Stepping Up to the Plate: Full-Time Status at Last!

My boss finally had her beautiful baby girl on Tuesday evening which means I am up to fill her shoes until she comes back from maternity leave sometime in June. I have been very excitedly awaiting this time since
1) I am going to relish in the few paychecks I get that are going to make living a little less stressful! and
2) Show my stuff and prove that I deserve to be a full-time, exempt employee with my company.

Concern about if there is enough work for both my boss and I to be full-time has been a concern and a reason why they haven't hired me full-time. I have disagreed with this notion from day once since I always feel busy busy busy and like if I had more time I would be more involved in the company and able to create/research creative and needed HR policies and procedures for the company. Now that I have taken over my bosses duties I wonder how she has possibly had time to do everything that she does! I know I am just getting the hang of everything but there is so much to do!

With that being said, I am loving all the new responsibilities and tasks. But I also feel like I am kind of floundering and failing in some respects. I really want to prove that I am of value as a full-time employee or I am going to have to start looking elsewhere for full-time employment. Which makes me a little sad since I really enjoy where I work (despite feeling a little left out sometimes with my co-workers, but I won't go into that now).

In short, the past week I have learned more about HR than I did through my entire time at UW. It is one thing to read about laws, regulations, best practices, and HR methodologies, and it is a completely different thing to actually deal with them and work with employees on benefits and other HR issues.

I am utilizing the SHRM mentor program and am hoping to really launch into a committed mentorship with a HR professional. I am hoping this will give me another base of knowledge to tap into and utilize in figuring out where to take my career.

If anything career wise I have realized that I really want to go into recruiting and know that I could survive in the commission based world of recruiters. It is by far one of the things that I enjoy most about my job. I am still toying with the idea of going to law school, but am also more strictly considering go back to get my MBA in maybe in a business development track or entrepreneurialship. (which I will explain later).

But I am now busy busy busy bee at work and really appreciating TGIF.