SWITCH!!

It's 10:20 am on Monday, my first day on the floor as a producer, and people keep asking me how much I like it. My director has not yet given me my new event, my phone does not work, and I have been throwing away paper and sorting my old contracts from the last two and a half years of my time with this company as a sponsorship rep.

My new job simply hasn't started yet.

The questions are all asked with big smiles. How do you like your new seat? (Well, I am no longer facing the windows that overlook Lake Michigan and Navy Pier, now I am looking over a sea of computers and tops of foreheads and eyeballs....much more soothing, I must say, than sunshine and water and happiness) Do you LOOOOOVE being a producer? How much BETTER is it than Sponsorship? (I haven't produced a single thing, folks, except some orange peel trash from my chips n orange breakfast this morning.)

I am excited about this new position. I think that it will catapult me in a direction I have been wanting to go for years, career-wise. But being here, with this new perspective, has not adjusted or tarnished the view of my time as a salesperson. There are still some things that I simply loved about my (particular) sales job, and still some things that I really really hated.

I also do not harber any illusions about what my challenges in this role will be. About how high the expectations are of my success and how long it will take me (maybe a couple months too long) too recoup the losses of (possibility of) income that I had as a sales rep. I have grown a lot, and learned a lot. And I am hoping that this growing and learning enable me to become the person that I have dreamed of becoming for a long long time. But have I made it yet? Am I there? No, not yet. And I think this is why each of my darling, excited and young co-workers who asks these questions seem to irritate me so.....

I haven't made it just yet. But when I do....you can darn well be sure I will celebrating. And EVERYONE will know.