Let’s say your boss announces this week that he’s resigning. You like this boss, as do most of your co-workers, so he will be missed.
But that’s not the first thing that comes to mind when he announces he’s leaving. No, the first thing that comes to mind are the job duties he’s bravely taken the initiative to do. Job duties that, depending on who is his replacement, will probably get broken up and distributed amongst the group.
One of the job duties that has a serious likelihood of dropping into your chute is to do the biannual press conference on the state’s water quality. Out of everyone in the office you would be the logical choice based on your job duties.
Now, you aren’t averse to public speaking. You’re pretty good at doing prepared talks. But you are horrible–I mean, absolutely HORRIBLE!–at answering questions off the cuff. Especially (you imagine) with microphones and cameras all up in your face, and reporters trying to trip you up with “gotcha” questions! Especially when most of the questions will not be scientific in nature, but more related to policy and stuff that people will be able to relate to (like, “Is it safe to swim in X River? What about the little boy who died this summer? Will that happen again?!” Whatever you say that goes off the agency script can be turned into a headline. You can be demoted or fired based on any little thing you answer incorrectly.
If it were a matter of giving talks in front of small civic groups or something, you wouldn’t be that worried, even if there was some Q&A involved. But representing the agency in front of the state-wide press, seeing yourself on TV and in the paper and on the radio? That’s a whole 'nother can of beans. Scary beans that you feel like, if you were told you had to do this, you’d either consider quitting (which wouldn’t be wise) or at least ask for some more compensation (a request that wouldn’t be granted in this present climate).
So what would you do? Right now you have no new boss and no one has proposed anything. Chances are the new boss wouldn’t even know about the press conference–not even his supervisor knows about it because she’s new as well. The new boss would likely be clueless about a lot of things, so he or she may not be the best choice to do the press conference. On the other hand, the press conference would not be until early spring, so it’s not like you don’t have time to prepare. There’s Toastmasters and stuff like that, although that kind of thing would be an energy-sucking chore to commit to, requiring you to amend your work schedule to attend the meetings and do exercises that will make you stabby and probably depressed. But maybe you wouldn’t even have to do the damn press conference. Maybe the new boss will take on the task because he/she would believe that as the department head, he/she should be the face of the agency, not some underling making half his salary. So there’s some hope, simply because you don’t know what’s going to happen.
Anyway, what would you do? Would you simply not mention the press conference to the new boss? Would you back out of it or boldly “step up to the plate”, even though you don’t feel your current salary would be adequete compensation for such an important task? You are not the ambitious type, so it’s not like you would want to reap the extra benefits that might come with having done a job well done. Not even money. You just want to keep your job, and the best way to do this would be, in your estimation, to stay out of the spotlight and simply assist the person who is brave enough to face it.