Second Thoughts

The tide seems to have turned on my new job. I was pretty lucky over the summer – no working late, low stress, interesting projects, etc. I also wasn’t getting a paycheck – but fortunately that got resolved. This week things have started to suck and I’m having second thoughts. Kind of scary because I had planned on staying at this job for quite a while. I think the main problem is my boss, the guy who I report directly to. He and I have very different styles. He seems to be of the (in my opinion) false notion that I’m his personal secretary and it’s causing me to feel bitterness toward him. Not good. He’ll call me from his office in SF and ask me to call people and set up meetings for him. What? In that time, he could have done it himself. I don’t get it. I think it’s also a gender thing. I feel that if I were a guy, he wouldn’t treat me that way. He is a 61 year old man who is independently wealthy and doesn’t even need to work. That pisses me off, too! I would like to think that jobs should be reserved for those who need to work in order to pay the rent, mortgage, grocery bill, etc. But that’s just me. He is kind of fatherly toward me, which is OK. He has been making an effort to get to know me. But, in a way, I prefer to keep my work and personal lives separate. He sees himself as a “mentor” to me. But I didn’t ask him to be my mentor. I don’t think I need a mentor and if I did, it wouldn’t be him. He expressed frustration that I haven’t gotten tasks done that should have already been finished. See, I do all the work. I think he just sits around making to-do lists that he reads aloud to me. Seriously, I can’t think of what he does. I do have respect for him because I know he’s very intelligent, he is a good writer and he has strong analytical thinking and reasoning skills. But if he expects to loll around in his office with his feet up on the desk while I toil away, this is not going to work out in the long run. I don’t see him going anywhere because he’s a trusted, longtime advisor of the big boss. However, I see myself as a valuable member of the team as well. I’m just going to wait and see what happens in the next month or so, after the international trip is over, and I may have to have a frank discussion with him. He’d be totally screwed if I left, and he probably knows it. I’m going to consider keeping my options open, job-wise. Who you work with is so important, especially if you work so closely on a daily basis with one person.