Blog Repost...Enrich your career through IFMA

Going through some research, I found this blog. I found it fascinating as I've asked myself these questions many times. The difference between me and this blogger, is that my job doesn't pay for it, my school does. Before my school did, I was paying for it myself. Now that I've become involved on the committee level for IFMA I understand the importance of being involved, do I wish my chapter did things differently? Yes. Do I think that I could get more out of my membership? Yes. Do I have the money to do that? a resounding NO.

The yellow highlights are the statements that I could most relate with.

http://www.ifma.org/publications/blog-fmj/article/blog-fmj/2012/10/18/enrich-your-career-through-ifma

Enrich your career through IFMA

By: Andrea | Oct 18, 2012

The great Nat King Cole once sang, “Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.” Summer is the time of the year that we all kick back and dream of our vacation with the family. Every Saturday night we fire up the grill and fry up some brats and enjoy a couple of ice cold bottles of Schlitz (Hey, I’m from Wisconsin).

Oh wait a minute. It’s 2012, not 1963. Life is a bit more hectic now. The kids are on summer vacation but they aren’t lying in the grass envisioning different shapes in the puffy cumulus clouds. They’re probably being shuttled from Little League practice to ballet class to a soccer game.

Mom doesn’t stay at home anymore. She has a full-time job as a manager at the Powerhouse Investments Co. And your job as the facility manager at Future Technologies never gears down for summer. In fact, it seems like all it does is gear up. Your former 401K is slowly creeping back up to a 301K. With two kids closer to college than kindergarten, life is all about the saving money and worrying about the future. And working hard. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done. So when one of your FM colleagues asks you if you’re coming to the IFMA meeting after work, you smile and shrug. You think to yourself, “My company pays for my IFMA membership but what do I get out of it? There’s no time to attend meetings although I know I should. Heck, I have a year’s worth of unread FMJs sitting under my desk and they want me to be more involved in the chapter? That’s not happening any time soon.”

How do all of those other people make time for IFMA? The ones who not only attend meetings regularly but get involved in committees and other extracurricular chapter activities too. Many of them are the same age as you with two kids, a mortgage and the same amount of time–maybe less. How do they find the time?

Here’s an idea. Go to a meeting and ask one of them. But don’t ask them how they find the time. Instead ask them why they make the time to attend chapter meetings or to join a committee? I think you’ll hear a variety answers to that question:

1. Because talking shop with their colleagues helps enrich their careers.
2. Because hanging out with their fellow FMs rounds them out professionally–it allows them to see FM from a much broader perspective.
3. Because they continuously learn by talking to people who are experiencing the same facility-related issues and telling what they’ve done to solve them.
4. Because they tend to stay in touch with their profession–to become more engaged.
5. Because it’s an opportunity to meet new people, make some new friends and widen their professional network.

Learn more about how to become more active in IFMA by reading the article, ““Enriching Your Career through IFMA,” in the September/October issue of Facility Management Journal.

This blog was submitted by Mark Sekula, FMP, LEED-AP, CFM, IFMA Fellow.

- See more at: http://www.ifma.org/publications/blog-fmj/article/blog-fmj/2012/10/18/enrich-your-career-through-ifma#sthash.Gk0NiWDY.dpuf