Soooo – anyone who has been reading whatever sparse smattering of details I’ve provided here, or who has seen me in person of late, has garnered that 2009 has not been the kindest to me professionally.
I shouldn’t be disgruntled, or complaining – I’m employed, and I make a decent wage. Lately though, I’ve been putting in almost as many hours as some of the lawyers/finance folks I know, and I’m definitely not getting payment to recompense that. I could deal with it if I were getting accolades, but this week sorta sums up what the past nine months have been:
A week ago today, I worked 8-7, then 11-8. Saturday was surreal. Sunday was exhausting.
Monday, I got called in to try and deal with an abortion of a video encoding situation, relating to several powerpoint/video presentations for our annual board meeting. Due to the last minute nature, my bubble-gum patch did not hold. The whole thing slagged in front of the whole board. Prez lost his mind with anger/embarrassment – head must roll.
Monday night, while in the cheese section of whole foods, I had a 40 minute convo with my boss (who was out Mon-Tues), which started with him saying “Either you or *ex coworker* is getting fired tomorrow – explain what happened today, so that it won’t be you”.
Tuesday morning, my boss was still out. I had to fire *ex-coworker*.
Wednesday was a two-hour all-staff meeting. Much of the content was identical to that which had imploded at the board meeting. I was told, point blank, that if something went wrong, I was gone.
So, Tuesday, I did like 10 hours of A/V.
Wednesday, I did 8 hours, before the 2pm meeting.
The meeting went off without a hitch.
Yesterday, I was totally burned out – emotionally, professionally, the whole gamut. I had to author a DVD to mail to all the board members, in an attempt to mitigate embarrassment/perceptual damage caused by Monday. When I got home at ~ 11 yest (I had to do everything I hadn’t done Tues-Wed) A. was putting the finishing touches on a DVD she needed for today. I joked that I had just spent all week doing just that.
THEN she finds out, the hard way, about some total horse shit with iDVD – after 99 slides in a slideshow, it auto-enters a chapter break, which, when you play on some DVD players, creates a skip in the soundtrack going with the slideshow. At quarter to midnight, I migrated her whole project over to my Windows box, got the whole thing finished, tested, and burned by 3am.
Today, it took everything I had to go to work. If I wasn’t somewhat convinced that not showing would have meant my job (because the DVD’s need to be in the mail Monday, which means that 75 copies need to happen sometime between now and then), I would have just not showed up.
Wednesday, I sent an email to my boss requesting a meeting. Today, request was granted, but with no prep or notice. Because of my mental state, I can’t say I fired with all my pistons working. I laid it on.
I told him I didn’t appreciate the shenanigans with this week, which were a good example of the last six months. I went on to enumerate..
I told him that I couldn’t keep getting paid for 40hrs, and working 80. That means either a new person, or double my salary.
I explained that, even though I understand we are in a salary freeze, and that no raises were apparent in my future, a decent title change/org shift in my favor would tide me over – otherwise, he should start interviewing my replacement, because I’d be gone before the end of the summer.
I told him I was incredibly discouraged by the staffing situation this week, and, that if I was supposed to have fire power, I should have people answering to me.
I basically said a lot more than you should say to your boss, much less under the circumstances and/or in the tone I said it. He told me to leave him alone for a half hour, then come back. He asked me to close the door on the way out.
I pretty much assumed I’d be meeting security in thirty minutes – I felt half nauseous, half elated. It is the kind of thing you don’t really do, what I had just done. It is something I’ve almost done a dozen times. The only other time I had ever done it ended with me getting fired promply… I contemplated boxing my stuff, so I wouldn’t have to have it shipped.
When I came back, I was informed I’m being promoted to Jr. Exec. Title TBD, but I will officially become right hand of the CTO. I get to hire my replacement, who will be a direct report – long term is to move me to a CIO. I have a number that is the ceiling salary at for the new hire. Whatever I hire the new person at below that line gets bumped to my salary (at a time where we are in both a hiring freeze, and an environment where nobody is supposed to be getting raises). I need to leave some left over for a cost savings.
Additionally, because I’m moving into the bottom barrel of the upper echelon, my raises will now be on calendar, instead of fiscal year. This means, if I keep my new division on track, I will get a 3-4% bump in December, on top of whatever I get come July 1, which is when this is going into effect.
Essentially, this was supposed to happen in November – my boss had already laid the groundwork, but didn’t want to say anything until closer to that date. When he took the 30 mins, it was to talk to the CTO – I was apparently complimented me on the size of my balls, and they agreed to do it as of start of the fiscal year (July 1).
What a fuckin week.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train.