The more things change, the more they stay the same....

It's been months since I have chronicled my life in the public sector. The good thing is that even though there have been many changes in structure, policy and procedures...the attitudes, environment and mindset remain the same.

Let me explain a bit. In the lovely world of chaos where I spend most of my day there exists characters and actors that thrive off of this madness. If you make changes, the idea is to bring about improvement, right? If it aint broke, don't fix it. Simple concept. But, for the sake of improvement, why not make changes to simplify the work load? Why not consolidate policies and procedures to make life a wee bit simple?

Being on an implementation team for a new computer system, my job is to make sure that there are few unforeseen problems or obstacles that may occur in the future. A simple solution would be to slowly implement policies and procedures so that it will make the transition an easy one. You would think that starting out slow, making subtle tiny changes wouldn't be so hard. My thoughts were to make the changes now, very slowly and gradually, so that when the system goes live there will be an easy transition with the new procedures associated with the new system. After all, we have almost a year before the new system goes live....

This is where the chaos comes in. How many supervisors, managers and leaders does it take to successfully begin the implementation process? A conservative estimate would be three. I say conservative because that is the best case scenario where the information goes directly to the top, filters to the manager then to the supervisor for approval or review. There have been times (numerous, I might add) where the implementation process is delayed where as many as eight departments, agencies or supervisors/managers have to have some say on the matter.

Guess I am getting used to it. I don't like it..but I am getting used to it.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's easy to become complacent. It's easy to impede progress for the sake of comfortability.

Change should be good. It's not always easy but nothing really ever is, is it?