Well, having made quite a run at the career thing in the recent years, I think I'm beginning to feel the sluggish effects of burnout. Well, I'm not sure if it's burnout or not, but I've recently gotten some acute feelings of frustration with the current system.

I've been doing project management all day everyday for a couple of years now, and it's beginning to lose its luster. The easy projects have become kind of boring (even though success is nice), and the larger projects have become tiresome even though they're not challenging. It's kind of like addition. We've all pretty much mastered addition, and if your job was to add; you'd find adding two numbers together all day to be intensely boring, and you'd find adding two hundred numbers together tiresome.

Current events have also further exacerbated my corporate malaise. The other day, someone two rungs above me on the ladder left the organization. My mentor, on the rung above mine, is moving into the position in the interim, with the clearly communicated goal of taking the position on full time. The upshot for me would be that should he get this new job, I'd probably have a decent shot at his old one. He and I have a very similar skillset, progression, and background. It'd be nice, because it would throw other tasks in with the project management. I'd still have some of the larger projects, but some of the piddly stuff would be left behind, and I'd get a helping of people management on my plate. I know, everyone bitches about people management; but it's something I need to get under my belt and it's a welcome change of pace. Besides, contrary to what evidence might be on this site, I'm actually pretty good at it.

However, it seems a monkey wrench has been thrown. My old mentor told me this morning that someone's already been shadowing him, learning his job. To make matters even more irritating, this person has only been here six months (as an intern-type position, no less), making this his very first job. The scuttlebutt is that he's somehow put himself in the good graces of the CEO, but scuttlebutt and a dollar might get you a cup of coffee. Even if it's true, acknowledging it in public will only mark you as a fool. To say the least, it's a hard pill to swallow; that someone with less experience has been plucked from obscurity to cut me out of the loop, possibly taking a position with more responsibility (and of course, pay) than my own. It seems like I'm about to get leap-frogged by a nepotist (nepotee?).

I'm meeting with my VP tomorrow, and I'm trying to collect my thoughts on this. I want to communicate my desire to take over some of the duties, but I think I'm going to play stupid on knowing who the shadow is, or that there's even any going on. Mostly because I pretty much always tend to play close to the vest when it comes to this stuff; but also because I've only been under this VP for a few months, and I'm unsure if I am trying to be kept here. I'll just explain the similarities between myself and my mentor, the need for variety in my workload, and a few of the other aspects that make me a logical fit. I'm assuming the Veep can't smell this coming, so the more clearly I think the conversation through, the more leverage I'll have when the time comes.

Anyone have any experience with this??

Posted by: shank at 02:57 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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