I have to admit that I felt a little emotional today when I sat and watched Mike show the travel company staff the new system he has spent 25 months writing. There were varying degrees of enthusiasm. As always happens when you are trying to introduce change, it’s not going to be welcomed by all. Generally, we don’t enjoy change and the older we get, we don’t enjoy having to learn new stuff.
So we arrived with a new system – a big, huge new bookings programme th
at has to be learned. As Mike showed how it worked and then sent the staff off to practice at their terminals, I heard a lot of ‘fantastic’. Someone said, ‘that’s what I’m wanting to see.” Someone else said, ‘perfect’ – ‘that’s good’, ‘that’s quite cool,’ and my personal favourite, “wow!”
There was one person who didn’t show too much enthusiasm and is the one who will be the greatest challenge to win over. This is not unexpected. Hating the change, not trusting whether this new system will work or will be better, he showed little interest until he saw one part that he had to admit would help his department. I am looking forward to seeing what happens as we transition through the learning process and eventually we go live with the system in entirely running the business.
Eventually, everyone will be making this system stand on its head and they will be wondering what they did without it. As I made the bed this morning, I commented to Mike about how we would feel when we climbed back into it tonight. This first major milestone is over and I have to admit that it has not gone badly at all. I will hear more of Mike’s opinion when we leave to go home.
I bought my laptop to the travel offices and am connected to their internet connection, so am able to write my blog, which is great. I think we should stay here now until the traffic rush is over. The rain is trying to set in in Cape Town, but hasn’t quite arrived here.
Julian is flying in tonight for the weekend, so it will be great to see him.
Meanwhile, the company I work for online is not getting any less busy. In fact it’s just the opposite. I managed to do almost 5 hours today and once this blog is posted, will try and do a little more.
This morning, I read Psalm 127. Verse 1 we put on our wedding invitation:
I think it is quite apt for trusting God in all the things we put our hand and time and effort into. Let Him be behind all our work, so that what we do is not in vain.
These are the days – big ones, small ones, significant ones, ordinary ones – we embrace them all.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂