Movin on up

By Tuesday morning I still hadn't heard from Dylan. It had been a mere two days and yet it was the longest we had ever gone without talking.

Ash and I spent all day Sunday unpacking, yet we were still only about half way done settling in. I kept my phone in my pocket all day Sunday expecting Dylan to call and reiterate what he had said the night before. I wanted to be official with him, but it was becoming clear that his Saturday evening confession was a drunken mistake. But even with two days of radio silence, I was not going to be the one to text him first.

"Danielle?" Colleen interrupted my Facebook-stalking session Tuesday. I was hunting for any and all clues on Dylan's Facebook profile as to where he had been the last two days. So far, nada. 

"Yes?" I replied, closing out my browser window in record time.

"Do you have a minute?" she asked, not giving away any inkling to what kind of mood she was in. I nodded my head as she turned on her heel back to her office.

I quickly reached for a notebook and pen before scurrying behind her into her office. She gestured to an empty seat across from her desk and I gingerly sat down, completely caught off guard. Colleen wasn't my direct superior, so it was very rare that the two of us sat down one-on-one. As a Senior Editor, we were working more closely together lately with me running the blog, but still had never sat down to talk just the two of us.

"Did you have a nice weekend?" she asked, her eyes reading something on her computer screen.

"Um, yes, I moved this weekend down to the West Village," I replied awkwardly. Was that too much information? 

"Mmm," she said in response, clearly not paying attention. She started typing away furiously at something on her computer. 

"So, Danielle," she finally addressed me directly, spinning in her chair so that she was facing me instead of her computer. "I'm sure you're wondering why I called you in here."

I gave her a small smile in return. Of course I was wondering, woman.

"I just wanted to take a few moments to address the work you've been doing on the blog," she continued, her eyes scanning a piece of paper in front of her.

Shit, I thought. I had assumed I was doing an OK job managing the blog, coming up with interesting content and the insights were pretty good. But I had been posting so frequently that sometimes I didn't have the chance to let anyone else review the posts for grammar or editing. 

"You're doing a fantastic job," she said, looking me right in the eye but not smiling. I felt a wave of relief that I wasn't in trouble. "The clicks are way up, Facebook reach on the posts you share have nearly doubled - all organically- and the content is very interesting yet still in line with the Platform reader," she said, and I realized the paper in front of her must be the stats from the past week. "It shows that our readers are really participating and responding to your voice, which is why I'd like to discuss you taking this over permanently." 

"Wow," I said, completely caught off guard. "But what about Kristen?" 

"Well," Colleen continued, "Kristen has about a month left of her maternity leave, and if she chooses to come back of course we will have a place for her. But it just won't be in blogging." 

I felt a little guilty that I was essentially stealing Kristen's job while she wasn't around to defend herself or fight for it. But I couldn't just say no, could I?

"Would I still continue with my regular workload?" I asked. Since taking over the blog my regular work had been suffering, and even so I was still working almost 10 hour days every day. 

"We can discuss that of course, I'm sure most of your editing can be transferred to Elena and we are toying with the idea of hiring another Social Media Associate, maybe an intern from a local college. Additionally, there would be a salary increase if you choose to continue managing the blog, which, of course, we hope you would do," she said. 

I practically leapt out of my chair at the mention of salary increase. "This all sounds great," I said and Colleen gave me a genuine smile in response. "I'd like to get an official revised job description first, and I'd like a title change. To Community Manager." 

"I think we can arrange that," Colleen said, scribbling down some notes. "I'll have to talk this over with a few people and have HR come up with a revised description. We should have this wrapped up by Friday," she said, standing up. I stood too and shook her hand. 

"Thank you, Colleen," I said, grinning like a fool. My first promotion and I'd barely been here a year! I went back to my desk and reached for my phone before realizing I couldn't text Dylan. Deflated, I texted my parents and Ash the good news. 

I spent the remainder of the day buried in work. As Elena headed out around 7, she shot me a sympathetic look. I still had at least two more hours of writing ahead of me. I couldn't wait to distribute my old workload to someone else and focus more on the website. 

At 8:30 just as I was debating how much longer I could ignore my grumbling stomach, my phone went off. I quickly snatched it up from the corner of my desk where it had sat, quiet, for the last four hours praying that it was Dylan. My stomach sank when it just said Ashley's name. I set the phone back down. She probably was just being needy and wondering when I'd be home, and I didn't want her to distract me so that I could bang out the last article I was working on. 

Turning back to the computer I had only managed to type about one sentence before my phone went off with a text. Rolling my eyes at Ashley's name, I swiped it open.

Hey..so..Dylan is here.. you might want to come home.