The First Day

was good. And somebody did sit with me at lunch. ;-)

It was a crazy long day, and lunch involved walking to Wendy's for a salad, which was eaten on one of the two barstools in the tiny office kitchen.  It's a very lovely tiny office kitchen; the office is very pretty and brand new (they are finishing the space around us).

I like the people. I like the work. The projects are interesting. The learning curve is OH HOLY CRAP!  It's a mix of development stuff I know very well and new twists about compliance and funding and such that I've never dealt with before, plus the challenges of a very small corporate team managing a lot of people scattered all over, and HR issues!  HR??? I've never done HR!  But I can learn, and most of it is outsourced.  But, Holy Shit.  The number of moving parts is about 3x as many loops as the Incredible Hulk.

It is thankfully NOT as originally described in the interviews.  I had been told that I would be stepping into the shoes of a 20+ year employee who was retiring, and I would be basically taking over cold as she was easing out the door.  As it turns out, that lady is still there, but is trying to extricate herself from decades as right hand and a major part of the brain of our now mutual boss.

She's the one who joined me at lunch.  She is giving me the scoop on things, in a remarkably open and sharing and no agenda way. She's not at all threatened by having a replacement; on the contrary, she's thrilled to have me and wants me to get up to speed as fast as possible so she can spend more time in the retirement home in another state that she bought three years ago.  She will still be involved, still working on certain projects, but working remotely, if and when our boss ever recovers from a massive case of separation anxiety. 

It was one of my biggest concerns in taking the job - that I'd be filling un-fillable shoes and would always be not like she was - so the idea that she'll still be around is comforting, and the way we hit it off today was very, very comforting.  But my job is basically to learn everything about company ops, so she can move to the retirement home on the beach that has been sitting there waiting for her.  (It's in a maintenance free community and her sister lives nearby, so it's not sitting there rotting.)

So this is going to be an adventure. It's one of the least structured and most complicated jobs I've ever had, and that's saying something.   But I like the people already, and as we are working in a very small team, that's important. My new boss is a very warm and open person.  He has an edge, but it's an edge I can respect. He didn't become as successful as he is by being a pushover, and he doesn't suffer fools gladly, but it's balanced with a very obvious good heart. I think that after our shakedown period is over, he may let my predecessor move to her beach house (as long as she is still available by cell and text and email and Skype and....)  But boy, I have some major shoes to fill!