TO: All Employees
FROM: Girlie's Boss
DATE: 01/14/2003
RE: Promotion of Girlie

It is with great pleasure that I announce the promotion of Girlie from Payroll Coordinator to the newly created position of Manager of Employee Services. In her new role, Girlie's responsibilities will continue to include all aspects of the payroll function, but will now incorporate administration of the Employee Benefit programs as well. These new responsibilities will include communicating with our various insurance carriers regarding employee eligibility and status changes, as well as addressing employee questions and concerns on coverage.

Girlie joined our company in July of 2001 and at that time, directed the payroll function for over one hundred employees in five states. Since then, we have grown to a company of over six hundred employees in nine states across the country. Girlie has consistently met this challenge while demonstrating the knowledge and ability to handle these ever-increasing responsibilities.

Please join me in congratulating Girlie on this accomplishment and wishing her well in her new position.

Huzzah!!

Lest you think it was an easy negotiation, allow me tell you otherwise. There was much wrangling back and forth, anxious arm-twisting, a few tears, even some voices raised - but in the end, my boss finally convinced me to take the promotion.

That's right - he had to persuade me. Afterwards he said, "I've never had to work so hard to convince someone to accept a promotion."

My reply: "Haven't you learned by now that I'm not like anybody else you know?"

We both smiled at that.

(Funny moment: I'm talking along about a certain issue, and I started to get a little teary-eyed, but kept going with what I was saying, despite my eyes filling up. Then mid-sentence, I blurted out "Goddammit, Boss, give me a Kleenex or something!" (except I used his real name, of course). He jumped up and found me one, while we both laughed. Then I said, "Jesus, you're such a guy sometimes!")

My reluctance stemmed from the potential work involved, and the fact that I believed the associated increase should have been significantly higher. Six hundred employees may not sound like a lot, but you've got to keep in mind that those six hundred are spread across eleven different companies, each with their own unique compensation and benefit structures. (And, by the way - we may have only around six hundred active employees now - but there were 790 W2s issued for last year. That number represents an enormous amount of paperwork being processed; we have plenty of turnover in our nursing staff, so nothing stays static for very long.)

Keeping up with all of this, combined with the fact that our growth will not stop this year by any means, translates into a very significant investment of my time and energy over the upcoming months. I'm already putting in close to 55 hours a week (putting my equivalent hourly rate down below where it was when I started!), and that isn't going to change anytime soon. They've also added some other responsibilities not mentioned in that memo: training all the new HR Admins in the facilities; quarterly and annual meetings (oh good grief, am I going to have to travel?); wage and hours analyses for the operations team; and writing a payroll/benefits manual.

Okay, I'm getting a little nauseated right now just thinking about it.

The upside is (drumroll) I finally get to hire someone!! Someone who'll report to me, me, me!

Which brings me to interviews: the latest form of hell imposed upon me. My goodness, I thought the job market was tough these days. So where are all the stellar candidates? Not walking through our doors, that's for sure.

The first one wasn't really dressed right for interviewing, but that isn't generally something that's going to affect my opinion of a candidate (as long as she's not wearing stripper clothes or something downright nasty-looking). Ironically, the thing I liked about her best? She used the word "crap" in the interview. Now that's a person I can talk to, you know? Her experience was a little weak, but I got the impression that she was the type of person who would work hard, take on any assignment she was given, and do it very well.

The second one wouldn't look me in the eye. Ever. Her eyes were all over the room, on the table, on the wall over my head, on her hands. But never looking directly at me. I understand some people are nervous during interviews, but I need someone with balls in this position. Big balls. Huge. (Hey, speaking of balls, where are the male candidates? Harrumph. Payroll is a pink collar ghetto.)

Third candidate was 20 minutes late. I reviewed her resume while waiting and saw she'd been in the Navy. So I expected (for some reason) a tall, physically fit, no nonsense woman. Uh uh. Number Three was short, round, with this a mass of curly hair piled on top of her head in a lopsided jumble, and had these distracting black moles all over her neck. Then there was this huge mole living between her eyebrows. I had to force myself not to stare at it. Suddenly I was the one avoiding eye contact. And she kept giggling throughout the interview. One of the dozen tasks she listed in her current position was Banquet Coordinator. Great - if I needed her to serve me lunch every day.

On to Number Four. Another painful-to-look-at person. Hey, I know everyone can't be as beautiful as me <grin>, but I have to work with this individual every day. I have to visualize them sitting in the conference room with the entire office (including our President and the CFO) during our monthly calls. Hint: affordable dental care is available to all, and there's no excuse for coming to an interview with hair that looks like mine does after a weekend with no shampooing and a lot of sleeping.

Finally, the last candidate. Professional appearance. I breathed a sigh of relief. But she sat in her chair like a lump, asking few questions, giving short answers. I wondered why she was interviewing at all, since she didn't seem the least bit interested in what the position involved.

A week later, two more candidates. (I'd actually requested a second interview with the "crap" candidate, but she ended up sick and in the hospital. Sigh.) The first one showed up an hour early to the interview. But she had a resume with 20 years of payroll experience - six years of it in a hospital. My big concern with her: she lives in Mesquite (that's a long drive in traffic, take it from someone who was making a similar drive this time last year).

Last candidate. A doll. Young, bright, dedicated, well-dressed, serious about seeing payroll as a profession and not just a clerical job.

I liked her too much.

I wanted her to like me.

No dice. I can't manage someone if I'm more interested in being her friend than I am in being her boss.

So, Ms. Mesquite got the nod.

I discussed her with my boss: she's been a payroll clerk for twenty years, is she going to want to continue being basically in a clerical role for who knows how many more years? After I asked the question, I realized how it sounded: she's been a payroll clerk for twenty years - that's not exactly the sign of someone with upward mobility on her mind.

Then my boss said the question was really one I needed to ask myself: would I always want payroll to be under my umbrella, or did I see myself moving out of that arena and into something different? If I always wanted to manage the payroll department, then I needed someone who would be content to stay in that subordinate role. If I wanted to move outside of payroll into another area of the company, then I needed someone I could groom to fill my shoes.

Well, duh. I haven't wasted my own almost-twenty years in payroll just so I could dump all of that experience behind me - especially when that's what got me to where I am now. And realistically - I couldn't step aside and watch someone ruin all my hard work without suffering great anxiety. Oh, I'll train someone to do it, don't get me wrong - but I'll damn sure still be involved in what goes on.

But finally making this decision didn't stop me from waking up Friday night in a cold sweat, convinced I'd made a horrible, dreadful mistake. My intuition is a powerful thing, and it was screaming out at me.

Shit.

Please, please let this woman be great at what she does. I need her to be great.