See you in a year...

All,

Today is my last day before I begin a one year leave of absence to pursue a full-time MBA in London, Ontario. I hope to be back at Nortel in one year's time. I'm going to miss not being here.

It's been a pleasure working with you all throughout the last four years here in GPS. Friends always asked me why I loved working the GPS job so much with it's lousy hours, pager calls, process-intensity, and interrupt-driven environment. My first response is that it’s a combination of a number of factors: the addictive fear of an E1 call, the adrenalin of working a Business Critical case, and the constant uncertainty of what's coming next. On second thought I realize that it's the people that make up this organization that make me look forward to coming into work every morning.

On a side note, I never realized until this year how special the GPS job is and how many folks throughout Nortel are envious of the jobs we do. Its one of a very select set of roles that allow you to be as technical as you want, but also allows you to be engaged on the business and problem management side of things as well. How many jobs allow you to deal with customers, account teams, PLMs, design, verification, and network engineering while also allowing you to play with multi-million dollar equipment, to dive into code, and to travel?...Not very many. Furthermore, the communication, multi-tasking, and technical skill sets you develop in this role are a rare commodity that will last you a career. I'm not trying to be a salesman here, but I truly appreciate the advantages of the GPS job and what it’s done for my career, and I realize it now more then ever.

If you'd like to stay in touch throughout the year, you can contact me at SGera.MBA2009@ivey.ca or you can find me on Facebook. If you're interested in following along my MBA adventures, I've set up a blog that I'll be updating throughout the year: http://sachagera.blogspot.com/ .

All the best,

Sacha Gera