Promotion

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I was left half (more like a third) in charge of the company as the majority of the front office was out.

Upon our fearless leaders' returns, they found one of our two engineers had given his two weeks notice the week they were both gone (dirty pool), and would be gone in a week. With his salary freed up, and a need to unburden the head engineer, and with the knowledge that they weren't paying me enough to make it worth my while to work once the baby came.... I was significant promotion - a 50% salary increase to be exact.... as the president of the company said - "We like to make your decisions more difficult."

And a difficult decision it was. I was really excited about being at home as full-time dad, but at the same time, we were both worried about the financial implications... especially considering we may need to move in the near future. So we've arrived at a bit of a compromise... a year at the job and see how it goes. They met all of my requests... which include a month of paternity leave at the end of Laura's maternity leave so that he can have 4 months at home before going into daycare, and an additional two weeks of unpaid vacation so that I can match what Laura has. Which they actually did me one better - and are allowing a lot of that to be taken as flex time - so if I work a weekend or extra hours, it will just pass off on a time when I take a long weekend.

Now - for the scary part - the job.

It's a position with a lot of room for advancement salary-wise as well as a HUGE resume builder. I am now the Quality Systems manager for an AS9100 certified company... for those of you who don't know what that is, AS 9100 a beefed up aerospace version of ISO 9100, which are quality certification programs for manufacturing industries. It basically is a large-scale quality system that documents our quality processes to assure our products meet the highest standards of airworthiness. And yes, it is completely outside of my realm of experience.

We start a full-scale internal audit next week, and in about three more weeks, Air Cruisers - one of our two largest clients - is coming for their audit of us. So the stress level will be high for the next few weeks. Not that I don't have anything else to worry about... but at the same time, it's quite an opportunity. The enormity of the job is starting to hit me... and is a bit overwhelming.

What does the picture have anything to do with anything? It doesn't. I just think it's one of my better shots....