I’ve been very distracted lately. There have been some staffing turnovers at my office and some of it directly affected me. It took a few weeks, but today the shuffling was, for the most part, finally complete. The results were both good and bad.

Good – (depending on how you look at it) my department head decided to follow her heart to pursue a different career path and turned in her notice. (Bear with me Hope, this will make sense.) Bad – she was my friend and had been very supportive of me ~ generous with her praise and performance evaluations. She had in the past gone to the mat for me, to secure raises when others in my position may not have received one. I will miss her, she kept work fun.

Good – before she left, my boss recommended to our regional VP that I be made interim manager. Bad – that was not a guarantee that such a promotion would be made official.

Good – the first Monday as acting department head, the other managers told me to have my pick of offices. I chose one with a nice sunny window, with a door, and a lock, and a huge desk and a big black chair. I bought a little potted ivy plant for the window and moved in. Bad – if I didn’t get offered the job on a permanent basis, I would have to move back out to the floor, back into my Meerkat Manor cubicle ~ away from the sun and my little potted ivy plant would die.

Good – during the ensuing five weeks, no news was good news. Bad – no news was making me a nervous wreck!

Good – If I wanted to be left alone in my office (say to check out what was going on with my blog friends) all I had to do was close the door. Bad – I didn’t have NEARLY as much time to indulge in that favored pastime as I would have liked.

Good – the other managers were excited that I was acting department head and were including me in strategy sessions. Bad – I didn’t want to do all this upfront work only to be sent back to the minors if the job fell through. I wanted to see the projects through to completion.

Good – the regional VP came to our office today to talk with ALL the department heads. Better – That included me. BEST – she made me an official offer on the manager’s position. Bad – She didn’t offer me as much compensation as I would have liked. Good – she did offer more than I expected. Better – it also included the potential to earn performance bonuses. BEST – I have a great bunch of people to work with, meeting those goals should be a no-brainer.

I don’t think all of this has sunk in yet. I have never been in a position of authority before, so I’m just winging it right now. I haven’t been able to relax and enjoy the news since the VP and I shook hands on the deal. I feel like I’m all ‘hyped up on Mountain Dew.’

The peeps are taking me out for a celebration dinner. I think a nice glass (or two, three…. ) of wine will be just the thing I need to settle my nerves.