I’m now a week into my job. It’s been a stressful week. My living arrangement right now is staying at my brothers apartment in the living room to sleep since it’s really close to my office. After work, I head back to my mom’s house to relax instead of going directly to be brother’s place because there isn’t privacy. I’m not sure I’ll be getting a full time offer so I didn’t want to get a place until I figure out a permanent gig.
I went to my first all hands in meeting where all the heads of different organizations gave a high level update of the company status. It’s amazing how fast this company is growing. We’re already expanding internationally and Travis has only been at the helm since March 2018.
Today was slightly stressful after my boss, the head of growth, made one of our analyst feel under appreciated and stressed out for something that wasn’t his fault. It was not cool and then my boss just leaves for the day.
I’ve been stressed because of my boss. I’m afraid of not knowing something and looking like an idiot. That’s self inflicted but I don’t think he’s a very good boss. He doesn’t really care about people but rather just performance. I was starting to complain about him in my head and I told my mom about it and thankfully she reminded me to never talk bad about my boss. You never know who is hearing it and it’s just not productive.
What I realize I need to do is stop worrying so much about not getting on his bad side and rather focus on doing my work. I work for the Lord and my boss has been put in place there for a reason. Instead of my focus on not trying to mess up, my focus needs to be just focusing on doing my job well. If I do my best and I still get fired it’s okay. I can’t control how my boss is going to react or what he’ll do. The only thing I can do is focus on enjoying my work and doing it well.
Instead of stressing about not getting fired, complaining about my boss, worrying about what other people are thinking, my time is best spent thinking about my job function and growing the business. I need to do my best work and leave the outcomes to the Lord. But it’s my job to stop focusing on irrelevant things I can’t control and focus on things I can.
I’m going to treat my job as my own business. I’m going to respect my boss and figure out ways to get better at my job so that my bosses job gets easier. I’m going to take ownership of my role.
In a startup environment and I think any job in general, you need to be proactive about learning and connecting with people. Your bosses won’t hold your hand especially in a fast growing startup so you need to go out and connect with your colleagues and coworkers to learn from them. You need to figure things out on your own.
I’ve been trying to figure out what our function is as growth operations. It’s been helpful talking to my boss, talking to my coworker, and digging around on my own. The all hands in meeting was very helpful too to get a high level view of the company. I think I have a better idea of where our department stands and what I should be thinking about.
I know when I build a company, I want to focus on people. I didn’t realize how stressful a job can be. I’m sure everyone that has a job is going through stressful situations. By being aware of this, I’m more consciously being nicer to everyone. It’s not worth it being stressed all the time.
I want to create a safe, loving, nurturing company that cares about its people and its mission. I want to be a 100 best companies to work for with lifer employees that we pour into and become family.
I think I can be a good company owner. This job is making me really value what a good work environment should look like. It’s giving me perspective on secular startup world vs kingdom startups. By loving people and creating the right environment for them, I believe they can do so much more.
If you treat your employees right, create a loving culture, and pour into them I believe a company benefits greatly. Communication between departments becomes smoother and more efficient. Everyone is more willing to help each other. Employees have more interest in growing the company. People are less stressed and won’t burn out. Happier employees make better employees. All of this is part of a Kingdom business.