Life at OPENLANE: Q&A with Courtney Cameron, Senior Project Manager at OPENLANE
To celebrate Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re going to dive into Courtney Cameron’s OPENLANE story. She talks about the importance of work life balance, her favorite things about OPENLANE and the most relatable career advice you’ve probably heard in a while.
What has your journey at OPENLANE looked like?
I joined in January 2020 as a project manager in tech, working with a whole bunch of different teams. That expanded to a role in CX and global shared services.
What is something you are most proud of during your time at OPENLANE?
Being able to jump into different, highly talented teams who have specific specialities but don’t necessarily have the project management area covered. I love helping them get their projects together, achieve their goals and then move out of the way. Then repeat it for the next team. Project management is a very agnostic type of role, so I am constantly working with various teams across the board.
What is some of the best career advice you’ve ever heard?
Sometimes you’re going to be the windshield and sometimes you’re going to be the fly. That’s just life. You’re going to have days where you have success after success at work. You’re also going to have days that aren’t so great. You have to try to accept it, get back up, brush yourself off and keep moving forward.
Also, feedback is a gift. It’s generally provided because someone cares enough about your growth to share it and believes improvement is within reach.
What’s your favorite part about our culture?
Smart risk-taking, because there are times where you need to experiment, fail quickly and recognize that a failure where you’re gaining information isn’t a failure.
How do you take care of your mental health?
Setting boundaries and checking in with myself. If I’m not feeling great, I analyze why that might be. Am I hungry? Have I had a bad day? Do I need to sleep? Once I’ve taken care of that, it’s about making boundaries. I’m someone who puts my all into everything, but my team knows when I’ve logged off for the night, I’m gone until the next work day. Everyone at OPENLANE is very respectful of work life balance, and having that boundary respected helps keep my mental health in a good place.
What does Mental Health Awareness Month mean to you?
Having a month to focus on it means there will be more folks who take a pause and recognize how much our mental health affects our overall health. The more we have discussions like this and celebrate the importance of mental health, it’ll give more people the opportunity to hear this message and resonate with the importance of it.
