A Piece of Sky

For the past four months, I've been working in a cubicle located on an inside aisle on the 8th floor of a 10-story office building.

Yesterday, because the new director I'm supporting moved onto the other end of this floor, my work station was relocated to a cubicle on an outer aisle. One next to a wide bank of windows.

I arrive at the office at 7am. This morning I got to enjoy the sight of the sky slowly changing from black to dark blue, to blue-gray, to blue. There are apartment buildings and a mall close by, but a ridge of trees beyond them.

It makes such an amazing difference to the feeling of being at work!

They Gave "My" Job To Someone Else

For those joining the story in progress: I've been temping as the Administrative Assistant in the Sales Operations dept. of a cell phone company for the past four months. (There's been a long story about abrupt leave-takings by the prior admin, the previous director being promoted in the middle of the admin hiring process, waiting for a new director, and etc.) I had interviewed for the job two weeks ago (see previous entries) and had been waiting until after the new director officially started (Feb 1) before an announcement was made about who he was going to hire.

He came to my desk ten minutes before I was to leave this afternoon and asked if I could stick around for a little while longer. He is about to go out of town for two weeks, so I assumed he wanted to touch base with me about procedures while he was gone.

What he told me was that he had chosen someone else to be his assistant and permanently fill the job I've been doing as a temp for the past four months and more. The deciding factor? The other candidate had expressed excitement about working at Co. X and a professed desire to have a long-term career there.

That, of course, is part of Job Interviewing 101: Always tell the interviewer how much you want to work for that particular organization, and demonstrate your knowledge of the company and be able to talk about why you're a good fit for them specifically.

The problem, of course, is that I *can't* do that. I genuinely like this place. But I'm not interested in a long-term career there. And even if I thought I could actually conceal my true career plans more than a week or two, a seminarian simply does not lie about what their true career plans are.

Rob (the new boss) (or the ex boss?) was very complimentary of my skills, my brains, and the job I've been doing. He told me (as Carol did when she told me that she was hiring someone else) that the people in Sales Ops like me very much and that I have "lots of fans." But, of course, it's not a voting situation.

The good news is that another admin went on maternity leave early a couple of weeks ago, and they need someone to do her job for the next three months, and they would like me to take that position right away -- as a temp. The irony is that this will be by way of Carol, the former Sales Ops director with whom I had a very unpleasant parting two months ago. But evidently she's gotten over that, and I'm told by her current admin that she speaks highly of me and is delighted to have me filling in on 'her' team ('her' team until their new boss starts on Feb. 9th). So I have another three months of income at a very good rate for a temp. In a nice building (but not the window seat I just moved into!), for a nice company where I've established a lot of good relationships.

But I will miss Sales Ops very much. In fact, I'm feeling some genuine pain right now that probably has something to do with being passed over for the job, but has more to do with being cut-off from a group of people I've come to care about. I had come to feel at home there, and now I'm being moved out of the way to make room for someone brand new who is no more competent than I am (according to Rob) but who was able to say what he wanted to hear. She was probably telling the truth, so I can't blame either of them.

But it still hurts.