Taking All that He Can Take, Gambling with the Odds of Fate Tryin’ ta Get Over
Monday. Well, faithful readers, I have a story for you. I came in Friday morning to find out as soon as I logged in that my computer had to run an automatic company-wide system upgrade. This upgrade was supposed to run the week before but since there were so many problems with it they had to bump it back. So after my computer updated I logged in again to find out that I no longer had access to several of my system transaction codes, including the one that allows me to approve and release sales orders out of financial suspension. Every time I would try to go into it, it kept telling me I wasn't authorized. Hey, I've been using this transaction code for three years and now all of sudden I'm not authorized? I figured it had to be some kind of after effect from the upgrade, so I called Useless Support to log a system help ticket and then asked another financial rep if she could release my orders for me until the problem was resolved. After that I left a message with the Big Boss Lady to fill her in on the situation and then I carried on with my day slightly annoyed by screens looking funny and the inability to drop orders when requested. Later that afternoon, the Big Boss Lady called me back to discuss my system issues. I proceeded to go over the situation and the steps I had taken to remedy the issue until my help ticket was resolved. She told me that she was sorry that I was experiencing so many problems and it appeared that it was her fault, not the upgrade’s, that I was having system access issues. I was confused. I'm guessing that the Big Boss Lady picked up on this confused pause on my part because she continued to inform me that the reason I was having system troubles was because she was having my permissions reset. It was supposed to be a surprise for when she would be in town on Wednesday, but she wanted to let me know before some IT person unsuspectingly broke the news: I was getting promoted!!!!!!
I couldn't believe it, readers. I was in shock. I know most of you don't know me or my work habits personally, but I assure you (apart from the occasional blogger postings) that I have been busting my rear end off trying to attain this position. I had expressed my intentions to the Big Boss Lady several times in the past, and as a result I had been receiving exponentially greater responsibilities and workloads. I literally flew around the country to attend meetings and seminars, to make presentations, and to network with the higher-ups. I have been bringing in significant past-due dollars and I have designed and implemented processes that have greatly improved the receivables turnover in my region. I thought everything was on the up-and-up and the Big Boss Lady had continually dropped hints that I had no reason not to think that way. That was until last month when she came into town and we had a long sit-down talk in which she told me that she had decided not to fill the open position and that her priorities were not with the financial managers at the moment. She had decided that to better address the department's needs she would hire another lower-level assistant to take up the slack. She didn't foresee any major departmental changes beyond that at least until the fall, etc etc etc, which I pretty much took as "John, don't expect a promotion any time soon." So, even though I still wore my super awesome smile everyday to work, inside I was a boiling ball of fury. I used this website as my release valve, and poured out all of my anger and frustration into several posts on this blog. In hindsight, I don't regret anything I said during that rough week or so. Those posts captured my true emotion at the time and I don't think I was in the wrong to feel that way. In fact, I used that force of emotion to compose in my pre-review paperwork a statement listing many detailed and supported reasons why I believed I should be promoted. I took it home over the weekend to have it read over and to make sure that I softened any heated rhetoric. I then submitted it that following Monday with fingers crossed. I hadn't heard anything either way about this statement until the Big Boss Lady broke the news about the promotion this past Friday.
I don't know if that form made the difference or if the BBL had this in mind all along. Perhaps I will find out on Wednesday when she is in town. She didn't disclose many details over the phone, saying that we would go over everything during my review session. We didn't discuss numbers over the phone, either, but she did verify the pay grade. You see, readers, one of the biggest perks of finally reaching this pay grade level is that I will now be eligible for the annual managerial incentive bonus. This promotion will put me to a level in which (if all budgetary and profit criteria are met) I will receive a bonus comprised of 20% of my annual salary plus a bonus percentage determined by the profitability of my assigned branch/district. So, that could be a nice little perk each spring. As of right now, though, the actual compensation that I will receive is still an unknown. This will also be discussed on Wednesday. I am hoping for somewhere around the median of the range, but who knows what I'll end up with. As long as I don't get completely low-balled I'll be ok. I'm going to brush up on my negotiation skills just in case that happens, though. I don't want to get taken.
This whole promotion thing is more than about money, though (although more money would DEFINITELY help out right now). To me it is finally getting validation that all of my hard work has paid off. Up until this point it has not been an easy climb for me. You hear all of the time that hard work pays off and that virtue is its own reward, but until now it seemed that everything that my family and I have gone through and all of cumulative effort I've put forward to get ahead has gone for naught. Others were succeeding while I was seemingly falling farther and farther behind. But now, however, I have been able to take a significant step forward. I have finally broken through the ceiling into the upper half of the organizational hierarchy (admittedly on the lowest level of that hierarchy, but still...). Since my beginnings at this company I have put it as my objective to reach this position, and now that I have finally achieved this goal I feel overcome with a sense of accomplishment. The payoff is finally here.
So what now? Well, time to set the reset the sights and aim higher. I can't stand stagnation. Without something to work towards, what motivation does one have to work? I still have more than plenty of room between me and the top, so there should always be something to shoot for. However, for now I am just going to savor this moment and hope that Wednesday's lunch with the Big Boss Lady goes well. Now that the pressure's off, I'm sure it will.
Ok, readers, that's enough of this novel. I'm going to wrap it up now. Oh, I listened to Superfly by Curtis Mayfield today. I did a previous discussion on that album here if you are interested, otherwise I am signing off for now.
I couldn't believe it, readers. I was in shock. I know most of you don't know me or my work habits personally, but I assure you (apart from the occasional blogger postings) that I have been busting my rear end off trying to attain this position. I had expressed my intentions to the Big Boss Lady several times in the past, and as a result I had been receiving exponentially greater responsibilities and workloads. I literally flew around the country to attend meetings and seminars, to make presentations, and to network with the higher-ups. I have been bringing in significant past-due dollars and I have designed and implemented processes that have greatly improved the receivables turnover in my region. I thought everything was on the up-and-up and the Big Boss Lady had continually dropped hints that I had no reason not to think that way. That was until last month when she came into town and we had a long sit-down talk in which she told me that she had decided not to fill the open position and that her priorities were not with the financial managers at the moment. She had decided that to better address the department's needs she would hire another lower-level assistant to take up the slack. She didn't foresee any major departmental changes beyond that at least until the fall, etc etc etc, which I pretty much took as "John, don't expect a promotion any time soon." So, even though I still wore my super awesome smile everyday to work, inside I was a boiling ball of fury. I used this website as my release valve, and poured out all of my anger and frustration into several posts on this blog. In hindsight, I don't regret anything I said during that rough week or so. Those posts captured my true emotion at the time and I don't think I was in the wrong to feel that way. In fact, I used that force of emotion to compose in my pre-review paperwork a statement listing many detailed and supported reasons why I believed I should be promoted. I took it home over the weekend to have it read over and to make sure that I softened any heated rhetoric. I then submitted it that following Monday with fingers crossed. I hadn't heard anything either way about this statement until the Big Boss Lady broke the news about the promotion this past Friday.
I don't know if that form made the difference or if the BBL had this in mind all along. Perhaps I will find out on Wednesday when she is in town. She didn't disclose many details over the phone, saying that we would go over everything during my review session. We didn't discuss numbers over the phone, either, but she did verify the pay grade. You see, readers, one of the biggest perks of finally reaching this pay grade level is that I will now be eligible for the annual managerial incentive bonus. This promotion will put me to a level in which (if all budgetary and profit criteria are met) I will receive a bonus comprised of 20% of my annual salary plus a bonus percentage determined by the profitability of my assigned branch/district. So, that could be a nice little perk each spring. As of right now, though, the actual compensation that I will receive is still an unknown. This will also be discussed on Wednesday. I am hoping for somewhere around the median of the range, but who knows what I'll end up with. As long as I don't get completely low-balled I'll be ok. I'm going to brush up on my negotiation skills just in case that happens, though. I don't want to get taken.
This whole promotion thing is more than about money, though (although more money would DEFINITELY help out right now). To me it is finally getting validation that all of my hard work has paid off. Up until this point it has not been an easy climb for me. You hear all of the time that hard work pays off and that virtue is its own reward, but until now it seemed that everything that my family and I have gone through and all of cumulative effort I've put forward to get ahead has gone for naught. Others were succeeding while I was seemingly falling farther and farther behind. But now, however, I have been able to take a significant step forward. I have finally broken through the ceiling into the upper half of the organizational hierarchy (admittedly on the lowest level of that hierarchy, but still...). Since my beginnings at this company I have put it as my objective to reach this position, and now that I have finally achieved this goal I feel overcome with a sense of accomplishment. The payoff is finally here.
So what now? Well, time to set the reset the sights and aim higher. I can't stand stagnation. Without something to work towards, what motivation does one have to work? I still have more than plenty of room between me and the top, so there should always be something to shoot for. However, for now I am just going to savor this moment and hope that Wednesday's lunch with the Big Boss Lady goes well. Now that the pressure's off, I'm sure it will.
Ok, readers, that's enough of this novel. I'm going to wrap it up now. Oh, I listened to Superfly by Curtis Mayfield today. I did a previous discussion on that album here if you are interested, otherwise I am signing off for now.
posted by john at 4:20 PM
2 Comments:
"YES YES YES!!!"
*snoopy dance of joy for john*
*further dancing*
*hippie hippie shake shaking*
nice :)
Thanks, Sass. Trust me, I've been doing plenty of Snoopy dancing myself the past few days. I'm still in disbelief. I'm interested in how our meeting tomorrow will go. That's when I get to find out all of the good details :-)
Thanks, btw, for listening to me rant the past few weeks. After talking to the BBL last month, I honestly didn't see this coming.
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