The Big Secret...

The secret is....

I got an unexpected promotion! With that being said...I purposefully am not putting any identifying informaiton about the place where I work...because they have this thing called google alert that lets them know when something is posted with the name of the organization where I work...and they don't need the info about my personal blog, thanks very much! :)

Anyway....I have been at my job for 4.5 years now...and there was very very very unofficial conversations about a possible promotion...but that has been nearly a year ago and also in better economic times. Getting a promotion is not supposed to happen quite the way it did for me...its supposed to be a very quiet thing until its official and I had absolutely no idea that it had been in the works since JUNE! Due to some policy changes and new staff, it really took 3.5 months for them to get it done! However, since I didn't know it had been "proposed", thats no big deal to me. My pay increase isn't much, so it wouldn't have mattered that much financially if they had done it quicker.

I found out about it as we were zooming along a mountain road in Slovakia. I seriously will never forget this promotion or where I was...it was that shocking! I was in the car with a member of the Poland office staff and the boss of my boss (R). We were on our travel day, which included a visit to a mountain lake, which is where we were headed at the time. Randomly, R says to me "I got an email from .... about your promotion and its approved." He had NO IDEA that I didn't even know a promotion was being currently considered. You can imagine the shock and I somehow managed to feign that I knew exactly what he was talking about as I manged to spit out "Thats good news." Meanwhile...my brain was whirling. Huh? We are getting email after email about budget cuts and the world news is nothing but recession and financially hard times. And I get a promotion? Huh???? Did NOT see that one coming at all! We got to our destination and R makes the same announcement to my boss, who was in another car. She looked at him with complete disbelief and then at me. At that point, I laughed and I wasn't sure if she was going to congratulate me or kill him. So, instead of my boss pulling me aside into a quiet meeting and giving me the good news....I got it riding along a mountain road in Slovakia from someone else. The whole thing was just hilarious. And because it was soooo far from what SHOULD have been happening for an approved promotion....I was stunned into disbelief, which is part of why I have kept it secret until today. Now, it is official. I will pretty much do the same thing I have been doing, with a few added tasks that I already know how to do but just haven't HAD to do. :) My pay will go up a little...and the rest of my benefits stay the same. I am happy with it all. I know, that in these troubled economic times, that I am blessed to have what I have.

And each day, with each new surprise...I am reminded that God is Good!!!!! :)