New job in February?

Hey all!

News from work. 

Some of this may be old news, or may reference posts I've made in the past. But right now I'm working on my cell phone instead of a computer ... and even if I were on a computer I'm too drunk this evening to go look up all the relevant links to earlier posts. So for the moment I will content myself with repeating for your benefit a couple of emails I recently sent to Marie. Enjoy. (Or skip it ... I mean, hell, why not?)

__________

I was talking with my boss today. On the one hand, now that I was have been reclassified as a non-manager, I have no raise this year because my pay is too high for my new categorization. On the other hand, my boss is going to be opening a new managerial job in February … in Sticksville ….

 

He told me about it in the course of the conversation about my salary. The context clearly meant "In case you want to apply for it and win back your managerial status." He did NOT say any words to suggest that, if I were to apply, I would be particularly favored to get the role. (That he said nothing in this regard actually tells me nothing about his thoughts on the matter, though. He ought to say nothing like that.)

 

The nature of the role is that this manager will be the Plant manager for my function. In other words, right now my boss has a dual role: on the one hand he is the local  Manager for this function for the Sticksville plant; and on the other hand he is responsible for all the North American region. This means he is always working: evenings, weekends, holidays. (I guess it helps that his family is all still in Europe.) He will be hiring to separate the roles. After hiring this person he will retain the responsibility for North American regional topics, and this other person will take over responsibility for the tactical, local issues in the Sticksville plant.

 

It's an interesting thought. On the one hand, it's a position that plays to my weaknesses: personnel management (it's a large department there) and factory operations (my perceived unsuitability for which is exactly why I was never considered for his role in the first place!). As far as subject matter is concerned, my strengths are all on the regional side, not the local side: [example 1 and example 2]. But of course my boss isn't going to resign his Directorship and hire for THAT spot!

 

On the other hand, if I don't apply for it then my boss is entitled to wonder, Gosh, you whinge and whimper about being displaced from your existing role but when I give you a chance to take on a comparable role – in fact, one that commands a good bit more real power because of the larger headcount, only maybe one that requires a little more actual work – you can't be bothered. Why should I take your whimpering seriously?

 

And inside the department, on the one hand there is the dynamic that it is always hard to elevate a colleague over his former peers; on the other hand I've always been geographically distant from everybody else (and until recently I had the title of a manager) so I wasn't exactly a colleague. There has always been some distance in the literal sense, and that has probably contributed to distance in the emotional sense. Whenever I visited Sticksville I have always been treated as something of a visiting VIP. (OK, that overstates it … but it is directionally correct even if it overstates the magnitude of the vector.)

 

If I overthink it I will do nothing. If I underthink it I may do something stupid. I may anyway … there's an argument that all choices here are stupid choices, for different reasons.

_________

Then a few hours later, after a couple of drinks, I added more, but my email system seems to have lost it. 

The gist was:

• I don't want to live in Sticksville because it's boring. I'd rather live in the major metropolis an hour away, though I'm not sure I'd like the drive. 

• I've had managerial roles before and been successful in them. It just takes a lot of work because I am playing against type every step of the way.

• I don't like the plant in Sticksville, nor most of the people there, because (with few exceptions) they are simultaneously condescending and stupid. The attitude is basically a smug assurance that "We don't have to understand you because we are going to do things the way we've always done them — because we've always done them that way and for no other reason — and nothing you can do will ever change that. So fuck off."

• I suspect my current job will be eliminated in a year as no longer necessary. Maybe I'm being paranoid. But if I were making a hard-headed business decision about it, that's what I'd say.

Fun, huh?

Sent from my iPhone