Insecurity

I work as an estimator in the construction industry. I get a set of blue prints do a take off and send out a price for the work they want completed. After a week or two I call them back to see how we did. Sometimes they don’t know yet, sometimes we lose the job to someone else or they tell me we got the job. This is the point where I feel full of pride for a job well done. The point that makes my job feel rewarding.

I know that I shouldn’t base my job satisfaction on being awarded jobs. Especially right now in this economic time. But for some reason I do.

However, late last Friday there was a switcheroo pulled on me. My boss decided that the Field superintendant should take the last few months of bids and start calling on them. Build up relationships with them. He said it was due to this being such a slow period. So they took all my bids and gave them to him. (Mind you they took the other estimator’s back log too)

When it first happened I was pretty ok with it. After all the calls need to be made and sometimes we don’t get back to them as quickly as we would like. But as the weekend wore on I got more wierded out. How am I suppose to get the pride of a job well done if someone else makes that phone call. If someone else gets told we got the job?

Yes I understand it is still technically my job but I didn’t get it anymore. I didn’t hear the news. That sense of excitement was taken away from me.

The other problem is the person who is now making the calls is a credit taker. Do you know what I mean? Someone who feels the need to take credit for whatever just happened. Someone who feels the need to let everyone know that it is because of him that this or that happened. Now it will be because of him we got the job. No longer will my hard work be the reason we got the work instead it will be the one phone call he made.

This bothers me. A lot.

I understand what is good for the company is good for me but I feel as though my job pride was just stripped away. I have no idea how to handle that. Am I making too much of this?