Meet the new boss, same as the old boss - a boring/exciting personal story.
I find myself with a lot of spare time in both morning and afternoon offices. Bored out of my gourd, as some would say. The other day, the dean's assistant called to see if I still had the original copy of a magazine article draft I had edited for them. See, even though I don't work for the dean, she somehow "discovered" (her word) my talent for writing. I told her I had some free time and that I'd love for her to capitalize on what I love doing. When I found the article and brought it over, the assistant was happy to see I had written notes on the copy itself. I told her how much fun I had doing writing and editing work, and the assistant suggested I remind the dean of that and maybe I could hunt down some more projects.
The dean came by the next morning to tell me that the original author had taken my gentle criticism well. I asked if I had made enough changes to effect the tone and voice she wanted. She said I had. With a smile, she left, and I was energized.
Before I went to lunch, I drafted an e-mail to her expressing my interest in doing more. I didn't send it, because it didn't sound quite right to me yet. I did fire off a quick e-mail to my afternoon boss telling him I was thinking about talking to the dean about getting more work to do.
Then I had lunch with a coworker. We went to a seminar together a couple of months ago and have seen each other at luncheons. We sensed a kindred connection but never got to know each other until yesterday. We sat with our buffalo chicken wraps and talked about ourselves and our pasts and maybe starting a writing group. She's 51. I think we're going to get along quite well.
After lunch, the afternoon boss came down, listened to what I had to say, and told me that, "if I'm receptive," he would love to give me some of his research to work on. He also talked about my proofreading some of his papers and, if I wanted, learning some more statistics to really be helpful to his work. I told him all of these things sounded great, and he suggested we both talk to the dean about it. This means rewriting my job description and probably getting a raise, as I'll be replacing a student worker or two. This boss said that he hadn't asked my predecessor to do such things but that he had confidence in my abilities.
I then wrote a similar e-mail to my morning boss, asking to talk about my work on Monday. I thanked him for giving me jobs my predecessor didn't do - like proofreading his personal correspondence and being in charge of the students' travel accounts, but I told him I still had a lot of downtime. AM boss owned his own business before being offered this teaching position, so I stressed to him how it would be better for the department financially to have me doing more. I do small and usually quick little jobs each day, but the big thing I'm needed for is to be present in the office to greet students and other guests.
Finally, I re-edited and sent off the letter to the dean, outlining what I had told the bosses and what PM boss and I had come up with. The dean is a bright woman who acts more excited about things than she probably actually is, but I feel that she harbors genuine affection for me. Good things are going to happen. Hell, she even said that to me, pretty out of the blue, at the end of last semester. I was giddy all yesterday and last night thinking about it.
Comments (11)
A lot of people would be content just sitting around while they are "working." It's great to be the opposite, in my opinion!
Emily this is wonderfult that you are taking steps to use your writing talents and not just sit and be bored. Judi