My Wife’s Been Promoted!

July 27, 2004 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Life 

My wife got big news last week. She’s being promoted!

I don’t think I’ve talked about her much here, so here’s a brief synopsis of who she is. She’s a little bit older than me, and we met in college at Rutgers. She graduated with two Bachelor’s degrees: Mechanical Engineering and Economics. She’s been working for the same company since then – a company that’s been bought and sold many times. They’re currently owned by a major multi-national industrial company whose name you would probably recognize (but I won’t mention it here). In addition to her degrees, my wife has gotten her Professional Engineer license in NJ and Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

She’s also a bit of an odd duck. She and I share a skewed view of the universe – sort of the “Monty Python” take on life. (In fact, our first date was to see “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” on campus.) She manages to pull off strange acts like using sock puppets in meetings and beating trees with newspaper (to get the sap running in the spring – it was actually suggested by an arborist). She’s extremely good at engineering, project management, and customer relations so people are willing to overlook the occasional eccentricity. (I actually LOVE the eccentricity – though it’s much more often than occasional at home.)

For the last year and a bit, she’s been in the large company’s Black Belt program. This program takes regular people, gives them loads of project management training, and turns them into Change Agents. The Black Belt requirements have them running at least 3 major projects in 2 years producing cost savings or revenue improvements. They have to actually go hunting for the projects – management points them at a trouble area and tells them “Have at it.” They also have to supervise two “Green Belts” – people who get a watered-down version of the same training and who only spend 10-20% of their time on such things.

With the Black Belt program, you get pulled out of your regular job for the time in the program. Theoretically, your job is left open for you to return to if you decide that the Black Belt program isn’t working out or after you get your Black Belt certification. In practice, you’ve been identified as a “High Potential” employee and the company WILL try to find you a place once you’re done.

Her company is in the throes of a major reorganization. Everybody has been asked to apply for a job internally – either your current job, another job, or both. She chose to apply for jobs as Manager of Project Engineering, and Manager of Project Management. (Somebody wanted her to be a Supply Chain Manager, but she didn’t really want to run a warehouse.)

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I’m very proud of her. She’s a little nervous, but I know that she can do the job – maybe after a few rough patches up front. She’s gonna have some challenges – the three people in Trenton have been there a long time (as long as her or more in most cases), and it sounds like several of them applied for the same job and lost. It doesn’t help that they’re all male and I believe older than her. They’ll just have to get over it – my wife had nothing to do with them not being chosen, and very little to do with her being chosen beyond applying for the jobs. She’ll do fine.

Some people have asked me whether I have an issue with making less than my wife. It’s a tough explanation. I don’t have a problem with her making more than me – and part of me wants her to make ENOUGH that I can stay at home and still fly planes for fun (she’s a ways off from that).

I do have a little trouble with the idea that her promotion shines a light on how my career has been stagnating for several years now. I’m in the IT field, and it’s been over 5 years since I’ve been promoted or gotten better than the measly 3% raises that they hand out. I think I may have stayed too long under a boss who really doesn’t believe in me. I’m increasingly thinking that it’s time to go – find another job elsewhere. So – no – I don’t mind my wife making more than me but I really wish that my career was succeeding as well. Not her fault.

Of course, she could buy me lots of expensive toys to make up for it …..

Yay, Sweetie!

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