Chapter 11: I Aspire to Desk-ness

The word “promote” literally means to advance in rank or to contribute to the growth, development, or prosperity of. With this in mind, I have been offered a promotion at work. It all really started when I got a voicemail message from my manager at the corporate office on Thursday evening. She asked if I would be able to come to our group meeting half an hour early she had something she wanted to discuss with me. I e-mailed her back saying that I could make it, all the while thoughts running through my head of what could be the matter. The initial thought was that she decided that I was a horrible trainer and would like to talk to me about no longer being a training partner (which is where I just train part time). Then a quick thought came into my mind that one of the trainer’s (Twitch) has long had it known that he wants to go to the new store when it opens and be a manager there. So then I assumed that it had to do with that. Of course I kept bad thoughts lingering in my mind because it is best to be prepared for the worst, if the worst doesn’t happen then you just survived another day. When I got to the corporate office I walked back to my managers “workspace” and Twitch was talking with her, so I went to check my work e-mail and felt like my feelings where confirmed about the position. When Twitch came out of his meeting we talked for a bit and my feelings went back to the fact that maybe they no longer wanted me. He was talking about a woman in one of his stores who is by all means, a moron, she has problems with every form of payment and I’m surprised she can remember her name. It turns out that I trained her. Now every trainer has this happen to them every once in a while, but even with the knowledge that it happens to every trainer, you still feel like crap that you didn’t noticed they were idiots and passed them. So then I was thinking it would be something about that, maybe trying to help me notice people’s deficiencies better.
I walked back to see my manager and she said we should go someplace where we could have some privacy. The tear ducts swelled and I again prepared for the worst. We went to a little room and she closed the door and put on her game face. She then started to tell me that a position in the team would be opening up. It’s pretty much the same thing I do now except better pay, it’s full time so I get benefits, I get my own group of stores to train…which means I get a main store to work out of. My manager was trying to conceal who it was who would be leaving, but I had to know what group of stores I would have. I didn’t want Twitch’s group and that’s the group I expected it to be, so I had to ask. I told her that I understood that it would give away who was leaving, but I couldn’t make a decision without knowing. She laughed because she realized that no matter how much she tried to hide it she was going to have to tell me. It’s not Twitch by the way; it’s the trainer who didn’t want me to steal TDH. Her cluster of stores is the closest one to my house. Everything in me tells me that this makes sense, but when I really think about it I don’t really like training, as my manager put it, it’s a very demanding job (she said this in understanding for why I asked for time to think it over). If I go full time training I stop working in my store, it will no longer be the place I go to get my paycheck, I won’t work random Saturday’s there with them. I won’t be a cashier anymore really. This is a tough decision when I think about how I have to leave all my boys. But they can’t be why I don’t take the job. They’ll move on and leave the store without a second though to me being there. This is how life is, people don’t stay at their high school job (hopefully) they move on. I just can’t figure out why it happened now. I was beginning to look for a new job with the state (good benefits, normal hours). I can’t tell them that I will take this position in 6 to 8 weeks and then end up saying that I got a new job. I would feel rotten, I would have to stay with the company longer and then do it. But at the same time if I take this position where I actually make enough money to live off of, then I can start preparing for Graduate School. Should I stick it out with the company and the training program longer to get that done? Then when I graduate from there it would be completely understandable that I would rather go in the direction of my studies.
I already know the answer is ‘yes’ but I just need time to realize what I am going to be leaving behind.