Where to Start

Well, I am thankful I got the weekend to relax, have fun, all of that because this week has been pretty much pure crap.

My boss turned in her notice yesterday. Her last day is the end of this month. So what does that mean for me? I am not really sure yet. She dropped the bomb about 2pm yesterday afternoon and after sitting there, listening to her go on and on for about 45 minutes, I finally just had a meltdown. Thank God I got out of the office before I did – she asked me if I wanted to talk and I quickly said no, as I grabbed my cell phone and headed outside. It is so handy to have one of your best friends working in the building next door – so I called Carol, told her to meet me outside and bring Kleenex right away. I hauled ass out there, basically threw myself in her arms and just broke down.

WHY does this shit keep happening to me? First, they are doing away with my entire division come April 1st and now this when all I was trying to do by taking this new job is move on, move up, create new opportunity for myself and get the hell away from my old boss. Well – at least I accomplished one thing.

I wanted to learn from my new boss – of course I didn’t expect her to be here forever, she is around my age and I am sure looking for new opportunities of her own. She is leaving the firm, BTW but I figured I would have at least a year or two with her – she JUST took the position she is in right now a little less than a year ago! And she is ready to leave already.

She claims this job was in the works way before she knew about the reorg of our division and I want to believe her. I don’t have any other reason NOT to believe her but I also don’t know her well enough yet to know if she would lie her ass off to save face. Wouldn’t we all to some extent?

Below are some E-mails I shared with friends as things transpired throughout the day:

L, my boss, just turned in her notice.

She took a job at another company – who supposedly she had been talking to before they announced they were disbanding our department. She is only giving two weeks notice, her last day will be September 30th.

I have no idea what I am going to do – I had to sit here and listen to her go on and on about her job for about 45 minutes and by the time the meeting was over, she finally sensed I was less than fine with it. She asked me if I was OK, I basically started crying and told her no – she asked if I wanted to talk about it and I said no. Then, I proceeded to go outside and cry off and on for about 45 minutes then came back up here and started working again like nothing happened. What else can I do? Nothing I say or do is going to change the situation – it feels like God is laughing at me for taking a chance and saying OK – take THIS! And now THAT!

So now I am stuck with noone to learn from AGAIN and probably stuck doing two jobs once she leaves because they aren’t going to hire someone new when they know our department isn’t even going to exist as of April 1st. And I will continue to get paid the same for doing almost twice as much work.

Yes, I was bored and yes, I have capacity to do more and I don’t mind doing more if I have someone to learn from, guide me, mentor me, look out for me – that is what I really wanted in taking this job. If I wanted to just be busy, I could have stayed at my old job and done that.

And then an update:

My boss’s boss just came in to my office, sent L out and shut the door to talk with me.

SO nice – said she definitely isn’t expecting me to do my job and L’s too (and I didn’t even say anything about it!), that we would not be replacing her position but we also wouldn’t be doing all of the work that L and I had been doing together. We will do the most important things and all of the “icing”, as she called it, would simply not get done anymore.

She also asked me what happened at my past work experiences and why they were so bad and once I told her, she said she had similar things happen to her before coming to the firm. She then confessed her biggest reason for talking with me is that she is afraid I will just quit and leave the firm – that this would just be too much for me and they want me to stay. I said the grass is not always greener somewhere else and she agreed with me. I think she agrees with me too that Lisa might be making a mistake but didn’t say anything about it.

She said she wants to talk to me again tomorrow (because I am crying while we are talking, feeling like an idiot) about how we can make this situation NOT be like what happened to me before. I don’t see how that is even possible but it sounds like she genuinely wants to turn this into a positive experience for me and try to get me the opportunities I want rather than just being stuck with something I have no control over. It all sounds well and good but I just can’t imagine that actually happening in FIVE million years, so I tried not to let my eyes roll when she said that. I refuse to get my hopes up on this one but who knows, I guess.

Then, the oddest thing – she hugged me we were done. An executive actually pulled me into her arms and hugged me. I was completely shocked for about 3 seconds and just kind of stood there before I reciprocated but it was . . .nice. She seems genuine, she seems determined to make this a good thing rather than a bad thing and even if it doesn’t work out, if she really means it, I appreciate it.

So, I guess we will talk more tomorrow and see where it goes from there.

I have not had that meeting with my boss’s boss yet but she has been in her office with the door shut in meetings pretty much all day. I want to believe what she is saying but after all of the shit I have dealt with over the past 6 years, I can’t even let myself until I see something positive with my own eyes.

So – that’s about it. I have felt like shit anyway, off and on, the past few days and have no idea why. Yesterday it was my stomach and today it is just the aches in my hands and arms, my head hurts and my left ear and jaw hurt. I suppose I could have an ear infection or even some kind of infection with my teeth but 9 times out of 10, if I actually did go to the doctor, they wouldn’t find anything wrong anyway.

Brian is doing better with this than I thought he would. He was very supportive – encouraged me to go into the meeting with my boss’s boss and just lay it all out on the line, tell her everything that happened to me, what I really want from the firm and see if I can get it. He says if they let me go, we will deal with it. He also encouraged me to start looking at other companies – just to see what is out there, if anything looked interesting and maybe start interviewing, just in case. I can always turn down a job offered to me but if they do let me go – at least I would have a better idea of the current job climate and what is out there. I haven’t glanced at any open positions around town seriously in over 4 years. I refused to let my mind go there and second guess my decision to be a lifer at the firm. But, sooner rather than later, that may be decided for me and I have to be ready.