Many years ago, when I made the transition from Booth PA to Multicamera AD, I was pretty nervous about the learning curve. Would I really be able to learn everything I needed to know, AND be able to speak up in a way I never had needed to as a PA?
There was definitely a learning curve, and I did not become the AD I am today all those years ago. What I found out while training back then, however, and what I have continued to find out since, is that a great deal of what we need to know is not taught. It is absorbed. When I officially began to train, I discovered that there were things I just knew, simply from being in a control room every day. I could learn technique, to be sure, but the underlying ideas and understanding were just there, in the back of my head. I had been sitting next to ADs, hearing them say the words and seeing them make the notes, for so long, that when it became my turn, the change was more natural than radical. I might have had my training notes next to me, but day to day, the knowledge from the back of my head allowed me to fly by the seat of my pants.
It has been a long time, and many jobs, since that transition, but the process hasn't changed much. In each job, there are new things to learn, even if the job title is one you've had before. But if you've listened to the people around you, and kept with you the experiences you've had before, a great deal of whatever you need to move forward is actually alive and well in the back of your head.
At each new job, or job responsibility, I still find myself a little nervous. But what I learned all those years ago still holds true--if I trust what's in the back of my head, most of the rest of things will come, even if I fly by the seat of my pants.
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