YES WE ARE WONDERING!!
Please keep us updated. And best of luck! You got some great advice here.
I don’t even have a freaking time. Dude told my dad “the morning of the 8th”. Obviously I’m contacting him to confirm but I wanted to wait until after the first of the year to make sure it’s fresh-ish in his mind. (This has got to be the hardest to get ahold of guy in the world! So I’mma leave him a message giving a time and telling him to please contact me if another time would be more convenient for him. And then just show up assuming somebody put something in a calendar.)
Oh for pity’s sake. Mr. Hard to Get A Hold Of has the flu.
I FINALLY got a sitdown with the man! Only took me four months! I’d given up on calling, actually - my dad told me a few days ago that he’d gotten me on the calendar for this morning, but honestly I doubted he was even going to be there.
It was kind of painfully, embarrassingly clear that my spot on the Good Old Boy gravy train was guaranteed without my stellar resume or well thought out explanation of my transferable skills. (Yes, I know that’s a crippling-middle-class way to think - I can’t help it!) He has to figure out exactly where to put me, and I think (hope) I impressed him talking about changes in the industry and knowledge management, but yeah. I had a place walking in. No idea how many months it’ll be before I actually get it, though.
Congratulations!
So… what did you wear?
Ha, it’s funny. I was so tired of the whole thing that even though I had so carefully fretted and back and forthed about my suit (which I did, btw, wear to an interview elsewhere a few weeks ago so that wasn’t too much of a waste of planning) that I just wore what I was wearing to work anyway (pencil skirt, boots, sweater) and put my pearls and makeup on. Frankly I’d assumed there was no point in it anymore because, good lord, four months.
So now I’m supposed to meet with him and also somebody else in a few weeks and I have no IDEA what to wear to THAT. Sounds like maybe a little more formal interview. But he wasn’t wearing a suit today.
Did you notice what other women in the office were wearing?
I only saw one and only from the waist up. And she was older. Looked like a polyester jacket over a button down.
ETA - I actually went to the bathroom while I was waiting in the hopes of spotting other females to scope the fashion situation. The one time there isn’t a damned line!
Well while nepotism isn’t always the most positive thing in the world in this case as long as they aren’t firing some poor schnook to make room for you, you should not feel even a little bad about it. It can be a thin line between nepotism and the much encouraged “networking” anyway ;).
Congratulations and may your new position have far fewer hostile, unwashed homeless people in the office :).
I do have to say, my ability to suffer fools today at work is very much impaired. Have to keep reminding myself that it ain’t gonna be for awhile.
Is there an update, Zsofia?
No. Unfortunately, no.
I really thought after the sit-down that it was all gonna happen! And then I couldn’t get in touch with him (of course) for the second meeting he wanted. And then my dad had a sudden stroke and died a week later, in mid-March.
I did see Boss Man at the funeral (I didn’t want to talk business but hey, I knew he had to be there because he was a pallbearer) and asked if there was a time I should call - he said he’d call me. Haven’t heard anything from him. It’s been more than a month. I didn’t want to bother him but I did leave a message last week, of course didn’t hear back.
Meanwhile my work life has become an utter shitstorm - the day after the funeral I found out that my department was being dissolved. We had two weeks to plan it and three weeks to throw away millions of dollars of taxpayers’ microfilm and bound volumes because “we aren’t interested in deep collections anymore”, and now I’ve been moved to a different department. I keep thinking I’ll get a call to sweep me away from it, but no.
So now I don’t know if I should start calling again and pursuing aggressively or not. Dad can’t do it for me anymore, and he doesn’t answer my calls. The whole thing just sucks.
Oh, no! I’m so sorry to hear about your father, Zsofia! 
As far as the subject in this thread goes, sometimes you just have to say “what the fuck”. Give the guy some more calls and get out of the job that you obviously can’t stand for something that you may like better. I mean… you’ve got nothing to lose, right?
I was tearing up replying about it because my dad can’t fight for me anymore. :(. He had been all excited that I wanted to get on with the old firm, you know. I hate that he went when I wasn’t settled one way or the other but I’m glad he didn’t live to hear about this fucking current nightmare. He’d have been so upset.
I mean, if the boss really is working on finding me a place, I don’t want to piss him off. On the other hand, would it kill him to answer his phone and tell me that? I left a message explaining that my situation has radically changed but what are the odds he listened to it?
Sorry about your dad. At least he had the opportunity to feel “fatherly” again before he passed away. I know for many older parents feeling like your kids don’t need you anymore can be the worst. And don’t feel bad about the gravy train thing; it’s not about how you get opportunities, but what you do with them. If you took the job and sat around all day being useless and unfireable because you’re the old partners’ kid, then you’d have something to feel bad about.
Good luck!
Honestly, I have entirely stopped feeling conflicted. Just please give me directions to the goddamned station so I can board this gravy train (or frankly any train leaving Here.). I used to feel really bad about leaving the profession? Fuck this profession. Used to feel guilty about resigning to my boss because that would be their excuse to get rid of my department - HA. Used to worry that I’d be going to a more backward facing industry, that I’d be serving coffee, expected to be ornamental - right now I’ll take a slap on the ass for every five grand over what I’m making right now. I’ll wear makeup. I’ll buy very pointy shoes and learn how to make coffee that will bring tears to the eyes of a gutter pimp just get me out of here.
First off, I am very sorry to hear about your father’s passing.
Second, I already mentioned corporate taxonomy once in the thread, but since it now looks like your goals have changed from “how can I make this specific opportunity work for me” to “get me the fuck out of here ASAP” I will suggest looking for taxonomy-related jobs in corporations in your area. A lot of times they might not be advertised as such - you might find jobs listed as data governance or information management or whatever. But if you have library expertise and background and you can get your resume in front of the right people, you may be able to land a fairly lucrative position. I would definitely consider it if I were you.
Sorry about your dad Zsofia :(.
And your mountain of work suck. I guess at the very least it has delivered you the clarity of “anything is better than here.” Hope it works out and I expect it will. Seems like he more or less promised a position of some sort, just sounds like it is a matter of time. No advice on whether bugging him some more is worth it - that would be kinda a personal take on whether he is the sort to get motivated by being poked. But I think leaving him the message that your situation was changing ( for the worse ) should be motivation enough. If he is a friend of the family could your mom work him a bit? Or did she not have that sort of familiar relationship with him?
My mom doesn’t have that sort of relationship with him anymore (my dad has been retired for quite some time now). In fact she’s had a hard time chasing him down because there are some company related things Dad had that she thinks probably need to go right to him but hasn’t gotten him on the phone either.
I’ve also been helping my husband look for jobs and it really does seem that your options are either public sector (which has to advertise and probably won’t give you a way to explain how your skills are transferable) or totally not advertised. It’s never been something I had to pay that much attention to because library jobs are advertised, pretty much always. But I suppose it’s true that yes, most jobs never put an ad up anywhere you’re gonna see it. So, come on, Mr. Big. If he doesn’t have anything for me he still knows everybody in a lot of industries, he could totally help me out there too. Urgh.
Zsofia do you know any of your dad’s older friends? People you knew growing up? The guy you called Uncle Mike or a lady you knew as Aunt Sally?
They would have similar business contacts and might help. People can be quite loyal to lifelong friends.