When I accepted the transfer from coder to QA, I was told that I would probably be the QA manager within a year.

Sure enough, I was promoted to QA manager at the beginning of this year - unofficially in January, officially in March, to coincide with annual pay increases.

But I always figured it was a fairly empty title. Sure, I report directly to the top of my office's food chain (well, and sideways a little, to the guy who was the QA manager before me and who is now essentially the second-in-command for the office), and I make a lot of decisions for our office. And I'm in charge of making sure that everyone - even the guy who's my boss - follows our processes.

But I'm a manager with no actual staff. I don't have to deal with a lot of the stuff that all the other managers have to deal with, like approving timecards, and doing performance reviews, and that kind of thing.

So yesterday our HR person (another manager with no staff) came into my office and told me that was going to change. And then, a little later, my boss and my ex-boss came in to tell me the same thing.

See, we've got a lot of installations coming up, and so they've been hiring installers. And they interviewed a person who currently works in another division of the same company we belong to, whose job is about to disappear. She's currently a test engineer.

And my boss said, "Haven't we been saying we need a full-time tester on the staff? See if she wants to come and be our test engineer." See, we've been using our installer staff to do testing. And they do a pretty good job, but they're on the road a lot, and installations are the bread on which we spread our butter, so their testing efforts take a back seat to that. And don't ask me about our testing process. It sucks mightily.

So we offered her the job, and she accepted.

And then my boss went to his second-in-command (who is also the immediate supervisor for the installers - he wears a lot of hats) and said, "You know, I think a test engineer isn't precisely part of your baliwick. I think a test engineer is probably part of QA's domain."

And my ex-boss said, "Yes, you're right. Let's go break it to Liz."

So now I've got an employee. Well, not quite yet. She's not starting until the beginning of the next pay period.

Which is good, because that gives me ten (nine, now) days to find office space for her, and make sure the phone works, and learn how to approve timecards and do performance reviews (obviously I won't be reviewing her right away, but we have to do a goal-sheet thingy at the beginning of every year which I will have to set up with her right away) and-

Did I mention that during our last round of layoffs, they made me the Training manager, as well? At the time, my job as Training manager was to store a bunch of files and be an e-mail address to which corporate could send occasional news about events that we're too far away to send anyone to. So, not that much extra work.

But now that we're hiring again, I'm going to have to dig out the training spreadsheets and find out what corporate-level training is required for all the new people, including my person, and arrange for them to get the training, and...

Whee...

I've got an appointment to go to the stylist next week to get my pointy hair.

--Liz