This has been a big scary week. Things are happening that I never saw for myself. I never saw myself climbing the ladder. I never wanted to see myself as someone who had such aspirations. I identify with workers, not managers. I especially never saw it happening in a business environment like this. But I think it's about to happen anyway. I do and don't want this. I hate the business world. I hate the people that operate it. But I'm suddenly finding my personality, talents, and work ethic recognized and respected by those people, and now I'm being invited closer to them. Even by someone who I've spent most of my time in this office avoiding, because every interaction with her felt like being stalked like a predator. I'm now realizing that's completely reversed. A week ago, I was dead set on escaping this place as soon as I could. Now I'm thinking about how I'm going to make it better. All in the midst of swallowing down emotional turmoil, because the two people I'd grown closest to at work, who supported me so much towards growing into the position I'm in now, have left within the span of two weeks. One had her last day today and I actually teared up over it, because of how overwhelming everything has been, knowing that the last person who went out of her way to teach me and support me when I needed it is gone.
Life is fucking bizarre and terrifying and oh my god this is going to suck so bad. But... I have to grow up and take an opportunity to build a better future for myself and my family someday. I may never see a better opportunity than this, and as I close in on 32, it's sunk in pretty deeply that the opportunities I really want may never come.
In other words, I'm being practically handed a team lead position (at a small but rapidly growing company doing really big business, so it's significant... I'd be shouldering primary responsibility for the majority of air freight imports for a major corporation). My boss has been making references to "my future at BDP" almost every time I talk to her. She announced the position being opened today, just as the last person who took on the position stepped down, because it basically broke her within a span of 4 months. She's the second person I've seen torn apart by this position in the less than 2 years I've been here. And as my boss was leaving today, she... indirectly said to me "I'm opening this position back up so you can take it." But... I'm being told by the person one step down from her, who I respect, and realizing to a large extent myself, that the way I've evolved in my time here I have practically turned into the de facto team lead anyway. Everyone looks to me for guidance, and I spend most of every day providing it. And it's been that way for a while. And higher ups look to me for my analysis of both the workload and the people of the team. I can't deny that it makes sense... and maybe I am suited for succeeding at this where others have failed. And maybe this is a first step to making something of myself.
Had my interview today. I can safely say now that this is pretty much in the bag. It was barely even an interview. It went a little over an hour, and probably half of that was the office manager repeating how confident she is in me. So I will soon be managing a team of 5 people, and probably more in the future. I will even be interviewing people for a position soon, which I have never done before.
I went big on my pay target, and I'd say I rolled an 18 on my diplomacy there. Didn't sound quite as smooth as the rehearsals I've been playing through my head the last few days, but still very successful. Big boss was skeptical at first, but totally on board after I presented all my justifications. Said she'd fight for my target, but probably wouldn't be able to wring that out of corporate HR. But she guaranteed me a very nice minimum. I'll just say that at my target, I will have exactly doubled my pay compared to what I was making two years ago, and at the guaranteed minimum I will be fairly close. Either way, I'll be single-handedly bringing in more than the average U.S. household income. Winning at breadwinning!
Time to seriously roll up my sleeves and do this whole adult thing.
Author
Topic: [MILK] There were 12 eggs here what did you do with them? (Happy thread?!) (Read 16317423 times)