Silver Lining

Last week I drove up to Toronto for an interview. The interview was for a temporary promotion to cover a maternity leave. I knew I didn't really have the amount of experience for the job level outside of my project, but thought with my experience on this project it might just be enough. I waited all week to find out what was going on. The interview itself was really intense and I spent several days going over what was said, what I didn't say etc.

Yesterday my director called to tell me I didn't get the job. He seemed kind of sad to give me the news. I appreciated that he called me and explained to me what was going on. Basically, the lack of experience is what killed it for me. We talked a lot about what he wanted to see from me and how he wanted to help me advance in my career. He's worried that I'm going to become pigeon holed in communications and he sees that there is more for me with my skills and talent. Not really something a lot of managers are able to tell their employees. I was pretty grateful that he took the time to explain his reasoning to me and also let me know how to improve. I was also able to ask some questions about a previous manager I had had issues with and see if he had any feelings about my performance during that time. It was good to find out that he thought I was doing a great job and had no questions about my ability to perform in my role.

I was disappointed of course. I haven't heard the whole "not enough experience" thing in a while. And I completely understand in this case. I wanted the job to get the experience but a part of me also didn't want the job just for the B-S that goes a long with it. Lots of people you have to keep happy, lots of overtime, lots of stress, lots of what ifs and of course the added element of fear if you fail. While I'm sure I could have done it, I just wasn't ready in my long term path to take on that responsibility especially if something went wrong.

So instead of getting down about it, I decided to contact Ryerson University in Toronto and see about some public policy and administration courses. I talked to my director about it in the past and he thought it was a good idea. So I decided to just bite the bullet and find out. I can get a certificate in public policy through distance education. It's just the whole "buckling down" and doing it part. If I can get in, I can start in the fall and work my way through the eight or nine classes I have to take. I'm also going to look into Business Administration courses at the University here too. It can only help.

Today it's just cleaning up, cleaning out, organizing and working on some other projects to get out of the way. Being away from home the last few weekends and being involved in other projects the other weekends has left me with a bit of a creative mess and now I'm working on putting it all back together.