Marissa's Career Move | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Marissa's Career Move | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mary Lisa
01/28/08
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Marissa peered over the job application with a great deal of interest. If she got the position, it would mean a huge promotion with a huge salary increase as well. The job would consist of supervising 30 employees and keeping track of a substantial budget for the department. These were unfamiliar responsibilities to her but she was positive that she could do them and do them well. She already handled her own company budget successfully and supervised a couple of part-time employees in her public relations office. Hadn’t her boss praised her efforts repeatedly over the past five years that she had worked in this department? She reminded herself that having a successful career meant moving forward. She convinced herself that she had to try for the new job.

Two weeks later, Marissa received the phone call that she was selected to fill the new position. As she hung up the phone, she felt excited, overjoyed, elated, and positively ecstatic. She wanted to dance around the office as light as air. Instead, she broke the news to her boss. He was happy for her and wished her well in her new job.

Another two weeks and Marissa was ready to start her new position. The first morning, she greeted new co-workers and thoughtfully placed her personal items on her new desk. Everything she did felt strange and she was unsure of herself but she didn’t let it show. She prepared announcements for her first meeting with her subordinate employees. The sooner she met with them, the better, she thought. Later she would look over the budgets for their various projects and programs. She was determined to fit in quickly and do a great job.

Marissa seemed to enjoy her new duties. At least, she did an excellent job with them. However, as the weeks turned into months, she began to daydream about the good old days at her previous job as she sat at her desk and it caused her to waste a considerable part of the workday. She was aware of her actions but unable to stop herself. She recalled how much she enjoyed completing assignments at her old job and how she had looked forward to the accolades from her old boss. She questioned whether or not the larger salary was worth all the extra work that she was required to do. And, she was doing work that she truly didn’t enjoy. She found that supervising 30 people took most of her day and checking budgets took the rest. She assigned interesting projects to others but never had time to work on any herself. She longed to once again feel the satisfaction that came from wrapping up a project and being praised for doing it well. More and more, she began to wish for her old job back.

Although that job was no longer available to her, she determined to find a way to enjoy her career again. The next time she handed out assignments, she excitedly chose a couple of special projects for herself and turned over a lot of the time-consuming budget work to a capable subordinate employee who wanted to do budget reviews. Part of her salary was reduced to promote that employee who would take over the extra budget work. She continued to supervise 30 employees, but she was able to free up enough time to work on her own assignments, too. This new work arrangement made her much happier. Even though she still longed for her old job back and would always miss it, she had found a way to make the new one work for her.

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