A Day of Mixed Emotions

The long awaited news of regionalization was finally announced on Friday. The day looked like it was going to start like any other and then our division president came asking for my boss bright and early that morning (neither are morning people). The tone of her voice and the look on her face told me today was not any other day. When my boss returned, all she said was that she had hoped she had been wrong this time. I instantly knew what that meant. She was being let go as a result of the regionalization. Unfortunately, there were more to come that day. A total of three members in our department and 4 others from within our division. It was very sad as we were all meeting and she was bringing us up to date on what had happened. At the same time, I needed to put my professional game face on and do what was needed as a member of the HR team. Having been through this routine before, you know what needs to be done and you just go on autopilot to get it taken care of. After all of that was done, the remainder of the day was spent on conference calls finding out what the new structure looks like going forward. Fortunately, for me, the new structure meant a promotion and a new supervisor. I was so busy making sure the rest of my team was okay (they were pretty upset with the news of losing 3 members of our team), that the realization of a promotion didn't really set in for me until about 5:30 this morning. Half asleep I got up to go to the bathroom and while taking care of nature's business it dawned on me - holy crap, I got promoted yesterday and it was a pretty big promotion. I am now a regional manager and have a much bigger team and more responsibilities. I now cover the whole state of Texas instead of just Central Texas and my team doubled in size. Then I started to laugh because it amused me that the stress had finally worn off enough and my brain chose to kick in while I am half asleep and sitting on the toilet!