Opportunities and Options

Long week.

Another dentist appointment on Tuesday so I ended up burning a couple of days of vacation rather than trying to drive home from here Monday night and then back here Tuesday – just not worth it.

Wednesday was a big meeting with one of our customers – the who is not important but big and in need of attention. So, that was an entire day. And I had to present to them, which is both a good experience and a potentially bad thing depending on how you do. I still have a job, so guess it went okay. But it was exhausting. I spent part of my “vacation” prepping for it. And I got to work at 7:30am to review the materials we were taking as well as ate dinner with them. Okay, so that’ not a bad thing, a free meal at a nice restaurant, but at the tail end of a long day, I was ready to get home no doubt.

Thursday was catch up at the office. Between Rome at the beginning of the year, then two trips to the dentist (the first of which was traumatic surgery), etc., I’m so behind.

And Thursday I discovered that a position I have been hoping would open up, opened up… It’s all kind of long and boring to explain, but we have a group above us who do the actual work with the customer while I’m in the fulfillment group, where I’ve been most of my almost 7 years with the company. The particular position tho is in an ancillary group. I put my spies to work to discover that. Unfortunately job postings right now don’t show such information. Today I checked with a friend I knew had gone into that group. Lo and behold, it’s his old position as he’s moving to sales.

A lot of mixed feelings. If it reported to the group I know well (where I have several friends), I’d be there. I know so much less about this one. Still, I finally decided today that it wouldn’t hurt to talk to the person, so I approached my manager late this afternoon when he was finally around and not with someone else.

I think he may have had a small coronary. At one moment, it’s a compliment. In the other, it’s a roadblock to my getting to move on. He was, as expected, quite vehement that I wanted nothing to do with the position. This led to literally two hours of conversation on the matter. Apparently at one point, he even talked to his boss about it, i.e. what can they do to keep me. Heavens people, I haven’t even GOT an offer, nevermind have I accepted one. I just want the chance to apply and learn more, to see if I would want to work with these people. My manager said they’d play the job up, it wasn’t that good, etc. Of course, they’ll play it up, I responded. The person who is hiring is in sales. No one in sales is going to say,”have I got a spectacularly crappy job for you!” Interviews are unfortunately a game. They’re trying to scope you out for the job and at the same time sell you on it. If you have any experience in the work world, you’re trying to figure out if you want to work with them or not.

In the end, and this is like 6:30pm, he left a message with the hiring manager to call me next week to talk about it to see if I really want to go through the paperwork, etc. to apply.

And I’m not sure what to think really. On one hand, I have a manager who wants to do whatever he can to keep me there. As I said, that’s also somewhat frightening, but I’ve had some miserably poor managers in the past years and that safety net is hard to abandon. If it was with the group that’s #1 on my list, I have no question that I’d be ready to take it forward. This opportunity would be less cut and dried. And they want to discuss with me next week what opportunities they see for me where I am. I’ve got to have something concrete. I did say that. I’ve explained the parts of my job that interest me and the parts that are bitterly wearing me down.

And by all means, as I told my manager, it’s not that I hate my job or the company, etc. If I did, I’d have left in April when I got an offer out of the blue from another company. I chose to stay.

Sigh… I hate these sorts of things… major decisions, etc. For right now, baby steps. Hopefully get to talk to the manager and see what I think, what my gut says about the person. Go from there. I have nothing to lose as far as I can see. I have a job and no one is holding a gun to my head to find another.