I have an amazing boss.

I started my job at the end of May 2008, and we didn’t have a direct boss. The person who hired me, thankfully took a different position the day before I started. I was not fond of her at all during the interview, but decided to take the job and get my foot in the door at the U anyways. Lela, my boss, started in late September / early October. We work incredibly close in our day-to-day. And her office is right behind mine. We have worked together almost 14 years.

Our relationship has grown, as most do. In the last 7ish years I’d say it’s really grown, but probably the last 5 years the most. I have mentioned before how I grateful I was / am that I had to go into work during the pandemic and having her there as a constant, was the next best thing to seeing my Mom.

I reference the weekend of Easter 2020 as one of those darkest ones. Not because we had family plans, but we were a month in and I felt lost. I went into work the Monday after and asked her for a hug — she’s a great hugger! And it was the best. At the time we hadn’t seen Mom since late February, and didn’t end up seeing her or Joe until May 1st.

She and her hubby built a house about a mile from my place, I’ve taken Moxie over there a few times to play with her pups, offered my freezer when she had some power stuff happen during the Derecho. She’s a great person, outside of work, even!

A few years ago we had discussed reclassifying my job, but I was nervous about the insurance change, and then Covid came and we kind of forgot about it. At my review she brought it up again and I said “okay, let’s do it”. My original fear was / is that it changes me to an ‘at will’ job, but she reminded me of all the people in the office, besides her, I am the most utility person and most needed. That felt good. What felt better is that Jody the big boss, also suggested it and was on board.

We started doing the paperwork, it’s a process. I fill out stuff, update my resume [I hadn’t done it since 2016, and it was not at all inclusive of all I do!] and then we send it off, get some feedback, send back more stuff. Lots of parts. Lela and I worked together typing out what it is I do. I had three people all separate tell me “you have a very unique position”. It’s crazy to see what I was hired to do, and what I do now. I realize with time you become confident and can add more but wow! Today we submitted the last part on our end. And we were told “looks great!!” Now it has to go through a process of HR both hospital and University sides, then through another approval process. It sounds like it will be final in May and my June paycheck will reflect it.

With this reclassification [aka promotion] comes a decent raise, 10%. I will have some different benefits, as in how they are dispersed and I will be on probation for a year, normally it’s 2 years, but it goes down to 1 for a reclass.

I am so excited, It was really hard to “brag” about myself but even the big boss was like “wow, she does a lot” when she read over it, and made comments about how she didn’t realize quite all I did.

Part of why we are ramping up to get this done is that the big boss, Jody will be retiring at the end of July so we wanted to get this put through prior to her leaving. The new person coming in, might not know of me / my performance so that was one of the motivating factors, but also Lela said she wanted to make sure it was done before she retires [probably in the next 2-5 years] so she could set me up in the best way possible. I am so grateful .

More to brag about Lela. A few weeks ago, we got the very sad news that one of our now retired coworkers lost her son in a tragic accident as a Firefighter / EMT. We have all been struggling with it. We watched the service in Arkansas, last Tuesday and it was so moving. Friday Lela stopped by Sherry’s after work. At 7pm my doorbell rang, it was Lela. She came over straight from Sherry’s (she was there at 4!) and came to tell me how it went and decompress. Tuesday, we went to the visitation together.

Lela is the kind of person who sends me tiktoks / reels of dogs up to no good, or dirty jokes, she doesn’t mind that my favorite work is fuck. She tells me stuff I probably shouldn’t be privy too before it’s officially announced. She’s a fucking great human. We have this pact that if they try to have a retirement party for her, even if I put my foot down and tell them no, I will tell her when it is and she will not show, and I will not be mad and act dumb like I don’t know what happened. She’s like a mom, a big sister, and friend all in one, and dammit she’s MY boss!