...Did I really manage to make it to celebrating 7 years of employment at the same company?

Yes, folks, I did. Today is my 7th anniversary working for the place with the DVDs in red envelopes. I still can't believe it. I don't want to rehash the last 7 years as I have in two previous blog entries, so I won't. I'll just cover this past year.

I still work for the COO. It's just a different person now, which in and of itself if a really big change. He's very personable, but different. No meetings yet, no schedules that I know of, lots of autonomy from what I hear from someone else. That's scary because it could mean two things - either we make our own destinies at the company, or we start suffering from lack of direction. Personally I think it's a sink or swim sort of test, and so I'm going to make my own destiny, which is pretty much the course I've been traveling for the last 7 years, so why change now?

I know he'll schedule 1/1's eventually, so I'll just sit tight and wait.

I've got someone who works with me on the metrics now instead of my boss tinkering with them. The big hurdle there is trying to get her moved over into Operations and reporting to me since she's still ensconced in customer service. I am the 'here' in the 'buck stops here' when it comes to the data analysis for the department - I was before, but wasn't fully empowered. Or maybe I was and I just didn't grab onto those reins because of my boss' involvement in building and structuring them into what he wanted. Now they'll get structured *my* way. That's assuming, of course, that they're not trying to phase out my job with the crap that was pulled the other day by the guy who wants to create the flash report. Which, incidentally, falls to me now.

We're finally going to have an administrative assistant in the department, which will be nice. That will be the person that I'll point to and say "I don't know, ask so-and-so, they keep his schedule" when someone asks where the boss is. I'm not the admin, never have been, so why would *I* know?

The climate is different with the new boss, and as someone put it to me yesterday, we're all in a fog and don't know which way is up yet. As evidenced in yesterday's entry, it's clear that I'm sitting in the fog too, but I think I'm on the outward edges of it.

7 years... which really means I'm starting my 8th year right now. And my youngest daughter is 8 1/2 years old. She knows no other world than one where I work where I work. It's also Ash Wednesday, and thus the beginning of Lent. I think I've figured out what I'm giving up for the 47 days of Lent (that's right kids, start counting, it's *not* 40 days - you still have Sundays in the equation which are celebration days, but you still follow your committment on those days) - I'm going to stop yelling at my kids, and I'm giving up pizza. I still haven't decided on committing to giving up fast food overall (da burgers and fries) but let's make it through each week as it comes on that one. Being that it's Ash Wednesday it also means no meat today which will make the retirement dinner for my boss tonight an interesting challenge when it comes to choosing something to eat (thank goodness for the salmon that we managed to wrangle onto the menu).

Anyway, I think it's time to go start putting the polish to a shiny new year for me and see what challenges I'll face to grab onto this year's brass ring.