Purchasing

Mary Walker

Change: A love/hate relationship
October 1, 2007

A few years ago, I was at the First Methodist Church in Telephone, TX. This is where my parents attended church. I walked in, took a seat and was waiting for the service to begin. I got a tap on the shoulder, and this little old lady looked at me and said, “You are in my seat.” 

I thought "there are 200 seats in this church and I am in your seat?" The lady did not want change; she sat in that seat every Sunday.

I don’t know if this is an old age thing or not, however I find myself sitting in the same seat at meetings at work, at meetings with two organizations I belong to, and I wonder is it because I am comfortable in that seat or is it because I do not like change.

A recent meeting I attended, the chair of the committee changed the agenda. We did not do things in the same order we had been doing them for as long as I could remember. This did not sit well with many of the attendees. This is not the way it is suppose to be done. 

There is a quote by the legendary Chicago Sun-Times journalist Sydney Harris who observed, “Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same, but get better.”

Working for the same company for 25 years, I felt this was because I did not adapt to change freely, that this was my comfort zone. Most people do not stay in a job for more than five years. When I really put some thought to this, the same job does not have a comfort zone. I do nothing the way I did it 25 years ago. I do not do a lot the same way that I did three years ago.

In purchasing, you can start to think there is no real change sometimes, as you create purchase orders, and you get material in and handle all of the needed things to make this flow through the system from the order point to being sent to the end user. You can be involved in any of these processes, especially if there is a problem. 

Starting out I worked on a kardex and typed the purchase orders on a typewriter, all purchase orders were signed by the plant manager and mailed out. We called rush orders in. Now I don’t think I have a supplier that will take an order over the phone. Don’t look at your job as a comfort zone, you probably don’t do much the same way you did it even a couple of years ago. 

Don’t look at your position with a company as a comfort zone; you are still facing change daily. New forecasting programs, new equipment, new policies and procedures, will continue to change. If you are offered an opportunity for advancement, even another company, give it some thought. Be ready to move out of what looks like a comfort zone, because it isn’t.

Posted by Mary Walker on October 1, 2007 | Comments (0)