One of the biggest lessons outsourcing teaches you is how to learn fast.
When you work for a company that serves dozens of clients, your workplace is never fixed. Today you’re posted here, tomorrow somewhere else. Different buildings, different systems, different people, different risks. This kind of setup quietly forces you to develop an extra skill: rapid familiarization.
I’ve experienced this firsthand.
I once reached a point where I felt I had truly mastered Fire Command Center (FCC) operations. The steps were second nature — acknowledge, silence, investigate, take action, reset. I was confident with the Honeywell Morley firefinder panel. I understood the building, the patterns, even the usual causes of alarms. It felt like mastery.
Then I was moved.
Still a five-star luxury hotel, but a completely different environment.
The panel changed — from Honeywell Morley to Siemens FireFinder. The logic was familiar, but the interface, layout, and response flow were different. I had to consciously suspend what I thought was “mastery” and start again. Same principles, new system.
Even the alarms told a different story.
At one site, most alarms were linked to cooking in rooms - an allowed activity, but with caution. In another environment (strictly no cooking), attention shifted to incense burners.
Same alarms, different behaviors, different contexts.
The people changed too. The rapport with VBT technicians suspended. Suddenly, I needed to understand how JBK operates — their response style, communication flow, and escalation habits.
And this is just the FCC.
Add to that:
Different apps for door and safebox operations
Site-specific SOPs
Organizational structures
Policies, layouts, and technology stacks
In an outsourcing arrangement, nothing stays static. The only constant is change.
That ability to quickly adapt, observe, learn, and reset is an extra skill. One you don’t always see listed on job descriptions, but one that makes all the difference.
© 2025
David Kiboi Since 2019