Carrie: I'd like to think that people have more than one soul mate.
Samantha: I agree! I've had hundreds.
Carrie: Yeah! And you know what, if you miss one, along comes another one. Like cabs.
Hello again dear readers. If any of you have stayed with me since the very beginning of the blog, which was about a year ago when I started the job search, then you know that I have the tendency to completely freak out. I also have the tendency to blog while in the midst of one of my aforementioned freak outs and have much more clarity after I take a few days to process. This happened when I got together my resume and cover letter, while I was phone interviewing, right before I left for the conference, a major attack hit while I was at on-campus visits, and of course I freaked out up until the point that I was getting job offers.
Therefore, it should come to no surprise that my previous entry was slightly freak-tastic. However, I have calmed down a lot and now realize that although my supervisor has left and she was fantastic, I think I will be able to survive and thrive without her guidance. Obviously, I've been given a new supervisor which comes with both negative and positive changes in my life. The main change is that we have also restructured our department so I'm not the only one going through transition. This is nice because I have colleagues who are going through the same thing; however, it also means that the majority of our HDs are somewhat off-balance so there isn't a ton of stability in our department. I know that as soon as the dust settles, we will be up and running at 100 percent, but it is hard to deal with so many changes when they happen smack-dab in the middle of the year. I think our profession relies so much on the traditional calendar that changes in the middle of the year can often be ever so much more jarring than transitions that happen during the summer months.
While I am excited to be paired with my new supervisor (she is equally amazing, but in different ways) it has created a somewhat awkward situation. The awkward factor comes in because she has been someone that I have developed a true friendship with throughout the past six months. Our department is very intentional about creating a "flat" organizational structure, so it isn't out of the ordinary for the HDs to become good friends with the mid-level managers. Since they live on campus as well, it becomes quite easy to stop over for dinner, watch favorite TV shows, or go out to dinner together. This has been the case for me. Since she was not my immediate supervisor, I have let my guard down while in social settings.
I realize that I may just be paranoid, but I suddenly don't know if it's okay or even professional to crack a dirty joke or make a not-so-professional comment while around her during both work and non-work times. We had our first one-on-one two days ago and it felt like a job interview! She was explaining her work style and then asked me to describe what I needed from a supervisor and I seriously felt like we were in a play or movie. It just didn't feel right to be so formal and not be able to roll our eyes at each other or make a snarky comment here and there. However, right after our one-on-one, we went out to dinner together and it was back to the way things used to be. I'm not sure how much of this awkwardness is coming from my side or hers, but it is just weird. I know that the professional, mature thing to do is to talk with her about it, but as we all know, I need to freak out first, get some perspective, then move forward. However, I still have hope that she can be my professional soul mate the way my last supervisor was. There's no rule that says we can only have one soul mate, right?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment