promoted... sort of

It appears the office wants me to assume a "coordinator" position of sorts in my corner of the department. The position comes with an undetermined amount of extra pay, and the job starts I-don't-know-when. As I mentioned to a friend, this sounds like a baby-step toward the dreaded land of middle management, which is one of the worst places to be in any institution's hierarchy: you're fucked from above and from below.

On the one hand, it's cool to think I might be able to help sculpt the department into something different. As readers of this blog know, I've got ideas on how things should be run here. On the other hand, I wonder how my coworkers are going to respond to this. I don't want to step on their toes.

I've been in leadership positions before and have done all right in them, but this is a first for me here in Korea. I think everything will be all right as long as I aim for a consensus-based approach and not an imperious one-- not that I have it in me to be imperious toward my colleagues.

Man. Ahead lies an uncertain future.

Ah, that reminds me: the timing on this is strange. The office doesn't appear to be aware that I'm leaving next April when my contract expires. I guess I should tell them, eh? (Or should I? That's what got me in trouble in the mid-90s, when my boss got pissed off at my announced intention to leave, after which he denied me my twelfth month of class and refused to pay severance pay. I sued the mo-fo as a result; the case took over a year to win.)


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