23 days in... My story

Today, I'm 23 days in...

23 days at my new job @NMBS. I've seen and talked to over a 100 new colleagues (physically and digitally) and visited more than a few new locations. I would like to share some parts of my journey with you all.

Feel free to tune in, or ignore it completely :-)

Pronouns are hard..., languages too

We, Us, Our, them, They, their... Whether they are personal or possessive pronouns I have to admit working for more than 9 years at VDAB has fused my work identity with that company. Especially, in cases where my new firm collaborates with the old one, it gets tricky forming sentences. I guess it will take some time to fuse with B-technics and to incorporate it into my use of pronouns. Though, I am curious if other job-hoppers have (had) the same problem?

Furthermore, I have to admit I gravely underestimated the mental effort it takes to switching to the daily usage of French. Having been educated in Dutch, English, teaching and linguistics, resorting to a language I haven't spoken for 14 years takes its toll. Without any hesitation, I can say that my old language teachers would not be proud of my current proficiency... I am thoroughly impressed with and humbled by the level of bilingualism at the HQ of NMBS. I have a long way to go there.

Learning & Development

The previous years I've been immersed in the world of training and learning on a more abstract level: I was occupied with designing & improving processes and products involving all methods of training (on the job, instructor-led, digital & E., etc). Now, at NMBS it feels a bit like reverting to the work I did at the Maritime Training center in Zeebrugge and yet, it also differs. I'm not focused on managing a training facility (occupancy rate, training hourse etc.), but I'm hired to tackle a massive challenge: how to get (& keep) technicians competent? And cementing this in a futureproof systemic and feasible way.

I have some theoretical knowledge and have given advice to company and sectors on some aspects before. Yet being focused on this challenge from the perspective of single branch of a company is a first for me and it brings loads of questions & challenges with it.

Thankfully, I have some great sources of inspiration: a shout-out to Carlo De Smedt (VDAB) for an innovative & comprehensible didactical vision, to Jeroen Van Eeghem (Deloitte) and Steffen Fobe (NMBS) for sparring and providing me reading material.

I'll add my favorites below

Knowing the business

I love returning to the world of technics. Even though, I am not an engineer, nor a technician (no ambition either) the push of evolution & innovation is a big, contagious driver in any technical industry and it provides a challenging environment which attracts me.

And the technical challenge at NMBS is huge. I cannot stress enough how challenging the difficulties, struggles and necessities for allowing passenger travel on trains are. Especially, the array of tech is impressive: going from state of the art to (a bit more) ancient. So on a competency level the diversity is very extensive and not-surprisingly on a training level the content is very broad: from hands on mechanical connection training to soft-skill 'SPQDC' support.

For the moment I'm investing most of my time into discovering the way of working at NMBS and in networking with new colleagues. To be frank: Corona makes this a true hassle. Not being able to pop-in turns making acquaintances into a very formal and '"Teams -driven" (literally) process. I'll keep investing and try to pick up a bit of the NMBS' lingua franca, because like elsewhere: a lot of abbreviations and jargon. In hindsight, I can only image how VDAB's my use of language was :-).

Let's get physical

How I have missed getting up and going to work, how I have missed physically moving to a working environment. I am not trying to make you jealous, I am just stating that after working from home for 10 months and rarely having been allowed to physically meet my colleagues, being able to go to the office feels like a breath of fresh air. The only aspect that saddens me a bit is the toll it takes on my family time. As it is with the pronouns, I will have to re-balance myself and my work/life balance here at NMBS. (Just for the (Corona) record,1. I do work from home again, but it is more balanced with onsite time 2. Getting up is a metaphor: I detest getting up early).

So far, 23 days in, it has been an extremely satisfying journey. I do miss my old colleagues, but luckily I am still tolerated in shared Whatsapp-groups and receive some nuggets of office gossip from time to time :-). And to round up, I really miss my old mail client, turns out I'm quite the gsuite-adept and not really much of an outlook-fan.

Hope you enjoyed it,

Kind regards,

Pieter