn’t weird me out anymore to sit at a desk with my name embossed on a placard sitting across it, or to hand my business card to someone rather than writing down my contact information. As I mentioned in my last blog, self-aggrandizing is not a natural characteristic of mine; thus, getting acclimated to the little things like business cards and placards was a symbolic stepping stone to feeling comfortable in meetings with President Thomas and Dean Segawa.
A Rare Sighting of President Thomas from my Office Window
It hasn’t been without its fair share of bumps and bruises, though. The balancing of school, ASUPS and ResLife is quite a tall order, one that tends to induce much more stress than I’m used to. Hiring is an exciting process for those you get to ask to be part of your team, but it is never easy to turn away capable candidates who were enthusiastic to be part of ASUPS. And in the past week, I got to experience firsthand the limitations of the public forum for my job.
After being drastically misquoted in The Trail and inaccurately painted as intolerant of the LBGTQ community, my gut reaction was to defend both ASUPS and myself as loudly and publicly as I could. Personally, I am not one to let my character be attacked without defending it (I don’t believe I’m alone); however, my personal instincts had to be set aside. Instead of shouting back, I decided—after talking to multiple mentors—to turn the cheek and take the hit without responding. It was more important not to let the issue escalate, and to remember that it was not worth risking relationships that our administration still looks forward to building upon collaboratively in the future. There was a better, more productive way to go about resolving the issue–and I’m really happy with the way we ended up handling this.
It wasn’t easy, but looking back I truly believe that this is an example of the growth our administration has attained in its first month. Part of being a representative of the student body means placing the best interests of ASUPS and the student body in front of our own individual desires—no matter how hard it is at times.
...so we still goof around at times. so what?
I’m still learning how to do this job, just like the rest of our Exec team. The clock is ticking, and I have a feeling that March 10th, 2012 will come a lot faster than we could ever prepare for. But it’s nice to see evidence of progress, no matter how frustrating the job can be some days.