A Note To My Former Colleagues
Thank you. I’ve been completely overwhelmed by the well-wishes of so many former Progressive Waste Solutions colleagues from all over North America who have PM’d me to wish me well in my new role at Manulife.
I have so many great memories of all of you. I spent the first four months on the job living in hotel rooms and airports across Canada and the US, training you on a poorly designed Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation a vendor had delivered. What you saw was a guy pushing ahead with training on CRM that everybody knew wouldn’t work. What you didn’t see was what I was doing behind the scenes: organizing your feedback on the system and documenting your requirements for a REAL solution.
I was new to the waste industry, and you were all very patient teaching me what I needed to know about your job while you vented your frustrations with the CRM that didn’t do anything for you.
It was certainly challenging to “toe the line” while working behind the scenes, setting the stage to provide a CRM solution that would help you (but as you know, I love a challenge!)
When Rob was hired and I.T. was restructured so that I’d report to him, I had no idea what to expect. Rob was crazy-brilliant and hilarious. Whatever was about to happen I knew it would be fun and interesting. Immediately, things took off and he got us started on “building an airplane in mid-air”. Another challenge I loved.
Rob is responsible for so much of how I’ve grown professionally over the past four years. I went from being a developer to someone who really understands the philosophy and vision of software systems design.
After that change, I still worked closely with many of you. You are some of the best sales talent I’ve ever seen, and your input was instrumental in our ability to make your lives easier.
As the months turned to years, I travelled less but still took the odd trip to meet with company visionaries and to provide technical support to Chad as he trained you on our new Salesforce implementation.
Chad, while I’m here, I’d like to commend you for the job you did. Your talent, organization, and approach stuck with me and helped me to strive for a higher quality in everything I did after touring Canada with you. I will definitely think back to this if I ever find myself training users again. The time we spent sitting together in restaurants, hotel conference rooms, and in the Kelowna Regional Office© as you helped me to even better understand the intricacies of the waste industry were so vital in enabling me to do my job. I know you would have rather spent this time skyping with your wife and children back home, so your investment in me is greatly appreciated.
My last two years had very little work travel, which was fine. It allowed me to focus on my last big hurrah for PWS, and I still worked closely with some of you on different projects.
I know I’ve only named two people, but know this: You’ve all contributed in some way to the knowledge, skills, and insight I picked up over four years working with you.
And that is why your messages since starting at Manulife have been so touching.
Thank you again for everything, and I hope I’ve have the opportunity to work with some of you again (FYI: Manulife’s job board).