Be Careful What You Wish For

This post comes to you this week from the intersection of excitement and apprehension thanks to a phone call from my CEO. Apparently, his assistant resigned and as he scanned the vast pool of internal talent, his eye fell upon my dim cubicle! He's asked me to consider taking the position as his assistant. As I mentioned here, I've practically had one foot out the door for months. With absolutely no hits on the freshly polished resume floating out in cyberspace, I had been thinking of some creative ways to sorta "reinvent" myself in my current company but this was definitely not on my radar. I was looking for a challenge, some new responsibilities but this is . . . EPIC.

The CEO. The big leagues. We're talking a complete lifestyle change. For a "career" assistant with no higher aspirations in her working life than to be that indispensable support to a high powered executive, this is the dream opportunity. But, this role has also left in its wake a long line of assistants that, while initially energetic and full of promise, all succumbed to the vicious press of the enormous volume of emails, phone calls, scheduling, meetings, after hours work and all the other tasks that come along with supporting a busy CEO. Thus, my apprehension.

I meet with him tomorrow to give my final decision. While the responsibilities and expectations will be exponentially greater, the opportunity is the holy grail for a career assistant like myself. I feel like a contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire down to the million dollar question with no life lines left.

I can stay in my current role or take this huge leap. What's that saying . . . be careful what you wish for?