Corporate Culture Shock

Many who know me will know that I just left a huge company for a smaller company, the branch of the smaller company I work for is even smaller than the whole company. Boy I knew it would be different, but I was completely taken off guard.

I walked in on my first day and was warmly greeted, I was hired at the same time as one other individual (versus over 300 people at the orientation at my last job) Here are some of the differences in orientation.

New Job, I was introduced to people on the teams that I would interact with (and those that I may or may not)
Old Job, I was seated in an auditorium type environment with hundreds of strangers and shown a PowerPoint presentation which mainly indicated how rich we were going to be based on our stock options.

New Job, a cake with my name and the other new hires name on it was presented at 2:00 and everyone came to have a piece and say hi. A funny conversation about pets ensued and we went around the room sharing pet stories.
Old Job, well it was a catered lunch.

New Job, I was shown to my cube, taught how to login, do my paperwork for benefits ... by caring individuals who checked in often to ensure we understood our options.
Old Job, I was shown how to log in, and shown the website that had a 'dashboard' for new hires that would point us to the benefits, I was also assigned a 'Mentor' and once I logged in and searched around for while I was able to figure out who my mentor was.

Things seemed odd for the first few days at the new job, I could not put my finger on it. People behaved strangely, meetings were uncomfortable, the language was different, I was actually getting scared, what have I gotten myself into?

Then it occurred to me, the stress was missing, nobody was complaining about how awful the company was, nobody was worried about loosing their jobs to an overseas group. People made mistakes, and corrected them without long drawn out drama. Customers were taken care of quickly, but no one felt the need to hurt anyone's feelings about the mistakes that were made. In short I realized that I was working for a company run by humans, not humans run by a company.

Hmmmm,

I still find myself saying things like, "I will take that action", and "what are the milestones ..." the difference is I can also say "No problem, I will take care of it" and "what would you like me to work on first?". I have not yet mastered this new language, but it seems familiar, like only 8 years ago or so I think I was fluent.

For those of you who understand this one, I work on a sponsored project in which the ROI is not the responsibility of the engineering team to determine, :-)

Not perfect, not better, just different and for this individual a refreshing break from the other way. Who knows, I may find I miss the old ways soon enough, but until then I am going to enjoy the ride.

I do miss the people I worked with in the other company very much, well the ones I liked anyway, and you know who you are.

STU