News From Work
Actual Conversation From Work Today:
Current Boss Who’s Soon Moving Far Away: “I will keep in touch using a fantastical new technology called a blog!”
Me: “Hey, now that you’re not going to be my boss anymore, I can give you the address of *my* blog!”
Yes, my boss is moving. To the South, which I find in general to be a terribly frightening and intimidating portion of the country. Of course, I feel that way about this part of the country too. Basically I find most things intimidating. The good news is, I got a promotion. The bad news is, I got a promotion. I am now living Management: It’s Harder Than You Think, But Not As Hard As You’re Making It Look.
Through luck or lack of luck, you have been promoted/hired/chosen in some way to a position of power over other employees. Don’t feel bad; it happens to almost everyone at some point. In most of my jobs, that process has worked something like this: “OldBoss just left/quit/moved/retired/got fired. We need someone new. Who works here who’s 1) not planning on moving; 2) unlikely to steal office supplies; and 3) someone we want on the company softball team?”
OMG YES. THIS. But we don’t have a softball team, so that wasn’t even a requirement! (The process for picking Assistant Manager was even more LOL-able — we literally picked the only person on the staff who could possibly do the job, and then crossed our fingers they’d say yes.)
You don’t get a fresh slate when you become a boss. Back when you were a lowly employee, you had friends. You worked together, ate together, went out after work and complained about the boss together — fun times. Most of these people probably still like you, unless you did away with free coffee in the break room or some other hideously unfair thing.
Also, OH NOES THE BIGBOSS JUST DID THIS! I find this to be a significant problem. Currently torn between just paying for the coffee myself, and taking up some sort of collection. I guess the question is, “How much coffee are we actually drinking?” Less than $20 worth per month? More? Show me some digits, people.
(One final note: It’s easy to be a good boss, but it’s also easy not to be — to do something and then think, “Wow, that was really asshole-ish. (Dammit.)” I hesitate to say don’t worry about it, but really — don’t worry about it. Life goes on, and all that. You don’t need to try harder (although it may help, depending on how hard you were trying in the first place), you just need to keep trying. At the risk of sounding too Disney movie-esque, we’re all making this trip together.)
::deep breaths::