I really got it

The offer letters went out at 4:55 PM yesterday, almost an hour after I’d gone home, so I found mine when I came in this morning at seven.  After a quick review to see that the terms were more or less what I’d expected (one-step pay grade increase, base pay of $37,600 annually with a 7% possible performance bonus, making a total around $40,000), I sent back my acceptance with thanks.  When Smiley read his copy of my acceptance a little later he was so excited he came over right in the middle of a call I was taking and hugged me.  (Silly manager.)  He’s going to be giving up a lot; not only am I leaving, but the other really hotshot tech on our team is being promoted to Resolver too, so Smiley’s going to take a clobbering in the team stack rank with both of us gone.  I give Smiley a lot of credit through this process.  Without his help, coaching, and occasional gentle pushing I might still have made it to Resolver, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as smooth as it was.We were all asked to hold off making noise about it until after HR had everyone’s replies in hand, so I sat on the knowledge. After all, it wasn’t as though it was going to go away now—it was written.

I sat on the knowledge through my cross-function team meeting this morning, where we began to thrash out the requirements for making a single searchable portal for urgent updates and alerts that will be usable by any tech support unit, whether in-house or outsourced.  Towards the end the guy who’s been the leader de facto said, “you know, it would probably be good if we got some Resolver/L2 representation in this meeting too.  H— (our tech liaison manager), can you see whether someone from that group would join us?”  Why looka there, there’s Sam all ready and waiting as a shiny-new L2, already knows what the issues are and won’t have to be brought up to speed.  Isn’t that nice?

I spent half the afternoon starting to go through the onboarding process, requesting access to the tools I’ll be using.  A couple of ’em, I already had access from long ago in another situation.  Nobody ever got round to revoking my privileges.  The team’s biweekly meeting was this afternoon, so we five new guys were invited to “c’mon over,” sit in, and introduce ourselves.  (Besides me and the other phone tech from my team, there’s another phone tech from the Tulip’s old team and two e-support techs I don’t know.)  When it came my turn, I looked round the conference room, paused a beat, and said “Looks like I’m back to being the official team Old Fart.”  There may be one other guy over forty, but I’m not sure about him, and EVERYone else is still on the short side of it.  Maybe not by much—the Tulip is 39—but ain’t NO one else on there pushing fifty, as I am.

Our official start date is next Monday, but the Tulip told us all he was going to steal as much of our time from our L1 managers as he could possibly get away with.  Smiley already told me he has no problem with that, so I expect I’ll spend a lot of the next two days on the phone in the AUX code for projects, winding up my final cases, and getting myself arranged so much as possible.  The Tulip also announced to the team that H— had put in a request for an Resolver liaison/representative on the tech council, and he was naming me as the liaison.  Wasn’t it nice that he has Sam all handy and already briefed on procedures and issues?

I still have no notion what my new work schedule will be; I suppose I’ll find that out in the next few days.  I hope I don’t get stuck with some god-awful late-starting 4×10 shift.  After three years of working seven-to-four, that would be a major adjustment.

Your olive drab super glue reinvigorates some cross-ventilated affidavits.  Fnord.