fun with one on one...

When a new CIO took over where I work, she announced that she would be scheduling one-on-one meetings with all of the employees under her.

Initially, I was excited - maybe this could help my career. Then, I remembered that I'm a self-loathing, authority-fearing, socially inept person and decided nothing good would come out of this.

So months went by and no meeting, so I figured I was safe. Then, a few weeks ago, I was setting up a Mac for our office manager, and she asked me if I had had my one on one yet. I stupidly admitted I hadn't, and she scheduled me for one. It's this Wednesday.

I seriously considered canceling it, but I figured that would make me look even worse - like I didn't respect her or didn't care about my career.

The thing is, a one-on-one is basically a job interview. Actually, it's worse than a job interview - with a job interview, you come in without a job, at worst you leave without a job, no worse off. With this, I come in having a job, and if I fuck it up badly enough I end up unemployed. Granted, as long as I keep my pants on for the entire thing, I probably won't get fired. But I could seriously damage my career if I say the wrong thing, or don't say the right thing, or something.

I've always hated job interviews. With people I know well, I can be comfortable and joke around, but with people I don't know well, I freeze up. I suck at small talk - if I don't know you well, I don't really care what you did this weekend, nor do I see any reason you should care what I did (it doesn't help that I spend most of my weekends sitting around the house, wearing sweatpants, eating cookies right out of the package while trying to keep the cat from licking them).

And then there's the question of what a CIO and a monitor-delivery-boy have to talk about. Her job is big-picture, important planning about where IT will be in the next few years. My job is small-picture, making sure that minor problems get resolved in the next few hours. There isn't a lot of intersection.

There's also such a fine line. While what I do used to be my dream job, it's starting to get kind of boring - I don't really feel challenged, and I'd love to do something more technical, more big picture, or with more authority. But I don't know how to convey that without sounding like a whiny bitch, a job-hopper, like someone who thinks they are smarter and more skilled than they are, and without making my boss or director look bad.