3 years ago, I heard about the story of the Insentra train. A company where everyone no matter what level in the business contributes and is responsible in helping the train reach the destination. It sounded too good to be true! A great working environment, mature culture, great work-life balance, and no political drama. Insentra sounded like the place to be.
I didn’t know much about managed services at the time. Internal support was all I knew for the last 10 years. After researching more, I came to an understanding that this was an incredible career opportunity. Working for managed services could open doors that wouldn’t normally be possible working as internal support. Access to different environments, with different technologies and philosophies, would increase my knowledge professionally at a much greater pace.
I knew what this meant for me, but in life, other factors come into play. I had just purchased a new home and my wife was expecting our second child. I already had a steady job at an established company where I was already making strides and things were going well on all fronts.
Why fix what isn’t broken?
For all these reasons I convinced myself to make the safe play and therefore I declined the opportunity and stayed with my employer. It felt like the sensible move and I made peace with my decision and moved on thinking I had closed off that chapter.
Working within a single environment, you can fall into a trap of complacency, into the mentality of doing things the same because “That’s just the way it’s always been” or “It’s not worth changing now”. The drive to challenge and innovate can sometimes be hard but I found myself always asking the same questions. Why are we doing it this way? How can we do this better?
I started work on various things like process improvement and documenting procedures. Working with staff to identify pain points and come up with solutions. The best part was that I had the support to do so. It is a great feeling to know you are helping to make a difference.
Roughly a year goes by and things looked very different. There is a shift in philosophies and things were unclear. Work that was lined up were suddenly de-prioritised or shelved. The work that was started hindered by indecisiveness and political games had somehow crept into the work culture. It is easy to get caught up in the middle of everything and a feeling of helplessness settled in. It was a trying experience…
I found myself thinking back to Insentra and the train story. The steam engine where everyone works together to reach their goal. To help and pitch in for the betterment of the company. I told myself I want that. How do I get that?
So, I took a chance and I reached out not knowing what type of response would come back if at all after thinking I had closed that door long ago.
I was quite surprised to get a response back. Another chance to “board the train” and this time I didn’t hesitate and jumped right in. Suffice to say I am glad that both Insentra and I took the leap of faith. In my short time here, I can see that everything that drew my attention to the organisation is not just for the show. There is a genuine commitment within the organisation that we all help each other when needed or called upon. The term OTOD (One Team One Dream) is one of the core values of everything that we do, and it is heavily believed in. I’m happy to have found this home and back to doing what I love.
