“This is what going mad must feel like.” - Dr. Simon Tam
In which Auntie Thorny makes a checklist to check her checklist and tallies the Pros and Cons. And then with one thumbs up she changes the direction and velocity of her career.
I like my current job. I have been playing a game with myself - “How Long Can I Go Today Without Speaking to Another Person” every day at work. My current record is four and a half hours. I deal with numbers, percentages and raw data responses; making them pretty and shiny and, most difficult of all, easy for The Powers That Be to understand. I wasn’t management but I ended up providing direction and guidance to a group that I work with - mainly because they were dicking about and causing issues for me. I don’t like being rushed at month end and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be rushed because they weren’t doing their jobs.
“’I wasn’t management..’, that’s an odd phrase, Auntie Thorny.”
On Monday one of my direct bosses, Almighty L, called me into her office. She asked me if I would consider taking over an operations management position. Everything was up in the air, there was no time frame and Almighty L admitted that the position may not come open. If it did open up it would be many weeks, if not months in the future. On the bright side the position was in line with becoming the operations manager of the entire site, which is the direction she wanted me to head in. I told her I would think about it.
I promptly set about making lists of Pros and Cons. The biggest Pro is that I can learn to do almost any job (Unless faced with an employer who does not want me to succeed). The Con is that I would be managing a group of women who mostly live in a reality far removed from mine.
Seriously, I am:
and they are:
I also find it trying to deal with people. They usually don’t make sense and seem to go out of their way to make things more difficult. And they can be so willfully ignorant. This group has shining examples of willfully ignorant special little teacups.
I made more lists, color coded and cross indexed, and Pondered if I really wanted to do this.
On Wednesday I questioned Almighty L about compensation. The number she quoted gladdened my avarice laden heart.
On Friday, as Almighty L sped past my desk she slowed and called out “Thumbs up or thumbs down?”
It took me a few beats to clear my head to realize what she was asking. My mouth was no where near far enough along in this process to articulate a “Yes” so I just gave her a thumb up, the other hand still busy keying data into a spreadsheet.
Hell, what was the worst that could happen? Even if things were to fall in place it would be weeks or months before anything came of it.
Half an hour later I was called into the conference room to meet with Almighty L, the other vice president on site, he will be called Dill, and the current operations manager for the discussed group, Allie.
Almighty L and Allie outlined to Dill what they wanted to do. Dill couldn’t keep a straight face.
“I know you can do the job but why would you want to?” he hooted.
Almighty L launched into her grand plan’s scope and ultimate outcome: Allie and I move into their positions and they would be free to go back to their home on the East coast. After that we went over transition plans, support that would be needed, etc.
“What time frame are we looking at?” I asked.
“Monday.” Almighty L responded.
All my brain could come up with was a quote from the TV series Firefly, “This is what going mad must feel like.”
“Is the pay rate we discussed going to start Monday?” was what fell out of my mouth.
“Of course.”
“Well, then. Let’s get started on this monster.”
So, I am now management. This isn’t going to be dull.
I like my current job. I have been playing a game with myself - “How Long Can I Go Today Without Speaking to Another Person” every day at work. My current record is four and a half hours. I deal with numbers, percentages and raw data responses; making them pretty and shiny and, most difficult of all, easy for The Powers That Be to understand. I wasn’t management but I ended up providing direction and guidance to a group that I work with - mainly because they were dicking about and causing issues for me. I don’t like being rushed at month end and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be rushed because they weren’t doing their jobs.
“’I wasn’t management..’, that’s an odd phrase, Auntie Thorny.”
On Monday one of my direct bosses, Almighty L, called me into her office. She asked me if I would consider taking over an operations management position. Everything was up in the air, there was no time frame and Almighty L admitted that the position may not come open. If it did open up it would be many weeks, if not months in the future. On the bright side the position was in line with becoming the operations manager of the entire site, which is the direction she wanted me to head in. I told her I would think about it.
I promptly set about making lists of Pros and Cons. The biggest Pro is that I can learn to do almost any job (Unless faced with an employer who does not want me to succeed). The Con is that I would be managing a group of women who mostly live in a reality far removed from mine.
Seriously, I am:
and they are:
I also find it trying to deal with people. They usually don’t make sense and seem to go out of their way to make things more difficult. And they can be so willfully ignorant. This group has shining examples of willfully ignorant special little teacups.
I made more lists, color coded and cross indexed, and Pondered if I really wanted to do this.
On Wednesday I questioned Almighty L about compensation. The number she quoted gladdened my avarice laden heart.
On Friday, as Almighty L sped past my desk she slowed and called out “Thumbs up or thumbs down?”
It took me a few beats to clear my head to realize what she was asking. My mouth was no where near far enough along in this process to articulate a “Yes” so I just gave her a thumb up, the other hand still busy keying data into a spreadsheet.
Hell, what was the worst that could happen? Even if things were to fall in place it would be weeks or months before anything came of it.
Half an hour later I was called into the conference room to meet with Almighty L, the other vice president on site, he will be called Dill, and the current operations manager for the discussed group, Allie.
Almighty L and Allie outlined to Dill what they wanted to do. Dill couldn’t keep a straight face.
“I know you can do the job but why would you want to?” he hooted.
Almighty L launched into her grand plan’s scope and ultimate outcome: Allie and I move into their positions and they would be free to go back to their home on the East coast. After that we went over transition plans, support that would be needed, etc.
“What time frame are we looking at?” I asked.
“Monday.” Almighty L responded.
All my brain could come up with was a quote from the TV series Firefly, “This is what going mad must feel like.”
“Is the pay rate we discussed going to start Monday?” was what fell out of my mouth.
“Of course.”
“Well, then. Let’s get started on this monster.”
So, I am now management. This isn’t going to be dull.