Candidate Question| Initiative…getting it done

[WalkingadventureParticipant]

Describe the last time that you undertook a project that demanded a lot of initiative.

Share with us how it turned out.

Following the signals from space.

[rawevilParticipant]

In my line of work, a lot of people look to me for suggestions in order to make the best end product that is both production friendly and eye catching. Recently, I was given a project that was not very well put together on the front end and needed to devise a plan that not only achieved the above two objections, but make the company money at the end of the day. Unfortunately, my customer was on the West Coast and my salesperson was on the East Coast so there was a bit of a time difference that hindered the project being tackled during our regular business hours. In order to get the project done, I worked a lot of own time (when you are salary, it’s called own time instead of overtime) at the end of the day and oversaw all aspects of production. I went out on a limb approving some things that would normally be reserved for the customer because time was not on my side. But through constant contact with them after regular hours and knowing what they wanted in a finished piece, I made some executive decisions. Those decisions I made worked out because I listened to what they really wanted. The customer is extremely happy with the product and we are planning to do a mailer with the finished product to show other prospective buyers in the industry what we can do. The company made money as well with more potential sales pending.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

-Henry David Thoreau

[lostcheqParticipant]

Last May, I was asked by the Cable Natural History Museum to fill-in for one of their departed naturalists who was scheduled to instruct an Intro to Geocaching class.  It’s one thing to go geocaching, but quite another to explain and instruct others how to do it in 2 hours time!   I had to coordinate with the Cable Natural History Museum and the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center at Ashland to put this together.  Initially I sought the help of Wandering Tracks, as they introduced me to geocaching.  (What goes around comes around!)

Then I set up an Event – “Muggle Minglings” before the class and used this as a vehicle to ask for help from other geocachers.  Timberline Echoes and Kantender stepped up to assist.  Putting out 8 new hides for geocachers was another incentive to attract other cachers to help with the class, as they could claim an event and potentially FTF on new caches.

As it turned out, there were about 20 students, including a group of Girl Scouts.  After a classroom session, we all went out to locate 5 pre-set caches I put out using the GPS units the Cable Natural History Museum supplied.  After working out some bugs with the receivers, we were actually making progress with finding the caches.

With the assistance of Wandering Tracks, Timberline Echoes and Kantender, it turned out so well, I was asked to coordinate another Intro to Geocaching.   However, this next class will be through the Chequamegon Bay Birding Festival, May 19, 2016, once again at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center.  Wandering Tracks will again be a huge help with this.   I sure learned what works and what could be improved upon for this next adventure!   If anyone else is interested in helping, give me a holler.   I’m also planning on setting out new caches for the event.

I’d Rather Be Lost Geocaching, Than Found At Home!

[Pixiestix13Participant]

In addition to working full time, I am also enrolled in school part time. One aspect of school that I’m not particularly fond of is working in groups.  I have never had an issue in working on group projects at work, but in school it’s been quite a challenge in dealing with others who are not as motivated in doing well, as I am.  In an online class I had, the teacher created groups for us to work on a research report that we were then to create a power point presentation on.  The other groups were setup with 5 students, where the group I was placed in only had 4.  I sent out a message to my group, and asked how the other three wanted to handle the project.  I received feedback from two of the students, and we talked about how we were going to divide the tasks of the report up.  I took the initiative of taking on the extra tasks that the 5th member would have done.  After a few more messages, and no response from the 4th member, our group was down to 3.  I sent a message to the teacher letting her know what was going on, and she said that all tasks still needed to be completed.  The other two students had little desire to take on any more work than they were already doing, so I took on the extra research that needed to be done.  After compiling our information, I asked the other two how they wanted to do the power point presentation. I suggested that we could meet up at school and work on the presentation together; however, the other two were less than thrilled about that suggestion.  Running short on time, and wanting to get the presentation done, I created the power point presentation.  I sent it to the others in the group to provide feedback, or make any changes to it if necessary.  No changes were made, and the presentation and report was submitted.  I’m happy to say that we did get an A on the project.  While taking on extra work is not fun, it sometimes needs to happen in accomplishing your goals, or to see a project succeed.  Do what needs to be done to get the job done, so that you can move on and celebrate in your success!

~ **~ All posts are my opinion and do not in any way reflect the opinion of the WGA Board of Directors ~**~

[labrat_wrParticipant]

while it may not be the last time, it was one that made a huge difference in how we did things.
being a medical technologist and working in a hospital laboratory running numerous tests every day, the process of reporting the results was, at a point several years ago, a manual process which involved transcribing the results from an analyzer printout to a report sheet for the providers to see. Obviously, that left a huge opportunity for transcriptional errors. So when the opportunity came up to build a Laboratory Module to computerize the resulting, I was all in. I was given the task to determine how to best structure and build this massive undertaking. Piece by piece and test by test the module came together and it was integrated with the analyzers and the rest of the Hospital system. Billing, Records, Orders. Orders, yeah, that came next where the nurses/doctors could order the tests themselves instead of us doing it from a written order. That was the next task that was put on my plate. Since I understood how the Lab stuff worked, I was the perfect one to build the orders module.

while it was a long task, it was completed and surprisingly, it all worked! (no doubts)

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[raslasParticipant]

Recently at work the “powers that be” decided to move an area from one building to another.  This decision was made a hour before quitting time and had to be completed the same day.  Needless to say it wasn’t quitting time for me!!  A couple of us stayed late and did what was necessary to get the job done and have everything was in place for the following day.

[AverithParticipant]

Where I work didn’t have detailed instructions on how to do many of the tasks required for the job.  I took it upon myself to make detailed notes and instructions on how to do all of the functions of my job.

[Author]

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