soapboxdiner

Desert Roses

I find myself lately very full. The end of the day that used to find me full of angst and hungering to invest my brain in the dissection of minutia and trivial pursuits in mental expansion without relevant purpose now find me ... I can't even find the word. Maybe brimming? Overfilled? But whatever the word is, it doesn't really matter on any substantive level other than wishing I had the reserve capacity for creativity that I once had.

Even the activities that I enjoy, and anyone who's followed lately knows the things that excite my mind. I am in love with learning elegant ways to perform more effortlessly efficiently. Usually I accomplish that by ceaselessly exerting all of my mental powers on a single locus and logging all the possible causative and resultant factors and cross-referencing them all in my brain and on paper and in writing until I have an intrinsic and deep understanding and can see how a thing's origin affects its current state and how the combination of those two factors join and when met with outside variables direct or redirect future potentialities.

This is what I do for fun. It could be a relationship, or work, or what I'm planning to do this weekend, or what I'm reading or the documentary I watched last night, or the Christmas gift I'm planning to give, or what I plan to do when I retire. EVERYTHING is fair game. People I absently stand behind in the line at Starbucks. Why did they do THAT? What were they thinking? Don't they know that's retarded? OMG, that person just did something beautiful, or amazing, or isn't that exciting?!? I should incorporate that into what I do. Man, I was retarded last night; I made a jackass out of myself. Such-and-so must think I'm the biggest jerk. Did I just hurt that other person's feelings? Does this make me a bad person? Will I burn in hell for having that thought? If I explain something like THIS to somebody, will it help them understand something crucial to the function they are performing? Will they appreciate that I invested myself in this way for their benefit, or will they find me patronizing?

All.The.Time. Nonstop.

And lately, now that I have so many things I WANT to think about and develop and bring into fruition, I come home at night and all I can manage to motivate myself to do is . . . nothing mental. I find that incredibly irritating and frustrating for my Grand Master Plan for the Universe of Me.

Anyway.

Strange thing, darlings. A couple weeks ago CEO and Boss held a meeting for our department (and when I say "our department", please know that our company only has two departments). This is what The Company will be doing in 2009. Blah blah blah plans. Oh, and we'll be changing our annual review process to also include peer reviews and subordinate reviews. We'll send these out and company employees will provide anonymous feedback.

OK.

So Monday morning CEO sends me a link to a website to review Boss. And I do. And Monday afternoon CEO sends me another link to review the accountant (who has moved up through the ranks of our department, knows every position, and acts as the untitled "supervisor" when CEO and Boss are away). And I fill that review out as well.

Bear in mind now that CEO almost never speaks to me in anything other than passing hellos or to impart direction on certain projects I develop or contribute in.

And Tuesday, after the reviews, she called me into her office to "get a second pair of eyes" on evaluating a contract bid for a new customer.

And then today she came into my office and asked me my opinion on another matter, listened to my advice, went back to her office, and sent me an email with her decision and thanked me for the contribution.

What in the heck kind of upside-down world has this week been? What does this mean? What changed in the last week for the CEO of this company to begin seeking my daily feedback on such a wide range of topics? Is it because I asked to be considered for a management position in my self-evaluation? Did I amaze her with my penetrating analysis of my peers and supervisor? Were the classes and training material I developed breath-taking? WHAT HAPPENED HERE? I do not know.

And the funny thing is, my friend, the woman who vacated my position before me and suggested the company recruit me from the ranks to fill her shoes called me out of the blue Tuesday to go have a happy-hour cocktail. So I went and we caught up on the last year. I told her the projects I'd been involved in and my request for consideration for advancement. And she came back and told me -- this is just yesterday now -- that once upon a time the CEO told her that The Company's business model is nonstandard, in that our profit margin does not grow exponentially with every new customer. Instead, the rate of profit for our company is proportionate to product sales. Therefore, The Company will never promote another person into a management position because they are looking to keep costs down.

Well, but we've grown a shitload in the year since you've left, girlfriend. And we are projecting continued growth as well. Our department has been restructured and we are automating many of the functions our small department staff perform. Once all the various automation components go full-time live, we will have excess manpower in the department. Now Boss keeps hinting at change by saying, "The face of the department will change dramatically". But she also has said here and there over the last six months that she wants my role in the department to diminish as the remaining staff pick up the slack. She wants me to focus on the other functions of my position and let the other department members handing the daily functions of the rest.

Now a company cannot grow to the extent that we have without sufficient manpower at the head. And with only two people at the head to oversee everything from financial concerns to marketing, to product development, sales, to HR, to employee supervision, policy making and enforcement, IT, etc., sooner or later all of those functions will be too much for two people to effectively manage. Even with automation and restructuring, there has to be the right people in the right places focusing on the right target. Now personally, I can definitely see where vulnerabilities are and where we can grow in order to maintain our edge over our competitors, but . . . I don't know.

I guess I just wonder which of us is closer to the truth of the situation. Everything I'm seeing tells me that change is coming, and I'm potentially being vetted (and yet, the boss makes sure to tell everyone that I am a trainer and not a supervisor).

However, it could also be change is coming, and the bosses are making the most of the nearly free resources while they're available. But I seriously doubt that CEO would share confidential information with me and ask for my advice if the goal was elimination of my position.

Know what I'm saying?

And while I COULD be boning up on utilizing all this silly mental calculation on researching and developing the next training course, instead I sit here with saggy eyelids obsessing over whether the bosses like me and find me valuable, thereby negating whatever true usefulness this absurd hamster wheel that is my brain might actually rightfully serve.

8:06 pm - 02.25.09
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