A Job Well Done is Its Own Reward

My responsibilities at my job are all pretty closely related to finding work for the engineers.  I scour the various websites of municipalities and government agencies where projects are announced, I write proposal letters to other firms explaining why we should team up (as a smaller firm, we almost always act as a subcontractor), and I put together any forms that are needed for a final portfolio for the project.  I have other things that I work on when I don't have anything else to do, but these are things that always take top priority.

Recently at work, my boss asked me to put together a proposal for a job that I had found a couple of days earlier.  I've been getting a lot of practice doing that since we've been pursuing quite a few projects lately, so I was able to get it to her fairly quickly.  As soon as I had submitted it for her approval, I started working on the next component which is the email list (a list of firms that we think will be worth going after for that project; while there are mainstays, the lists vary from job to job).  Before my boss had had a chance to ask for it, I dropped the email list on her desk.  This was impressive to her.  I played it off that I was picking up on the pattern of things and saw what was coming, but it was still nice to surprise her.

I also surprised her when the VP sent us both an email today with a project announcement from one of the job websites, but I had already found it and emailed my boss about it two days earlier, but she had only skimmed my email and missed it.

It feels really good to not only be doing my job well, but so well that I'm surprising my boss.