Promoted!

I spent my first year at TNP trying not to look stupid and get fired.

My second year, I worked hard, stayed (mostly) quiet and flew under the radar.

In my third year I started speaking up, sitting at the table and getting things done.

Because of that third-year FOOLISHNESS, I was offered a promotion at TNP. And after a weekend of pros/cons lists, I accepted. Hooray! Even though my current title has “manager” in it, I didn’t have anyone under me. I used to say I managed pixels instead of people. Technically they are bytes and not pixels, but “pixels instead of people” is less creepy sounding than “bytes instead of bodies.”

Next week a DBA* will start at TNP** and report to me! He and I will work together to get our database cleaned up and our AMS*** optimized so that we’re ready for all of the growth that’s coming our way. No TPS or WENUS reports will be run.

When my manager and I were talking about my taking this position, this speech from Theodore Roosevelt kept popping up all around me.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt

Long-time readers know that I was a manager before. (NB: All of my pictures are broken from them oh why oh why did I just look that up?) I walked away from management after my job scope was changed on me four times in three years. And I swore I wouldn’t do it again. But I’m a very different person now than I was in 2003. Older, wiser, and less prone to worry. (Also rounder, divorced, stopping there because it’s a bit depressing).

I’m ready to get back into the arena. I’m going to make mistakes. I’m going to be put in uncomfortable situations, but I’m going to be okay.

This was the non-bloggable stuff I’ve been writing about in prior posts. Thank you for putting up with my vagueblogging.

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*Database Administrator
**The New Place, which isn’t new anymore but I still won’t type the name because of my naive sense of privacy
***Association Management System, the software we non-DBA mortals use to view/alter our membership & meetings data