Small Wins at Work

Yesterday, I got a phone call from a colleague who was promoted to my position, in charge of the General Education department, at my old school.  She said, "I know you kept a copy of sign in sheets for faculty development.  Any idea where they are?"

We talked about some possibilities.  Then I remembered that I had uploaded many files in one large file to a shared drive.  I walked her through how to get to the drive and how to find the GE file that I had left.  She found it and opened it.  At first she didn't see it, and then she said, "Wait, here it is.  Faculty Development sign in sheets.  Yes!  These are the ones I need."

I said, "Thank you past Kristin, for taking care of us!"

I was inordinately thrilled that I had saved what she needed, and even more thrilled that it was still there--it's a shared drive, after all.

I have reflected before on these kinds of job thrills--in one way, they're small, but in a different way, they're still so important to me.  One expects to be feel good about the big wins, like successful navigating of auditor/accreditor visits.  It's good to remember the small wins too.

Another small win yesterday was my successful registration for the AWP conference.  I'm going to Tampa in 2018--hurrah!  And I'll be driving--oh dear--no airline luggage weight limits to hold me back at the book fair.

And now it is time to get ready for another day at work.  I anticipate a small win of a different kind:  it's new student orientation day for our midquarter start students.  I say it's a small win, both because it's a small group, and because the sense of the larger win must go to Admissions. 

But small wins are wins--and I'm grateful for them.