I’ve been doing IT work/help desk support since I graduated from college in 2003, but this is the first time I’ve worked at a church. I’ve worked in the business sector and the higher education sector, but a church… is something else entirely. Especially this one.
Time
In previous experience there has been a huge focus on time. Getting to work on time, getting this done for me right away and rushing constantly to make things work. Here though things are a lot different and it’s something that I feel I need to constantly keep myself in check on. I can come in to work whenever I feel like it, and leave whenever I feel like it, but I’m expected to put in at least 40 hours of work. So I usually come in before 9 and stay until 5 (except for Tuesdays which are different for another reason). In any other setting I could see myself spiraling down to coming in at 10 and leaving at 3 (boy, wouldn’t that be the best job? Also your job is to eat ice cream and you only live a block away) but I don’t see that happening. I really REALLY like this job! I want to be there, I want to be a part of the team that I work on. Jason and Ed are awesome guys and Kem (our boss/Team Leader/Randomly-Generated-Team-Speak-word/overhead) is a great encourager. I love being at work! Now not to say things don’t upset me, because they do, but I enjoy what I do and the people around me so I want to spend the time there making things run great.
Attitudes
I wrote about some things that I’ll miss and things that I won’t miss here. The biggest change for me has been the attitude of people that I work with. No one has yet to demand special treatment because of who they are. I try to treat everyone like they’re priority one, not just VIPs.
People seem to be a lot more relaxed in general here and they want to spend time with you. I’m not just “The Help Desk” to these people. They know me and like me, and some times, stop by just to say hi, or to hang out. That’s a BIG difference.
Focus
The focus of both the other places that I worked at was always Money. And that’s fine. If it wasn’t for money I wouldn’t get paid. And I like getting paid. I like getting paid frequently :-D. Whether that meant; “Will the decisions you make mean that our sales guys can impress someone into buying from us?” or “You want us to buy WHAT? Great! How much is THAT gonna cost us?” or simply hiring someone at the absolute least amount of money they can. I’m not knocking that, I understand how budgets work and all that, but from the perspective of the guy working the phones, that stuff is harsh.
Here the focus seems to be different. Do we have a budget? Absolutely. But I’m finding they budget for smart things. My boss works within 10 feet of me every day so he understands my needs, hence I have a great computer. Why? because if I’m gonna keep other people going, I can’t afford my computer to be falling apart itself. If I do research on something that I think could definitely help the church to do better or be stronger, they take it seriously. We discuss it and make decisions based not only on my wild ideas, or on the budget, but we get our volunteers to weigh in who know a lot more than I do and can give us a great perspective on things. It may not be a fast decision, but it will be a good decision in the end.
I love my job. I love the people I work with. I hope you do too.
