Some things updated easily. The phrase “mostly handled the administrative side” was, I had come to understand, not a careless description but an accurate window into what Victor had actually believed about my work. He had known, abstractly, that I managed accounts. He had not understood, specifically, what that meant — what the exception log was, why the Alder section was fourteen pages, what the difference was between being briefed on an account and having lived inside it for nine years.
Some things were harder.
My father had built something from nothing and I had helped make it better and that was real and I was proud of it, and also he had dismissed me with the assumption that what I did was replaceable by someone less experienced and a document. Both things were true at the same time. The brain doesn’t naturally hold both.
I held both.
Early Interviews and a Setback That Teaches Something Concrete
The second interview went better and ended worse, which is a combination I had not previously experienced.
It was for an operations director role at a regional third-party logistics company. The role was senior to anything I’d held in title, though not dramatically different in practice from what I’d been doing. The hiring manager, a careful woman named Patricia, interviewed me twice. The second interview included a panel. I left feeling genuinely good about it.
They came back with an offer at $54,000 annually.
I had been earning more than that at Morgan Freight Coordination, where Victor had, to his credit, paid me a salary commensurate with what operations managers in the industry earned. The role was director-level. The salary was below what I’d expected for the grade.