What a gorgeous day! The sun is shining, the wind isn't blowing and it is not bitter cold. Very pleasant.
I just got off the phone with a candidate for the lab's internship program. She has a resume that trumps most that I have seen. I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with her running through my list of canned questions... "What are your strongest traits, how do you demonstrate these traits?", "Where do you want to be in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years?", "Can you give me an example of a leadership position you have held?"
She actually did alright, not fabulous, but fine. IF my project could hire her (I have the funds, but all we will be doing is buying and assembling things) I am actually not sure I would. She told me that she wants to use techniques as a chemist and not necessarily know about how the instruments work. Well bad thing to say to me in paricular. Others might be fine with that though.
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I finally had my staff development review with my manager this afternoon. I had a really nice talk with her. I took up most of my hour long meeting. I didn't have much to complain about, especially since I was promoted this year. She told me that my coworkers had really nice things to say about me and how much they like working with me. The only thing she said I needed to work on was not being afraid to jump in and give my opinion. This is something I do on occasion, but not to the extent that I should. And it is a characteristic of my social style. I will work on it.
The one thing that I addressed with her was my concern that even though I was promoted I did not receive the highest rating "exceeds expectations". Instead I received "meets expectations +". I asked her why this was, or what in her mind could I have done to have received that level. One thing I like about my manager is her candidness, and hopefully this is truthful and not her just passing the buck. But she told me that she didn't have a good reason for this because she DID give me "exceeds expectations". However, when she met with her boss, my division director, he dumbed down every single one of her ratings one notch save for one or two people who he did leave at the "exceeds expectations" level. Evidently he told her that "here in this group we have very high expectations as compared to other groups". (She is new to my directorate.)
I could chalk it up to a "Manager-ism". But this does scare me a little. I worry that I am forever tainted in the eyes of my division director. When I first started as a post-doc here, he was my line manager. I had a pretty frank discussion with him early in my career here where he expressed extreme distaste for the project I was hired onto. There was no love lost between the project and line management... that team rejoiced when he moved on (up) and they didn't report directly to him anymore.
He told me that if I ever wanted him to hire me permanently that I needed to find some other projects to work on, no joke. My post-doc mentor was ticked. But he held strong to his word and one day he summoned me to his office and offered me a full time position saying that in the 6 months since we talked I did what he asked, got rave reviews and so he intended to make good on his prior statement to me. (And again my post-doc mentor was ticked.) I was thrilled, but later also questioned whether I wasn't some sort of pawn in a power play between he and the project management.
Anyways, this is why I worry that he may view me as having a black mark is my prior association with "that" project. No real way I will ever know short of asking him straight up. And I will be damned if I will ever do that! The guy scares the living daylights out of me! Intimidation factor at its best.
Well suffice it to say that I had a really, really good talk with my manager. She praised me whole heartedly and offered me different options on my path forward. She has suggested that I am really good at organizing things, budgeting and seeing things through and suggested that I seek out management type roles (task and project management) as well as business development based off the really good ratings I got on my favorite project where I interact with the client weekly. My project manager for that project told her that the client likes and trusts me. This is an unusual position for someone of my level to be in actually. Most often clients will talk only to the project manager, not the team. This is really where I would like to see my career move. I want to have some foothold in the lab. But really I want someone else to go to the lab and work under my direction and then provide me with the data to manipulate and report on.(Does that make me sound lazy?) ;-) We will see if that pans out.
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AB had an eye appointment this afternoon. His doctor pulled him off all drops recently and so the hope is that maybe he can stay off of the drops now. A few months after we got married AB got shingles. It showed up on his forehead and had followed the nerves on his face. It actually ended up following his optical nerve and going into his eye. This resulted scarring of his cornea. For the last 6 years AB has had to use a variety of, and multiple eyedrops a day. Evidently the "bumps" are still there on his cornea, but they aren't impeding his vision, nor getting worse. So this is good news.
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We don't have much planned for the weekend. We are having our good friends K&V over for dinner on Saturday night. Leif will be happy to play with C. They are at that age where they are starting to interact more and more. I am planning on making Vietnamese spring rolls (salad rolls). This is one of the first things I made for AB when we started dating. I think it secured my spot as girlfriend way back when! It is still one of his (and my) favorite meals. I also would like to make ginger ice cream... yum.
We have a few errands to run, but nothing major. I am mostly excited by the fact that AB doesn't have to work! He has some homework to do, but that is it. Yay!
Have a great weekend!
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