My new senior manager started this past Monday, while my departing analyst just turned in her formal two-week notice. We knew the analyst was leaving several weeks ago so I have been going into the office to train in person. Unfortunately, I have two areas of responsibility and the two staff changes are not related.
For the new manager, I am picking up a bunch of responsibilities from another group. We are not sure if I will get any analysts along with the extra work, either internally or externally. We did make an offer yesterday to a candidate to replace my analyst, but even if he accepts right away, he will miss my departing analyst, and I will be responsible for his training. I will likely forget 50% of the work instructions so he may need to figure a lot out by himself. I also have a second opening that was transferred to me from another department so there is still a lot of uncertainty.
What is certain is that the daily two-to-three-hour (both ways) commute is killing me. There was an accident with a motorcycle rider fatality Wednesday morning, and it took me over two hours to get to work.
It is sad that someone died. It also caused an hour delay for thousands of morning commuters. Here is an article from Los Angeles Times. The motorcyclist crashed into a Caltrans attenuator truck that was designed to absorb crashes into Caltrans vehicles.
Life with chronic diseases 