What I've Been Up To

 So just an update of what I've been doing daily at work. A lot of things really. Apart from my regular tasks on taking cases, calling customers, and filing defects, I've been doing extra for no recompense. A 'gift' if you may.

I've been trying to get the aging cases of my colleagues in the CRM product area down. There are a lot of cases where reps may have felt stuck, or untrained to complete the task. So I've been teaching them how to work on such cases. There are indeed some cases on niche features, like the Dunning Letters bundle, that come once in a blue moon, so it's not very often reps get familiar with how to help customers with concerns on these features. 

Consultations have not been limited to CRM. People from SuiteBuilder and SuiteCloud have also approached me for consultation.

A lot of people have been consulting lately about saved searches, especially in the SuiteAnalytics Subject-Matter Expert (SME) Slack channel. I'm unfortunately the only real active SME there. It's more work to investigate such concerns, but since I find saved searches quite fascinating, I use my extra time in investigating cases of reps from around the globe. I get to expand my network a lot thanks to this. I'm glad someone that requested for help was impressed that I was assisting her for nothing in return.

I've also recently been studying the SuiteBuilder product area. I was scheduled to take an exam last week. I took it and passed. Hence, there are now three product areas on which I am officially an SME of (CRM/Account Administration, SuiteAnalytics, and SuiteBuilder). I have to thank my colleague who has really helped me study for it. I hope he passes the exam too.

If you're familiar with how my story as a linchpin began, you may know that I created a macro to help with knowledge management across 6 teams. I'm expanding that reach to 11 teams, and I have been working with the managers of these teams to get the tool implemented throughout the entire House of SuiteCloud. So I spent some time on preparing a presentation for this. It's really an amazing experience to be collaborating and presenting to managers of different teams outside my area, including senior managers. It allows me to meet other linchpins that would support each other with common goals. I thank them for the insights, the support, and for helping me plan out the next steps.

I'm slated to meet members of these 11 teams (delegates to the task) and train them next week. I've prepared my presentation as well.

I was also scheduled for some SuiteCloud training, however my request was disapproved, and it was non-negotiable for reasons I cannot currently comprehend. There were reasons for the disapproval, but they don't seem valid. It's as if the disapprover was stunting my growth, in spite of my previous requests (for over a year) to take the training. There's more to the story, perhaps I can tell about it later on when the story gets completed. It was disheartening to hear the disapproval, to say the least. So as a linchpin, I know better.

I've been reading Linchpin again and I just came across the chapter on nostalgia and attachment to a future outcome/expectation. The rejection should not get the best of me. I have a plan to get around it, which is to talk to someone higher, maybe from senior management, to help me achieve my goals. I've also consulted with other team leads -- leaders who I know are great leaders, and I truly respect. I'm grateful that they have listened to my concerns and have given me really helpful advice. They agree that Oracle is set up so that anyone can choose how to build one's own career, and that my growth is being stifled at the moment. Hopefully everything will get sorted out in the coming weeks.