Month 1
I feel like I have been running on empty lately. Work has been very stressful and exhausting. I usually come home from work so late that I only have time to eat something for dinner and then go to bed. I want to take at least a long weekend sometime soon. I have been thinking about going back to Amsterdam perhaps. The weather has been getting slowly better and I want to be out enjoying it more. I have tomorrow off, and many other holidays coming up in the next two months.
I have been neglecting some things that I need to take care of, such as taxes, changing my name with my bank and financial stuff, and informing my extended family of my transition. The name changing effort entails a lot more letters and such which I must also do. I would like to take today and tomorrow to get better organized. I used to have a big problem with procrastination, but it has been rearing it’s ugly head again. The immediate pressures at work are finished for the moment and I am hoping to return to a normal schedule again. Then again, I have a machine going together in the next couple of weeks.
I spent this past Thursday through Saturday holed up in a conference room with eleven other people discussing a specification that I co-authored. The specification is for the development project that I have been working on. This is the first time we actually put together in one document everything we are planning on designing. For two years, a core team including me and several other disciplines has been discussing market requirements and specific customer demands in effort to define the system. I am glad we finally have a defined course of action.
The group was made up of Japanese, an American (me), a Briton, an Irishman, and many Germans. It seemed we finally had the right people sitting around the table to discuss each issue in detail and come up with a final consensus. That was refreshing. We have wasted so much time in the past with not being able to come up with definite answers. Time is short though. The first prototype must be designed and built by November of this year, which means I must design everything and release it for purchase by the end of July. I have just three months to do it. Helmut has offered to take over my responsibilities for the Audi project so I am able to concentrate on the new design. I will take him up on his offer.
I had met the foreign members of the group all within the last six months, which means they all met me as a man. This time was obviously different. The Japanese were informed of my change beforehand by the company co-president, who is also Japanese. The British and Irish guys were also informed, but by whom I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. They were all accepting of me and there were no surprises thankfully. My business unit manager asked at the very beginning of the three days if I wanted to say anything about it to the group, but I said I didn’t think it was necessary. After all, we were there to discuss chassis dynos and not transsexuals. I figured since everyone was already informed, I would wait until the appropriate forum, such as dinner, to discuss my change with those who had questions. That worked out well. I had small discussions with the elder Japanese man and the Irish guy. Overall, I didn’t feel at all uncomfortable in the three days. I am very happy about this.
At the end of such internal workshops, the president likes to get feedback from the team on how the session went. The feedback from the Japanese side was very positive. Their leader said he would report that we have progressed further than expected. This project has high visibility in Kyoto, so his impression is very important to the mortality of my job. I felt this time we were working together as a team. The last time, the Japanese colleagues were a lot more reserved and did not offer so much. We all were able to discuss things openly as if we were working toward a common goal.
The British and the Irish guys also gave positive feedback with a bit of apprehension about the remaining mechanical design yet to be completed. The apprehension was drawn out of the rift between me and the cost analysts’ ideas. The cost analyst was brought on too early for me to work closely with, and therefore he has gone off and done a lot of conceptual design without my input. I am open to new ideas, but a lot of what he has concepted is not completely thought through and also not very stable. I tried to keep my mouth shut during his presentation so as to not show any disunity within the team. It was inevitable that it would show through, but I tried my best. The problem was, he presented his ideas for cost savings as fixed and finished designs, which they are not. In the end I will be the one to take responsibility for something that may or may not work. Listening to him butchering the English language was also a bit painful.
I have made it through the first month of my full time status. I really have very little to nothing to complain about. I have learned and done a lot in the past four weeks. I am no longer nervous about presenting female like I used to be. I feel somewhat liberated. I present my self as I feel myself to be, no more, no less. It just feels right. Most people at work accepted my change with no apparent problems. The assembly managers continued to extort a cup of coffee from me in exchange for special requests. Most people call me by Christine now. I get the feeling that the management is watching situations as they relate to me and my change very closely. Visiting a customer alone was the first test. The second was the past three days. I feel that I handled both situations confidently and professionally.
Rachel is thankfully doing much better. That was scary. I held my new niece, Elena, when I was in Mass for Easter. She is so tiny. It was good to be in town for Easter. The rest of my sisters and their children got to see me as Christine, and everything went well. I am thankful that my family accepts me for who I am. I am glad that I finally accepted myself, and now my life can go on, and hopefully get even better.
I have been neglecting some things that I need to take care of, such as taxes, changing my name with my bank and financial stuff, and informing my extended family of my transition. The name changing effort entails a lot more letters and such which I must also do. I would like to take today and tomorrow to get better organized. I used to have a big problem with procrastination, but it has been rearing it’s ugly head again. The immediate pressures at work are finished for the moment and I am hoping to return to a normal schedule again. Then again, I have a machine going together in the next couple of weeks.
I spent this past Thursday through Saturday holed up in a conference room with eleven other people discussing a specification that I co-authored. The specification is for the development project that I have been working on. This is the first time we actually put together in one document everything we are planning on designing. For two years, a core team including me and several other disciplines has been discussing market requirements and specific customer demands in effort to define the system. I am glad we finally have a defined course of action.
The group was made up of Japanese, an American (me), a Briton, an Irishman, and many Germans. It seemed we finally had the right people sitting around the table to discuss each issue in detail and come up with a final consensus. That was refreshing. We have wasted so much time in the past with not being able to come up with definite answers. Time is short though. The first prototype must be designed and built by November of this year, which means I must design everything and release it for purchase by the end of July. I have just three months to do it. Helmut has offered to take over my responsibilities for the Audi project so I am able to concentrate on the new design. I will take him up on his offer.
I had met the foreign members of the group all within the last six months, which means they all met me as a man. This time was obviously different. The Japanese were informed of my change beforehand by the company co-president, who is also Japanese. The British and Irish guys were also informed, but by whom I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. They were all accepting of me and there were no surprises thankfully. My business unit manager asked at the very beginning of the three days if I wanted to say anything about it to the group, but I said I didn’t think it was necessary. After all, we were there to discuss chassis dynos and not transsexuals. I figured since everyone was already informed, I would wait until the appropriate forum, such as dinner, to discuss my change with those who had questions. That worked out well. I had small discussions with the elder Japanese man and the Irish guy. Overall, I didn’t feel at all uncomfortable in the three days. I am very happy about this.
At the end of such internal workshops, the president likes to get feedback from the team on how the session went. The feedback from the Japanese side was very positive. Their leader said he would report that we have progressed further than expected. This project has high visibility in Kyoto, so his impression is very important to the mortality of my job. I felt this time we were working together as a team. The last time, the Japanese colleagues were a lot more reserved and did not offer so much. We all were able to discuss things openly as if we were working toward a common goal.
The British and the Irish guys also gave positive feedback with a bit of apprehension about the remaining mechanical design yet to be completed. The apprehension was drawn out of the rift between me and the cost analysts’ ideas. The cost analyst was brought on too early for me to work closely with, and therefore he has gone off and done a lot of conceptual design without my input. I am open to new ideas, but a lot of what he has concepted is not completely thought through and also not very stable. I tried to keep my mouth shut during his presentation so as to not show any disunity within the team. It was inevitable that it would show through, but I tried my best. The problem was, he presented his ideas for cost savings as fixed and finished designs, which they are not. In the end I will be the one to take responsibility for something that may or may not work. Listening to him butchering the English language was also a bit painful.
I have made it through the first month of my full time status. I really have very little to nothing to complain about. I have learned and done a lot in the past four weeks. I am no longer nervous about presenting female like I used to be. I feel somewhat liberated. I present my self as I feel myself to be, no more, no less. It just feels right. Most people at work accepted my change with no apparent problems. The assembly managers continued to extort a cup of coffee from me in exchange for special requests. Most people call me by Christine now. I get the feeling that the management is watching situations as they relate to me and my change very closely. Visiting a customer alone was the first test. The second was the past three days. I feel that I handled both situations confidently and professionally.
Rachel is thankfully doing much better. That was scary. I held my new niece, Elena, when I was in Mass for Easter. She is so tiny. It was good to be in town for Easter. The rest of my sisters and their children got to see me as Christine, and everything went well. I am thankful that my family accepts me for who I am. I am glad that I finally accepted myself, and now my life can go on, and hopefully get even better.
posted by Christine Cormier @ 12:28 PM
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