New job started this week.
On the bright side, there is plenty of opportunity for me to make positive changes here. On the negative side, well, the same.
Things are a little messy here. There hasn't been much of a marketing department for over a year, and our production teams rule the world. This is not unusual for a smaller company in this industry but it does make it an uphill battle to do what I do. I have one direct report who is fairly passive and may make this even more difficult than it needs to be.
On that note: holy hell, I had no idea people could be so meek! My orientation meetings have been all over the place. I don't know if this is just a Japanese workplace thing, but a lot of people here are very "work horse": blinders on and do as they're told, no more, no less. I have gotten quite a few blank looks for questions on the order of, "So other than exactly what you've been told to do, what have you done?" That result is alarming considering the amount of creative work coming from this office. (That's "creative" as in it's made up of drawings and writing, not creative as in innovative. 'Cause it's not the latter, that's for sure.)
Still. Regime change. Bosses are open to making things happen and recognize that something about the way things are isn't quite working. It's a start!
