...maybe won isn't the right term. But it sure feels like winning.

Let's start with some history. Quite some time ago, as some of you know, I switched jobs within the company. I stopped reporting to a Director, and instead report to a VP - the Director's boss. We're now peers.

Many who were on my new team said "it's about time" and had always wondered why I was transferred to the Director in the first place. It didn't make sense to me either, at the time, but I didn't think I was in a position to question it. I was still doing work for the VP too all that time that I worked for the Director (which would be on the order of 3 1/2 years).

Well, ever since I switched jobs the Director has been... unique... in his treatment and dealings with me. I've been accused of being egotistical, that my head has swelled, and been treated with kid gloves. I've been told that he resents my switch, is proud of my switch and varying degrees in between. I've also had him still attempting to dictate what I do with my days, and constant questions about what I have on my plate that keeps me from completing his "I need it now" requests.

Then Friday happened. On Friday, he came by to talk about another request that he needed delivered by this morning, and something else he wanted to have. The 'something else' would have required me to work through the weekend on it, and I wasn't about to sacrifice that kind of stitching time.

I inform him that the "want to have" is more like a "nice to have" and can complete it for next quarter, but in no way could it be done by Monday (today). He's ok with this, amazingly enough. Then we start talking about the meeting that this is for, and I find that he's changed the caterer for it. The meeting in question is a quarterly meeting that an entire facility goes to. We've recently decided that the meetings are getting to big and have divided them up by functional areas.

Complimenting him on his choice of caterer (a favorite BBQ place of the both of us) I tell him that I'll miss going to the meetings. He asks me why. I state that I go to the corporate meetings, and then hesitate and ask if I *should* be going to the Operations meetings.

This makes *him* hesitate. And then he says... well... you're not CS, you're not Operations anymore...

Ah, but I *am* Operations.... just not production anymore.

This point he concedes... and then says that I'm in the management grey area with "a bunch of us" and circles his hand around to mean the rest of the people sitting in my physical area (the bulk of which have the word 'Director' as part of their title). I almost passed out... and recovered quickly and graciously to nod slightly.

The conversation ended shortly thereafter.

DH says it's not a matter of winning, but instead of him finally acknowleding... finally accepting the position change. After everything I've been through since the change in August, I prefer to call it winning... mostly because the sense of accomplishment that I got from that statement he made was akin to winning.

That feeling was further validated in a meeting this morning when he was trying to justify a process to me in a certain way he has that is normally reserved for his direct peers and those higher up the chain than he. It may be that I finally earned his respect as a peer, or it may be that he's finally learned how to deal with one of his direct reports becoming his peer. Or a little bit of both.

I look at it as a win-win situation for everyone involved. He knows he can still come to me for something... I know that I can tell him that I can't deliver something he wants without more advance-notice. And my respect for him (which had diminished slightly as a result of all this) has grown again quite a bit....

.... hopefully that will continue as we always had a pretty darn good working relationship.