Surprises
Tuesday, January 10 – Thursday, January 12, 2006
Tuesday I received an e-mail stating that some new people who had arrived last week were about to be badged and two more people would be added to my team later in the week. I was surprised since I had not asked for additional staffing thinking they would be needed elsewhere.
Over the course of the last month I had been receiving e-mails and documents describing what was expected of team leads and members, who to contact for what, when reports were due, etc. In order to get my team on the same page I had decided to prepare a field guide putting all the information I thought was important in one brief document. With new folks coming in soon, I stayed late on Tuesday to prepare the document. It would make orienting them easier.
It is definitely a small world. When I got back to my room Tuesday night, there was an e-mail from Jennifer – the woman from New York who had been the facilitator a the two government planning workshops I was part of in December. Another planner friend of hers from Florida had e-mailed her to say she had quit her job and taken a contract to work on the recovery planning and had just been told she was assigned to Allen Parish. It was nice to know that Jennifer had e-mailed her back to say how happy she was that she had been assigned to Allen and that she was sure that she would really enjoy working with me.
The next day I received a phone call officially telling me that Erica had been added to my team – along with two other people! Nicolas is an environmental engineer and Mac is a rural development specialist with the US Department of Agriculture. Soon after, I received a call from Erica. She and Mac were ready to go and would be out to the Parish in the afternoon. I had a meeting with the Tribal Council and on my way back there was a message from Nicolas. The connection was not very good and he had an accent (French?) that made it difficult to understand. Back in the office I got in touch with Nicolas. He would be out on Thursday.
Then I received another phone call from a fellow named Bob who said Steve had told him to call – a fourth person? We talked, I gave him guidance on where to stay, how to find us, etc. Only toward the end of the conversation did he say that his role was the regional lead for Vernon, Beauregard, Allen and Jefferson Davis parishes – that made more sense and I was happy to have a lead to help facilitate our needs.
When Erica and Mac arrived I gave them a quick introduction and the field guide.
Today, once Nicolas arrived (he is Haitian), we had a staff meeting. We reassigned some of the tasks. I put Erica in charge of Housing and Community Design since she has more domestic experience than Chris and so is more familiar with Community Development Block Grants, etc. I assigned Nicolas to work with Cliff and divided up Transportation & Infrastructure into Transportation and Public Buildings (Cliff’s interest) and Utilities (Nicolas’s interest). I asked Mac to work with me on Capacity and to be the liaison with State and Federal partners identifying potential funding sources for the projects we would likely be identifying. It seems like we have a great team.
Tuesday I received an e-mail stating that some new people who had arrived last week were about to be badged and two more people would be added to my team later in the week. I was surprised since I had not asked for additional staffing thinking they would be needed elsewhere.
Over the course of the last month I had been receiving e-mails and documents describing what was expected of team leads and members, who to contact for what, when reports were due, etc. In order to get my team on the same page I had decided to prepare a field guide putting all the information I thought was important in one brief document. With new folks coming in soon, I stayed late on Tuesday to prepare the document. It would make orienting them easier.
It is definitely a small world. When I got back to my room Tuesday night, there was an e-mail from Jennifer – the woman from New York who had been the facilitator a the two government planning workshops I was part of in December. Another planner friend of hers from Florida had e-mailed her to say she had quit her job and taken a contract to work on the recovery planning and had just been told she was assigned to Allen Parish. It was nice to know that Jennifer had e-mailed her back to say how happy she was that she had been assigned to Allen and that she was sure that she would really enjoy working with me.
The next day I received a phone call officially telling me that Erica had been added to my team – along with two other people! Nicolas is an environmental engineer and Mac is a rural development specialist with the US Department of Agriculture. Soon after, I received a call from Erica. She and Mac were ready to go and would be out to the Parish in the afternoon. I had a meeting with the Tribal Council and on my way back there was a message from Nicolas. The connection was not very good and he had an accent (French?) that made it difficult to understand. Back in the office I got in touch with Nicolas. He would be out on Thursday.
Then I received another phone call from a fellow named Bob who said Steve had told him to call – a fourth person? We talked, I gave him guidance on where to stay, how to find us, etc. Only toward the end of the conversation did he say that his role was the regional lead for Vernon, Beauregard, Allen and Jefferson Davis parishes – that made more sense and I was happy to have a lead to help facilitate our needs.
When Erica and Mac arrived I gave them a quick introduction and the field guide.
Today, once Nicolas arrived (he is Haitian), we had a staff meeting. We reassigned some of the tasks. I put Erica in charge of Housing and Community Design since she has more domestic experience than Chris and so is more familiar with Community Development Block Grants, etc. I assigned Nicolas to work with Cliff and divided up Transportation & Infrastructure into Transportation and Public Buildings (Cliff’s interest) and Utilities (Nicolas’s interest). I asked Mac to work with me on Capacity and to be the liaison with State and Federal partners identifying potential funding sources for the projects we would likely be identifying. It seems like we have a great team.
posted by J Corlss at 8:14 PM
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