Life's Highs and Lows!

At Lake Tahoe paragliding

This morning when I woke up I knew it was going to be a bad day. I was already late for a meeting with my new boss, last night I heard some bad news, the cats had started fighting at 5am, and I constantly worry about my job since I have been told that I am not to drive my work car and most of my work is done by driving to different places. I quickly ate breakfast and drove to work. When I got to work I found out that I was early and my boss hadn't arrived yet. As I was waiting I talked to my bosses assistant who is also new. While meeting him I found out that he and I had many things in common and had similar stories. He works in the Pentagon now and I told him the story of the one time I had visited the Pentagon in the 80s there was a famous wedding on a soap opera, Luke and Laura, and every office I walked past they were watching the wedding. He said when he went to the Capitol Building earlier this month every office he passed was watching the Royal Wedding! It was good to talk to him. He then mentioned that he knew about my problem with me not allowed to drive my work car and it would be fixed by the end of the month. He told me he had heard some good things about me and was looking forward to working with me in the future. I felt a little better about the future of my job. The boss came and I sat in the meeting with everyone. He had said he wanted to reduce the pressure on everyone and have them concentrate on a balanced life, not just worrying about their recruiting mission, but also worry about having a balanced life, taking care of their families and their health and their futures. I have been around the military literally all of my life and people always say this when they become the boss. Everyone talks about people keeping their lives balanced, but then when they tell you what they really want they think you should put work first and then hopefully you have time to take care of other things in your life. This man was specific in changes he would make that would reduce the pressure of the recruiting mission and increase the priority of people taking care of the rest of their lives. I like this guy!! After the meeting my new boss met with me privately. I always dread meeting privately with my bosses, that is when I am given bad news if it comes. This man didn't really know what my specific job was so I told him, of course I told him that because of me the area I am in charge of has succeeded like never before in all three years I have had my position. I told him how important the man that does the same job in the south as well as I in the north are to everyone we work with in the organizations we work with. He was impressed when I told him that because of our work we do 75% of all the school visits in California versus the rest of the services, and we are the smallest service. He asked what I needed to improve the support I give to the unit. The man in southern California and I had discussed this before and I told him that we needed our own website. After the meeting my boss left, within 30 minutes of him leaving I received an email saying he wanted me to be on the conference call he has with his staff so I could be an integral part of decisions. Within an hour I received an email from the webmaster asking what I wanted in our new website!! I am happy today. I woke up dreading the day and within a few hours I feel a rejuvenation of my future in my job and I realize that just as life can change for the worse in a blink of an eye, it can improve in the same time frame. Ups and downs ... what will it be next? If you aren't happy with your life, wait a while and it will change...