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It has been almost two weeks since my announcement of my intention to move on from my position here at Athens’ Own. In that time, I have been working very hard to complete many outstanding projects. I am currently feeling very satisfied with the progress I am making, and I also see many more tasks set ahead for the next two weeks. I am enjoying the feeling of crossing old projects off of my to-do list, and feeling a sense of completion and optimism that these things I have created will be extremely helpful to the person who picks up the hat after me. I know that I would have been very grateful to have this help when I first started!
A few updates on my progress:
Website info packet/tutorial nearly completed. I underestimated the time it would take me to get it all together and in an easily readable way. It is a lot of information, even including all the write-ups I have been doing along the way.
Finished (1st drafts) AFM handbook and Seaman’s handbook/ tutorial. The folder with Seaman’s info will be added to with more tutorials/info on other places we deliver to. It can be the “delivery driver” info binder.
Miles education: I have been checking in on him and supervising some activities over the last two weeks to make sure he (and I) feel confident that he can do those tasks solo. He is progressing very well, and he made his first solo delivery to Seaman’s yesterday, which went well for the most part. I believe he learned from his mistakes and will be better prepared for the next time.
The website is running much smoother, and some long outstanding issues have been solved, which will make the task of updating and maintaining the site much easier for the next person, although I plan to remain available for help and tech support in the future.
As I complete this week, I am turning my attention to the Athens’ Own team and the community, to ask what you think my last two weeks’ time should be spent on? I want to use my time and Constantine’s investment in me to help others as much as possible, and to try in some way to pay him and everyone involved “forward” for the opportunities I have been given. Please feel free to comment on this post with your thoughts, comments, or ideas.
It seems that I have been travelling quite a bit this summer. From teaching at scout camps to family vacations to wilderness treks, I feel like I have been seeing a lot of the world recently.
This past week, I went backpacking to a family cabin in Ontario.The cabin itself is an old logging resort, and it buried deep in the wilderness. So deep that the closest “city” is over 20 miles away, and that city comprises only a gas station and a few houses. The pristine silence that descends on that cabin, broken only by the occasional call of a loon, brings on an incredible sense of not just the raw beauty of nature around me, but a calm meditation on the entire scope of the world and my small place in it. There really is no better place to contemplate life and the path you are on than the wilderness, in my opinion.
At the end of my ponderings, reflections, and journalings during this trip, I came to a hard but necessary conclusion: I believe it is time for me to begin my process of leaving Athens’ Own. I will be resigning my post at the end of August. Over the next day, I will be writing and developing a plan of action for the next two weeks and four weeks, which will explain not only how I came to this conclusion, but also how I will spend my Athens’ Own time over the next month, preparing myself and the rest of the team as best I can for my departure. I also feel I should note that I do not intend to simply leave the team entirely. We are still part of the same community, and the connections I have made with everyone over the past year mean more to me than I can put into words. It is my sincerest hope to remain in close contact with everyone and to continue to help with Athens’ Own’s efforts as much as I can.
The plan I am preparing will cover at least these topics (and potentially more as it develops)
– Recruiting
– Job Descriptions
– Internship postings
– Finished tutorials of website
– Additional blog posts
– Completion of writings/ stories/ etc
– Compilation of documents
– Detailed plans for replacement
– Educational models for new recruits
– Completion of odd jobs on to-do list
– Additional writings
As I mentioned above, this list is just an initial overview, I am sure this does not cover everything I need to do and say before I conclude my employment. I have learned and grown significantly in the past year with Athens’ Own, and I hope, in this plan, to express the depth of this growth and how everyone involved can move forward from it.
As is mentioned in various places on this website and in logs, one of the first steps we see to help start building resilience is to take a critical look at the situation in front of you. We have a particular document which we reference often, that we call the “current situation analysis”. This document is a long list of things which we see as the issues, problems, and realities that we are currently facing today.
One of these items concerns the quality of education and educational programs. As a company with an internship program which focuses on helping Ohio University students enhance and supplement their formal educations, we are constantly evaluating and monitoring the students who we meet. And we have noticed a problem, or a “situation” item if you will… the education system is falling short in too many places. We see gaps all the time, whether it be a student who has never had to effectively write a rationale for a project, a student who does not know how to thoroughly complete background research before applying to a job, or even just a student who has ilegible handwriting. As a company who is racing and fighting against time to build a stronger and more resilient future, we need those people who want to be a part of our efforts to be able to keep up with our ideas and our speed. We don’t really have the time to explain over and over what our company does because an intern didn’t read the “about us” section of the website before they applied. We don’t have the time to sit down and watch them write out numbers on an invoice, and we don’t have the time to help them learn such a basic skill as writing an essay. These are all things, among many others, that we think should have been learned at some point already. So what happened? Why are so many students graduating from college without some of these skills, which many businesses would consider basic qualifications?
This is our situation: We see a problem in the educational system. We need skillful, proficient, and intelligent students who are eager to learn and improve themselves. This is not to say that none of our past interns have been up to this standard, rather we have had the pleasure of working with many bright young minds. However, when one takes the average student population into account, I don’t think there would be much argument against the claim that the education system could do better.
If step one is to analyze the situation, what do we do next? Our plan is to connect with like-minded people, who share our observations, goals, and concerns, and try to develop a way to work together to do something about this problem. With that in mind, we will be meeting soon with teacher education professionals to discuss some of these issues and see what solutions we might be able to create.
More on this topic to come soon!
If I can be very motivated to do something, I should be able to motivate others to do something as well. By figuring out how to motivate myself, I can gain some insight into the best strategies and plans to help Athens’ Own interns get motivated. In fact, the ability to motivate others to take an interest and act is one of the criteria of the Athens’ Own Worker Readiness Certification.
To start, what motivates me? Constantine recently posed me the question: What new skills I would be willing to learn on my own time and apply towards Athens’ Own? I came up with a brief list of things I am most interested in and that I feel I would willingly, almost unconsciously, want to learn in my free time which could be relevant to my work with Athens’ Own. The question was posed this way to help me draw out those types of skills and concepts which would be most motivating to me.
From here, we looked at which of those things best aligns with what Athens’ Own is working on. If both my “to-do” list and Athens’ Own’s “to-do” list have similar items on them, then that is the best place to start. The main idea behind this practice is that progress will be made faster when there is alignment of needs, interests, etc. If I can work on something I enjoy that helps move our team, our systems, and our actions forward, it is going to be more productive and positive than if I am being coerced into doing something I don’t think is relevant. This is also why we ask our interns to write their holisticgoals. We can take notice of where a certain person’s goals line up with ours, and then work together to move both them and us towards those goals.
We are working on further developing our educational strategy by exploring this idea of motivation and trying to meld educational theories with our everyday business practices. We hope to provide an experiential learning environment for all of our interns and volunteers. By discovering what motivates ourselves and our team members, we can work to find the best and most exciting opportunities for “working” and “learning” to become one and the same.