"I got a brand-new job!" I thought, "And nobody has written a damned word to me about it! Five years spent bitching and complaining about my work hours, about how I can't do theater, how I desperately want to go to day shifts, how I want to use my brain at work, and when I say that has happened...nothing! Bastards!!!"

But at about 5:00pm tonight, I got a nervous e-mail from Becky, which I'm going to reprint without her permission, because I don't think she'd mind:

Hi Patrick, I hope your talk with Dan went well. I've been thinking about you. You know, because I love you and stuff.

Then it started to make sense to me. Everyone I thought might write to me about the new job was doing exactly what I was doing all last night and today before I met with Dan.

We were collectively holding our breath.

What if Dan freaked out? What if Jan called me early in the morning and said that she got a last-minute call from the budget guy and was told that she didn't have the money for an assistant? What if they collectively got together and decided that I wasn't a worthy enough person candidate for this position?

I know I worried myself sick over it. I said I felt better last night, but the truth is, I felt better until I was all alone, the entry posted (somehow I feel like I'm talking to someone when I'm writing my entries), Becky and Laurie off of AIM, and I was left alone with my thoughts.

What if?

So if you'e been waiting to hear the rest of the story, I'm going to tell you.

If you haven't, and have just been waiting to comment or e-mail me about the joys of Nutella, hold off for another day. Don't shatter my illusions right now.

I woke up much too early for the time I went to bed, feeling groggy and nervous and out-of-sorts. I had packed my "professional clothes" the night before, and had my gym clothes waiting at the foot of the bed. I stepped into my wind pants, pulled a t-shirt on, and laced my sneakers. That left me with about an hour and a half before I had to go into work, work out, and then face the Wrath of Dan.

I toodled around online for awhile. I put away the big stack of laundry I did yesterday, deciding that, if I got this new job, I'd have to seriously invest in a new wardrobe. I felt a nervous rumbling in my stomach, so I had some yogurt and some orange juice, in case I was jittery from hunger. No such luck.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I fired off a short e-mail to Jan:

To: Jan@TheConsultingCompany.com
From: Patrick@TheConsultingCompany.com
Subject: Meeting with Dan

Jan,

Thank you very much for meeting with me to discuss the Knowledge Management assistant position. You asked me to take some time to think about it, and I have done so. I have decided that this is a wonderful opportunity that I am very excited about, and would like to move forward with as soon as possible (considering your timeline for having an assistant approved).

I am going to speak with Dan today about this position, and how to best go about transitioning out of design and into your department.

As I am planning on having this meeting today, I would like to make sure that you are certain that I am the candidate who best suits your needs, so that I can enter into this dialogue with the confidence of knowing that this position is (when approved) being offered to me.

Thank you once again for the meeting. I am very excited to embark on this new journey within the Consulting Company.

Sincerely,

Patrick Cleary

I figured I'd give her one last shot at backing out, and at least have a paper trail in case something went wrong down the line. I hopped in my car, drove to work, and pushed myself as hard as I could on the treadmill (3 miles in 25 minutes! Not too shabby!), and with the free weights. I kept trying to put the impending meeting out of my mind, but scenarios involving loud arguments and accusations of disloyalty kept running through my head. This is the longest time I've ever been at the same job; were the rules different here?

I showered, made sure I looked as presentable as I was able (sometimes I clean up well. Other days, I look like a trainwreck), and went down to my car to drop off my gym bag and pick up my backpack.

I went into the lobby, where there are a couple of free-standing computer desks for visiting employees and clients. I logged into my e-mail and saw this response from Jan:

To: Patrick@TheConsultingCompany.com
From: Jan@TheConsultingCompany.com
Subject: Re: Meeting with Dan

Go for it, Patrick -- I think this is going to work out really well.

Talk to you soon,

J

Well, that cleared things up! I at least knew that Jan was on my side. But I had a few more minutes to kill, so I happened to "walk by" Christy's office (which makes no sense, as her office is on a dead-end corridor, but she played along). I waved at her through her door, and she waved me in.

"So are you excited?" she said.

"Excited and nervous," I said. "I'm still worried about the fact that the position hasn't been approved yet."

"Don't worry about that," said Christy. "First of all, Jan has the budget for an assistant. Second, she's higher-ranking than [the budget guy], so if he doesn't approve this, she can just tell him to go jump."

"That helps a lot."

"Are you talking to Dan about this today?"

"As soon as I get in, if he's there."

"Good luck! You're going to do great!"

I thanked her and walked down the long, long corridor to the elevators. The car crept up each floor...G...2...3. I exited, walked through the double doors, and into the design office.

Dan's office door is right inside the design department's double doors, and it was closed. He was concentrating on something on his screen. I sat down, booted up my computer, and asked Terry what he was doing.

"He has a big mapping request," she said, "He hasn't come up for air for hours."

Great. He probably forgot about the meeting I'd requested (he never did reply to my e-mail from last night), and I'd either have to catch him while he was running to get some lunch or have him say, "I'm sorry, I don't have time to talk with you today. Is it important? Can it wait until Monday?"

I did some work and looked in the office. Still concentrating. I chatted with Terry and made some color copies. Still concentrating. I got some water and made a bowl of oatmeal. Looked back in.

Still fucking concentrating!

I decided it was a lost cause. I'd been here for hours, and he wasn't acknowledging me!

I looked at the clock.

11:55am.

Okay, maybe I was freaking out a little bit. I decided to let myself breathe somewhat.

At around 12:30pm, Dan hopped out of his office, coat in-hand.

"I'm going to grab some lunch," he said, hand on the door. "Anyone want anything?"

Terry and I both said no, and he walked out the door. I sighed, but then Dan spun around, re-opened the door and said, "Patrick, you wanted to talk to me, right?"

Gulp. "Yeah. But if you're getting lunch--"

"Nah, it's better if I do it now, because these maps are kicking my butt. Let's sit down."

So I went into his office, holding my breath again.

I followed him into his office, closed the door behind me, and he said, "So what's up?"

"Well," I said, "I've been talking with Jan P___, and she has offered me a position in Knowledge Management."

"Really?"

"Yeah. And I accepted it."

"What will you be doing?"

"It's a split-shift job. 50% of the time, I'll be her assistant, doing admin stuff, and 50% of the time, I'll be learning to be a knowledge management employee."

Dan stood up, reached across the desk and said "Congratulations!!!" and shook my hand!

I said I was relieved, because I thought he'd be upset. He said he would have only been upset if I'd gone outside the company; that promotions from his department only serve to show that Design is a good place for people to learn about the Consulting Company, and that we know our stuff. (Basically, if his people get promoted, he looks good.) He told me he thinks I made a wise choice; that Jan is great, and that the whole KM experience will be something he thinks I'll like...and that the "big bucks" are in KM, after I get myself settled into a role there.

Then he said something that really surprised me. "Patrick, I just want you to know that I'm really happy for you, but if you find, for whatever reason, that you don't like this new position, you're always welcome back in Design. I've had about six people transfer out, only to come back," he said, "I don't care if you needed to try something different; I know your work is good, your work ethic is good, and I'd be stupid to let you leave the company because you chose to try something that didn't work out."

He then reiterated that I would probably LOVE it in KM, and that we'd work something out so that I could get there as quickly as possible. (In about a month.)

After I left our meeting, I e-mailed Jan to tell her about it. She was very excited when I told her the news, and immediately fired off a "welcome to KM" e-mail to her whole group. I'm going to be attending their weekly sessions and will be on their mailing lists until I officially transfer over.

The interesting thing is that she's going away for a month right after I'm supposed to arrive. So either I'll be doing all her work and going nuts, or else I'll get a lot of writing done. Either way, it'll probably work out just fine.

And...I don't know if this is true or not, but I'm choosing to hope for it...I may get an OFFICE! With a DOOR! Do you KNOW how EXCITING that is to a cubicle-person?!? Walls! A door! My own music! Heaven! I may have to share with someone, but whatever.

Anyway, it's going to be a busy couple of weeks, but I feel a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Dan is happy, Jan is happy, Cherry (my new co-worker) is very happy, and I couldn't be happier. Five years doing nights and weekends have finally paid off.

Suddenly, I could breathe again.

I spent some time today talking with Bernice, thanking her for encouraging me to go after something that I'd like, and saying such nice things about how I'm perceived in the company. She said, "Whoa! There's just no stopping you! You see a goal, you decide to make it happen, and you make it happen! That's so cool!"

Bernice met me after Zoloft, obviously. But it's pretty damned cool to think that someone perceives me as a go-getter. So many people in the Consulting Company have a different impression of me, or have had to change their impression of me as I've been changing that it's nice to have a "clean slate" type of person to chat with. Someone who sees me not as someone "changed" but as someone "new." She didn't know me from Adam until late last year, and our interactions (flirting or not) have been colored by that fact.

I also went to see Cherry, a knowledge management employee (they, like those of us in design, don't really have job titles) who Jan said I might want to talk to before making my decision. Even though I'd already accepted the job, I went to Cherry's office to sit down and chat with her.

She had the same impression that Bernice and Jan did. She saw me as someone proactive who had a lot of experience here in the Consulting Company, and who will really enjoy the work that knowledge management does. I asked her what a "typical" day was like, and she brought up a database of all the projects she has lined up (there were dozens). She said she gets to pick and choose what interests her for the most part, as most of the work is archival, and doesn't have a firm deadline. When an "emergency" comes up, she explained, everyone in the department rallies together to make sure that it's taken care of quickly, and then goes back to what interests them. "There's a lot of flexibility here," she said. That's said a lot about jobs, but I really do believe her on this one.

So that's it. I'm still in design, but only until we have a new person or two to take over, and when I give my projects over to other folks. I already have people lined up for what I have on my plate, so that part will be no problem.

I will miss a lot about the design department. I like just about everyone here, and even the ones who annoy me frequently I get along with 9/10ths of the time. There is a certain camaraderie to the department, in that everyone knows that it's not a department that's going to be a lifelong career (unless you're hoping for Dan to retire and take over from him), so it's very loose when it's not crazy.

I'm not getting sentimental yet, though. Right now, the most prominent thought I have is, "Yes! I'm getting out of here!" It's like I had a great review from the parole board and I just have to finish out another month of my sentence.

They do say that pain is more manageable when you know when it will end.

As usual, when I still have some time on my hands at the end of an entry, I post pictures! Tonight's theme is color and texture. Some occurs naturally, some is the result of playing in Photoshop.

Taken by the side of the lake. I love this image, because it reminds me of running in the early spring, just as it's gotten warm enough to go outside. I almost turned this into a black-and white, but I like the natural desaturation from the sunset.

A little more color in this one, taken a little ways down the lake. It looks almost like the cover art for a spiritual CD.

Natural color, still. The deep cobalt blue of the sky and the water remind me that the best colors are found in nature.

No color is sometimes better than color. More trees, this time in a parking lot at night that I drove to tonight just to snap this photo. They're lit by a streetlamp and my headlights, and is pretty sharp for a picture taken with only available light.

It's no secret that duotone is my favorite Photoshop technique. this one I did in green and brown. This is the candy factory across the street from the Consulting Company. This wall makes it look very run-down (which it is), but I think it also has a certain charm to it. I like things that are falling apart.

A laundromat. It's bright and clean and cheerful during the day (it's where Diego and I used to do our laundry together), but at night, it looks depressing and sad with its weak fluorescent lighting. With better framing, I'd probably be able to get a photographic Edward Hopper feel to this image, but I took it on the drive home tonight, from my car. I'm always nervous when I have my camera that I look like I'm scoping out a place to rob it, or something.

Ah, yes. My favorite subject. Someday I'll stop endlessly snapping pictures of my own mug, in the hopes that I'll see something I like. At least this one is Photoshopped to death. Duotoned, a couple of filters, and I played with the contrast quite a bit. The result is...something. Like a drawing, I suppose.

In all, I had a very good day. A promotion, some great talks with folks at work, putting together a bunch of stories for "8 Stories I'll Never Tell My Mother" (my newest idea for a one-man show), and now I have Nutella (I knew I'd get it into the entry somewhere!) and 80s pop. I have a date with The Fabulous Robert to look forward to tomorrow night. The dogs are sleeping by my feet, and I'm wearing my paint-stained sweatpants (the most comfortable pair I own).

All I need is some funny, interesting guy scratching my back and telling me stories, and it would be a perfect day. Any volunteers?

Ah, well. Bed will have to do.