Take the call

Scene from a day at the olde evile bank.

A telephone rings.

Me: "Stiffs Division, this is Lucy, how may I help you?"

Customer on phone: "Ah, Lucy, is Mr. Smith in?"

Me, after glancing at the phone lines to see if he's on his line: "May I tell him who's calling?"

Customer: "John Doe, on the Jones estate."

Me: Hold the line, please."
Switch to Joe's line. "Joe, Attorney Doe is on the line. Do you want the call?"

Joe: "Sure, I'll take the call."

This scene repeated itself over and over and over during the four or five years that I was Joe's assistant. My duties were primarily secretarial in nature, although there wasn't much that "Joe" did that I didn't do, and vice versa. We were a team, and a good one.

He had the law degree that I lacked, but he was never condescending or arrogant. Funny things happen when you work with estate cases and your clients are the dead folks. We had a good time most of the time. Joe was easily the best boss I've ever had, he taught me quite a bit about how to manage people, taught me how I wanted to be when it was my turn to be the boss someday.

As things progress toward to the next job in my career path, I had an instance yesterday where I had to decide if I was going to take the call and move forward or let it go to voicemail and stop what has become a runaway train. This company that is interested in my Swedish speaking abilities has been moving at light speed, a bullet train that I am not powerless to stop, but something that I've got to run like hell to catch.

I still want it.

I can't believe how quickly this has happened. Two phone interviews and arrangements for travel to a distant city (still stateside, if you're wondering) in the last two days. The travel is for a face-to-face interview.

Striking me speechless is a tough thing to do, but when the second phone interview wrapped up with the interviewer telling me that she was pleased to tell me that I'd passed through the stages far enough to come for a face-to-face, someplace that's about 1500 miles from home, at their expense, well, I couldn't think of much to say beyond, "Oh. Goodness."

Eloquent.