Identity Crisis

As a Learning and Development professional, I am often referred to as an "HR guy". Despite being in L&D full time for over 13 years I have never thought of myself as a Human Resources professional.
From my vantage point, I am an Operations professional. I help prepare learners with the skills and technical knowledge they need to get their work done. If that isn't Operations I don't know what is.

A Critical Question

Like a lot of L&D professionals, I subscribe to e-zines. The result is an inbox that is seldom empty. Sometimes the emails contain little of interest; other times they contain useful tools or pose thought-provoking questions.

Today I received an email containing a link to the following article. It's a brief post that barely brushes the surface of a critical question for today's Learning & Development professional.

Here's the link:

Can Learning Keep Up With the Needs of Business

Poppies

94 years ago today, the Great War came to an end. Life in Canada went back to normal, or as normal as things can get when a small nation loses over sixty thousand dead and suffers even more wounded. The country attempted to return to a sense of normal in the years and decades that followed, until an even greater war broke out in 1939, followed by a brutal war on the Korean pennisula, smaller conflicts that fell under the guise of "peacekeeping" even when there was no peace to keep, and our own contemporary war in Afghanistan.

Ever since the firing ceased in 1918, the poppy has served as a symbol for remembering the sacrifices of the combatant. Whether it was inspired by the great Canadian First World War poem In Flanders' Fields, or whether it was the result of a natural association between the poppy and opiates which bring the sleep that serves as a metaphor for death, the days leading up to Remembrance Day are awash in a sea of poppies.

In a way, it is fitting that the poppy serves this role. It is a link between the First World War, where poppies grew between the crosses in Flanders' fields, and Afghanistan, where drug lords harvest them to make drugs to sell to the rest of the world.

Autumn

After an extended summer, autumn has officially arrived in my neck of Ontario. The days are still sunny and even warm, but the nights are getting cooler, the rains are colder, the daylight hours grow shorter. The change of seasons is a natural, even beautiful, thing, but it is always tinged with sadness.

Autum is not without its charms. The leaves are changing colours on the trees. The geese are flying in honking vee formations in the twilight sky. The pumpkins are turning orange on the vine. The evening air is crisp and refreshing.

It is a sad time, but it is good.

A Technicality

I realized earlier today that I am technically between jobs. Friday I left a job I had held for nearly five years, and I don't start the new position until tomorrow morning.

Departure (D-3)

The long to-do list from last week has now been whittled down to three remaining tasks. My calendar has  three meetings booked. The surface of my desk is almost supernaturally empty.

It is really odd talking about projects today with people I will probably never see again after Friday, but that's the way it is.

Departure (D-4)

I have not blogged for a while.

In part, this absence has been because of summer vacation. In part, it is because I was in the midst of job interviews. In part, it is because I have been busy trying to get all my outstanding projects completed so that it is a clean transition.

I have been so busy that I have been able to avoid the emotions that come from leaving colleagues I have worked with for almost five years. But now, as the to-do list gets whittled down, the emotions are starting to creep in.

It's going to be a rough week.