It's a Great Day to be a Gator

This morning, I got my cup of coffee to go and got in my car to head to work. I was on my way to a job that wasn't in housing. Now once upon a time, I had to get used to the idea of going to work at a place that wasn't the University of Florida when I served 3 years as Associate Director of Housing at George Mason University... but this... this was different. I didn't move. Didn't have to pack up my house or (god forbid) sell a house. I didn't even take a different route to work...  I just stopped about a mile before my usual destination.
I went to bed last night with a 100% certainty that I wouldn't be getting a crisis emergency phone call. My 6 week old also slept really well. Ironically, I didn't sleep a wink. Too excited about the new opportunity. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve.

Now the first day on the job... the greatest challenge I faced was not meeting everyone and getting to know folks around the office. I had taken some time between when I was offered the position and now to do alot of that. My greatest challenge was trying to not do 5 years worth of work on the first day. My office is butt naked and I knew that would be the case. On your first day of work in a new office and department, I know you shouldn't spend the first day hanging pictures and making your furniture just so... besides, there's way to much to do to have time for that.

Today was also our Executive Director's one year anniversary in her position. Staff visited her office and sang a song or two (Great to be a Florida Gator) to celebrate. I think the greatest gift she could get on this day was having so many people working there that could visit. We've been short staffed for quite some time, so having more pieces in place is certainly appreciated.
The rest of the day was fairly busy with the Florida Forward Event coming up. Everyone is flying around in this last week to get things prepared. I had a conference call with my Committee Chair. He was great. Very warm and welcoming and shared some good ideas and goals for our upcoming meeting.For the 2nd time, I attended a Florida Forward meeting.... I am in awe of the amount of stuff that gets done and covered in maybe 90 minutes. I've led a million meetings in my time, but this is impressive and the meeting culture is very different that what I'm used to. I'm having fun.

Met some other folks from the foundation and re-connected with a colleague that I hadn't seen in several years. Both that colleague and our Executive Director shared some very kind words with me before going back to our offices.

By the time I touched base with my supervisor by the end of the day and discussed the conference call from earlier in the day, I actually said, "The call from yesterday" and really thought we had done it on a different day. I think the sleepless night has finally caught up with me.

As I left the office, I was headed towards my car when three people were hanging out outside the Alumni Hall... clearly Preview student and parents. They seemed to be trying to decide who would be in the picture with their entering freshman daughter when I asked if  I could take a picture for them. They let me and I snapped a couple of shots of them with the Dad's phone. I introduced myself to them and the Dad said to me with his chest poked out, "Yeah. She's a brand new Gator!!" I told them congratulations and that "you'll all love it here". As I departed, I said, "Go Gators" and all three of them, almost in unison returned the greeting. While I was walking away, I could hear the daughter excitedly begin to tell her parents, "...oh they taught us this cheer in preview..."

Two things crossed my mind immediately:
1.) I've had this type of interaction here 756 times and while i'm not going to be resopnsible for that young lady's safety, air conditioning, meals, happiness with her roommate, ability to study at night, parking close to her hall, or anything else... I still get the chills. I think I'll be OK here.

2.) I can't believe this was a Friday.

I'm tired. Back to the office tomorrow for some good ole fashioned grunt work and getting the office together a little bit.

Thanks for following.

Go Gators!