Flashes of Panic

A little while ago, I asked my supervisor if he would write a letter of recommendation for my grad school applications. Of course, that also meant I had to tell him I intended to leave the company if I was accepted. (I have massive misgivings about this, of course, because I have enjoyed this job—still enjoy it, in fact, more than I liked my previous job when I left it. But even if I don’t go to graduate school, I need to go somewhere else to keep having the opportunity to learn new things; I’ve done most of the growing that can be done here.)

Today, he’s asked me to draft my own job description. Something tells me my job will be on Monster.com within minutes of him hearing about an acceptance. (Naturally, I will mention such news here as well, in the event that you’re in my line and might be interested in working with a great company in a really cool part of the country.)

The few others here who have heard about my plans are uniformly disappointed; I think, in general, that they like me here. They keep making, “How are we going to do without you?” noises. Well, probably in much the same way they did without me for thirty-two years before I came, I expect, but I’ll admit it won’t be simple; I’ve grown in to the available space in this job, including filling unexpected gaps, and there’s no telling how well someone else will fit in the space when I leave it empty. One hopes we will find someone who will make a space in their own shape.

So I’m trying to write the description with a lot of generalizations, and resisting the temptation to dictate tools and standards.

Actually, in an exercise in futility, I managed to reduce it to seven words: Develop things. Maintain things. Fix what breaks.