The Patient Notebook
I keep a notebook at work for scribbling to-dos and other things I need to remember. I don’t go through notebooks very quickly - my short-term memory is pretty good and I use sticky notes and scrap paper when I’m at my desk, but a notebook is handy for carrying around to meetings.
Back in February my notebook (a Mead brand 80-sheet 4/5-per-inch “quadrille”) was starting to fill up (read: it was maybe 2/3 full) so when I noticed a spiffy new National brand Computation Notebook was available in the supply cabinet, I grabbed it.
About that same time I was applying for a new position here at work - a position in line with my long-term career goals, one that I’d been hoping to get for a long time. I knew the manager of that new group wanted to hire me (I was offered the job!), and I was just hoping the process would work out and I could transfer. So I set the notebook aside and decided that I would symbolically keep it in reserve until I got the transfer to the new position.
To make a long story short, senior management decided I was too critical in my present role to be allowed to transfer. Both my boss and the manager trying to hire me assured me that they’d try to make it work out later on, but in March someone else took that position and I stayed where I was. I was initially neither very patient or very happy about the situation, but what else was there to do? So I waited.
Patience is one of those things you probably don’t really want to pray for. The process of learning it isn’t fun. But it’s a valuable lesson to learn. My old Mead notebook got thinner and thinner through the summer, but I stubbornly left the new notebook on the shelf. Finally at the end of August I had a moment of weakness and carried the new notebook to a meeting, but didn’t need to take any notes. After the meeting I gathered my resolve and put it back on the shelf.
September 1st rolled around and I got a phone call. Another job req was opening in that department. I was welcome to apply again. I applied. I re-interviewed. I waited. It took nearly the entire month of September to get through the process and see if I would be allowed to transfer this time. The notebook waited patiently. Me, not so patiently. Finally, last Friday, I got the official word: the transfer would be allowed. And today I got the official phone call confirming that I would take the position, with the transfer effective in two weeks’ time.
When my transfer is complete and I start the new position, the old Mead notebook will find its way to a recycle bin, and the patient National notebook will finally take up the role it’s been waiting for since last spring. It will be a happy day for both of us.