Realizations

As I have said in previous posts, I recently got a new job.  Same place, new department.  In the beginning, I had some issues coping with the fact that my new co-workers will never be my friends the way that my old co-workers were, and still are.  I came to a point were I recognized that I needed to stop wishing things were different than they are and the same as they used to be.  And that helped a lot. 

Its only been 7 weeks (holy crap that flew by fast) and I came to another realization yesterday evening.  Although this job is a step up on paper, and although I really like working for my new boss, this job is not challenging for me what so ever and I am quickly getting bored.  I did so much in my other job, I was responsible for so much and was the 'go-to' person for so many things from calendaring to travel to event planning to you name it.  Now I feel as though I am just the calendar girl most of the time.  My boss is great about having me attend meetings with him, so at least I feel in the loop of what is going on, but mentally I am not challenged.  Office wise, I have stepped down in the University hierarchy, and as a result don't get to interact with the bigger picture national level issues like I used.  My world has been localized and I am starting to find it difficult to keep myself engaged in the issues at hand because for the most part the issues are relatively petty.  Before when things would get 'boring,' I could dive into the policy and other issues concerning the larger national committees that the Chancellor participated in, but the Vice Chancellor doesn't have that. 

Now before this is taken as a woe-is-me-I-have-no-work-to-do-pity-fest, understand that I have plenty of work to do and am pretty busy doing monotonous and mind-numbingly tedious scheduling, re-scheduling and re-re-scheduling.  But even that is less intense than before.  The Chancellor's schedule is packed months in advance, the Vice Chancellor's calendar is 'packed' a few weeks in advance.  There is no puzzle to rearrange which is the part of calendaring that kept me interested.  I have asked for more financial responsibilities, as I handled most of the transactional financial tasks in my old office and considering my new office is short a financial analyst at the moment, and have been told quite clearly that those tasks are not within the scope of my new position and that they plan to struggle along until they hire a new analyst without my help.  So I am left feeling as though all the effort I put in to take on greater responsibilities and a broader scope in my previous position has been washed away and I am back to the basics I started with. 

I don't know what I want to come out of this and I don't know how to bring it up.  I was always able to be very honest with my supervisor when I needed more challenges, and she understood and gave me more.  Maybe this feeling will pass, maybe it won't and I will be looking for a new challenge sooner than later.  I don't know.  I do know that I am not looking forward to the Vice Chancellor going on vacation for a few weeks in June and July.  I am going to slit my wrists from boredom.