So Smile For Awhile And Let's Be Jolly
This week I've been going out of my mind with stress. And to make matters worse I haven't a single good excuse to feel the way I do. Because it's everything that I have been wanting for almost 3 years. I haven't any right to complain. And yet. And yet.
My boss is showing more and more initiative to get me promoted, and she has discussed the issue of moving me about the store more to get more acclimated to the departments that I am less familiar with, which I can understand and am willing to fully cooperate. But the one department that she is most eager to put me is not only the department where I am naturally the weakest and less effective, but I've been getting the hint that this dreaded department is the one where she would prefer to not only move me but to manage, and this makes so little sense because she knows that my strength in this store is my knowledge of the actual product -- one of only 2 or 3 out of the 30-some employees that have any at all. But I do know that the manager of that dreaded department will be leaving soon and it will need to be filled. I have a hunch she wants that to be... me.
I am hoping that she will take a more experienced person from my department and move them up, and then let me take their former manager position. But this doesn't quite sound like what she wants to do, and that terrifies me. It's not that I probably couldn't do it. It's just that it involves the money aspect of the company and accounting just isn't my strong point. I mean you see how poorly I manage my own finances. Why take me away from the music and waste my skills sitting at a desk with an adding machine? People are going to keep knocking on my door every 10 minutes anyway with some 16-year-old associate asking, "Uh...Melissa? A customer wants that "Teenage Wasteland" song by The Who and I just can't find that song title on any album anywhere." which is pretty much my entire day at work in a nutshell right there. Yet it can't make any sense to take me away from that. It's why old farts like me aren't moved up in this business. The more knowledgeable people are always kept in the trenches. And those that can't do... well, they ring up the customers and say have a nice day. Or they manage the money. Or the manage the company. See what I mean?
I guess what stresses me the most is the worry that my potential promotion might lie entirely on how well I do in this department. A more paranoid person than I would possibly perceive this as {{gasp!}} sabotage, and luckily I am not that paranoid a person. But a part of me can't help flashing back to that episode of Little House On The Prairie where Nellie Oleson makes a little girl with a stuttering problem read a tongue-twister before allowing her entry into her exclusive club. Surrrrre we'll promote you, Melissa. Just, ah, do a whole lot of these things that you were never good at and the job is yours. But no, I'm not being paranoid. I'm just not.
But damn if my hair's not falling out from all the stress. And I hardly have much to spare anymore as it is.
My boss is showing more and more initiative to get me promoted, and she has discussed the issue of moving me about the store more to get more acclimated to the departments that I am less familiar with, which I can understand and am willing to fully cooperate. But the one department that she is most eager to put me is not only the department where I am naturally the weakest and less effective, but I've been getting the hint that this dreaded department is the one where she would prefer to not only move me but to manage, and this makes so little sense because she knows that my strength in this store is my knowledge of the actual product -- one of only 2 or 3 out of the 30-some employees that have any at all. But I do know that the manager of that dreaded department will be leaving soon and it will need to be filled. I have a hunch she wants that to be... me.
I am hoping that she will take a more experienced person from my department and move them up, and then let me take their former manager position. But this doesn't quite sound like what she wants to do, and that terrifies me. It's not that I probably couldn't do it. It's just that it involves the money aspect of the company and accounting just isn't my strong point. I mean you see how poorly I manage my own finances. Why take me away from the music and waste my skills sitting at a desk with an adding machine? People are going to keep knocking on my door every 10 minutes anyway with some 16-year-old associate asking, "Uh...Melissa? A customer wants that "Teenage Wasteland" song by The Who and I just can't find that song title on any album anywhere." which is pretty much my entire day at work in a nutshell right there. Yet it can't make any sense to take me away from that. It's why old farts like me aren't moved up in this business. The more knowledgeable people are always kept in the trenches. And those that can't do... well, they ring up the customers and say have a nice day. Or they manage the money. Or the manage the company. See what I mean?
I guess what stresses me the most is the worry that my potential promotion might lie entirely on how well I do in this department. A more paranoid person than I would possibly perceive this as {{gasp!}} sabotage, and luckily I am not that paranoid a person. But a part of me can't help flashing back to that episode of Little House On The Prairie where Nellie Oleson makes a little girl with a stuttering problem read a tongue-twister before allowing her entry into her exclusive club. Surrrrre we'll promote you, Melissa. Just, ah, do a whole lot of these things that you were never good at and the job is yours. But no, I'm not being paranoid. I'm just not.
But damn if my hair's not falling out from all the stress. And I hardly have much to spare anymore as it is.
posted by Melissa at 3:54 PM
2 Comments:
I don't wanna stress you out more, but she sounds dumb -- shortsighted at least. Sounds like she's trying to foist off a job on you rather than truly PROMOTE you: put you in a position where you'll be doing what you're good at, MORE, for more money.
Your boss is tickin' me off, yo.
I'm hoping that I'm the dumb one on this one and just jumping to conclusions. It doesn't make sense, making me in charge of my weakest area. But I understand her wanting to get me acclimated to everything before I get any sort of promotion. I'm hoping that once she gets me in, she'll have the freedom to flex me around a bit and then I can finally be where I am most needed.
Here's to hoping, at least.
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