What's on your menu today (Wednesday) RNYers?

It seems like you have really enjoyed the training gig, will there be a similar opportunity in the future? I'm sorry you are feeling sidelined because of personalities as it relates to potential supervisory roles. That stinks and it's horrible.

Thanks Jen. There may be one more group of trainees coming in in a few months and depending on how life is going then I may do another detail. The problem is that I've really maxed out my opportunities without either going into management or doing a complete lateral move that would really be a demotion. I've probably got another 9-10 years before I retire and some days I'm not sure whether I want to keep sitting in this cube and pushing paper...

That is hard...and I saw your comment above about the politics. Those are tough things -- and the politics gets worse the higher you get and I think particularly for women there's less grace allowed for being bad at the politics. Are there any options for a track that gives you new project opportunities/options to use skills you don't get to do day to day and keeps you whole $ wise? I think you kind of did that with the training opportunity that's coming to an end. Hoping something else comes your way!

Keep your head up!

I never wanted to be a dept head or any other kind of supervisory job. I was happy just doing my own thing and not having to worry about what everyone else was doing, too. Plus having to deal with budgets and personnel issues - ugh. No thanks. Several years ago my boss left for a higher-level job within the library system, so they made me the interim head. I didn't want it and I was never comfortable with it. I was absolutely delighted when about six months later, he decided he wasn't wild about his new position and wanted to come back to his old one. I'd been so afraid they'd want me to apply for the permanent position, and I wasn't interested in it. Win win. I was elated. So anyway, I'm sorry you won't get the permanent training job, but then again, if you didn't want it in the first place, then maybe it's a blessing in disguise!

The politics are brutal and frankly I HATE meetings and there are endless unproductive meetings about having meetings! I've never wanted the HR headaches but just don't know that I want to do the same job another 10 years.

I can understand that. Fortunately, I have degrees in both IT and library science, and both types worked in our library system, so I was able to make a couple of lateral moves during my time there that put me into completely different roles with completely different responsibilities. If that weren't the case, I probably would have gotten pretty tired of doing the same thing year after year.

AND I've maxed out the pay structure after my years here. Not the only important thing in life, but certainly another factor...

You're definitely one of the cool kids in my book, Janet!

Thanks sweetie! I wore a pair of paisley pants to the office yesterday (sorry, I forgot to take a pic!) and if that doesn't make me cool, I don't know what does...!