Moving up the corporate ladder

Since starting work in September, I have had to endure the cold hard fact that I am on the proverbial "bottom wrung." Now I can positively (yet at the same time truly) say that it has not been all that bad. My boss and co-workers are all very nice, and no one has really "picked on the new guy." But at the same time, its not very glorious. I often get a large dose of the more tedious work, and there is just the constant knowledge that if saluting were adopted as a corporate policy then I would have to salute everyone else first.

But starting tomorrow, I will no longer be on the bottom wrung. That's right, I will be on the second-to-bottom wrung.

(Pause to let applause die down)

Now I know you are all dying to know what step I took to hoist myself up. Well, I didn't actually take one. I escaped the bottom wrung not by advancing to a higher one, but by having another wrung built underneath mine.

By that I mean we have a new hire coming into the group. Some recent grad from Carnegie Mellon who starts tomorrow. I get to therefore pass the mantle of "new guy" onto him. Plus I am most likely going to have to do much of his training to get him up to speed. That will put me in a teacher/mentor role over him. At long last, I have someone below me. Someone would have to salute me. Where before if Henry, Carl, and Ole (my boss and co-workers) were all away at the same time I would just be by lonely all by myself, now I would be IN CHARGE (a la KFC) with someone else looking up to me. Plus if there is any work that I don't want to have to do, I can pawn it off on him saying that it will be a good exercise for him to learn. Muwahahahaha.

I am still debating between referring to him as underling, henchman, or minion.