View from My Window

Amy had a post a while back about the view from our front porch during the day, so I figured I would post about the view from my window at work. I'm working in Clayton, MO which has a relatively small downtown area with a number of large buildings.

Clayton is the county seat of St. Louis, so there is a large government complex there. They way I hear it, a number of businesses moved their headquarters out of the City of St. Louis and built large office buildings in Clayton to take advantages of a more business-friendly tax structure. Clayton's downtown is flush with business people during the day, and features a lot of trendy restaurants and shops.

My office is on the 8th floor and faces east toward Forest Park in St. Louis. The view is much different from my Springfield office which was at street level with lots of pedestrian traffic, but I like it.

As for work? I'm have less moments of "what the hell did I do?" panic each day, and I'm slowly starting to feel like I'm adding value to the organization - even if it's just a matter of completing some really simple analyses. I just have to keep reminding myself that the learning curve is going to be 9-12 months, as this is a big job with a lot of responsibilities.

Luckily, my director is in the same boat as me in terms of being in a new, big job, and she was in my position previously. She understands what I'm going through in terms of getting up to speed, and she is able to help ease me into the position because she knows it backwards and forwards.

In terms of an organization, I feel lucky to be here. Everyone seems to have a genuine interest in fulfilling their organizational mission, everyone seems to feel that they have a stake in the success of the organization, and the organization itself is interested in seeing its employees succeed. These are things that I haven't had in a while.

The only thing I miss about my old job is the people - I had a great staff (both the current and previous staff of the office), great peers to work with in our financial management division, and lots of friends made over time throughout the agency. I especially realize how much I miss everyone when it's time to make a run to Starbucks or to grab some lunch. But then, I consider all the dumb things I had to do there and some of the bad people I had to interact with and I realize that I absolutely made the right decision.