so i’ve been meaning to talk about my JOB on here for some time now! let’s just say that when i moved to colorado, things quickly took a totally different turn than what i was expecting. i had come to the company [a supplier partner of my old company] to do a similar type of job as i did before [supplier approval, creating and maintaining specifications, etc.] but in a different environment [manufacturing]. it was going to be a mostly-desk job with some non-desk work [test kitchen and production floor work], just like my old job. i was excited to experience a new side of the supply chain and to use my experience in a different way.
BUT. two and a half weeks into that job, i was given quite the surprise when my boss, VP of quality assurance for the company, brought me into her office and told me that the quality assurance manager of the denver plant, the plant i was based at, announced that she was putting in her two weeks notice. it was for personal reasons, and no one saw it coming. my boss explained that she wanted to give me the first opportunity to step into her position if i so desired. i was flattered and scared and shocked and mentally overwhelmed with the idea, but i listened as she thoughtfully explained why i may or may not want to take it, accounted her prior experience in the same role, and gave me a very true and candid depiction of what it would be like.
you see, being a QA manager at a plant is a pretty brutal job. longer hours, hard work, and hardly glamorous [ha]. she told me that, right or wrong, i may not necessarily be well-received due to my age, gender, skin color, and minimal spanish-speaking skills, and that it might take a while to gain the team’s trust. it would be difficult, trying, stressful. she told me that she used to go home and cry like once a week when she was in this position, and that some days it would take everything not to go crazy because you might have two people who didn’t show up for work, a problem on the production floor, the USDA breathing down your neck for something, and a customer visit, and you still have to put on a smile for the customer to assure them that things are under control and going smoothly. she told me that i would i would feel like i was drowning most of the time because there is so much to know and to have to deal with in this position and it takes a long time to know how to handle situations, and even if you ARE experienced, there are always situations that arise that you aren’t prepared for or don’t know how to handle. she told me that i would sometimes have to come into work in the middle of the night or on weekends for various issues and emergencies. she told me that i would feel like i was plateau-ing in my career [but that i wouldn’t be], and that i would be discouraged sometimes because it might feel like i had taken a step down.
she told me all this very candidly, not to scare me, but because she wanted me to know what i was in for if i took the position. but what else did she tell me? she told me that there is pretty much no other way to learn all the “ins and outs” of manufacturing [and quickly!] than being a QA manager, and that this would be an invaluable experience. she told me that from a short-term timing standpoint, changing roles might not be the most ideal for neither me nor the company, but that she knew that from a long-term standpoint, it would be really, really good for both me and the company. she told me that no matter what direction i chose to go or who i chose to work for in my future, that this experience would set me apart from most other people in the industry since it would give me the nitty-gritty manufacturing experience in addition to my also fairly uncommon background in QA at restaurant companies. she also told me that it was completely my decision, that she would fully support my decision either way, and that she wouldn’t think of me in a different light either way, no matter what i chose. she told me that i really needed to make the decision in about 24 hours.
and as nerve-racking as it was [and oh, it WAS], and despite the fact that i still went home to mull it over before i gave my answer, i knew in that very moment that she was talking to me that i would take the new position. i’m such a believer that things happen for a reason, that God has a plan, and that he is opening doors for us that lead us in the direction he wants us to go. i was honestly scared out of my mind and a bit reluctant to step into this role, but i felt that i was being led to it. i didn’t know for sure that i was ready, but for some reason my boss was confident that i was. she believed in me.
so i said yes.
part 2 to come… xoxo