The new job

I started my new job on Monday. After a day of online training and security screening, I finally spoke with my new supervisor Tuesday morning. He told me that I will be running a different project than the one I was hired to manage. I'll be managing the top priority, highest visibility project for the next refueling outage. Pretty cool I think, I like the vote of confidence.

Slowly I learned more of the story. Other project managers told me I was taking over a doomed project and that the project is behind schedule with less than 6 months until implementation. The project had also failed in two previous attempts at implementation. The other PM's were steering clear of this job.

Then I learned that the CEO of this Fortune 500 corporation had a hand in the firing of the previous project manager, unbelievably high level attention for a project this size.

Finally, I get this email note from the owner of my new company (portions redacted).

Welcome aboard.  We, and specifically this project, need you.  If this
project fails rest assured we will be blamed regardless of our degree
of culpability...

So don your armor and proceed into battle (and watch your backside).

PS - Please don't run out the gate with your arms flailing. 
I actually laughed out loud when I read that.

Oh yeah, on Thursday they expanded the project's scope to more than
double what was previously planned.

I see my options as:

1. Meet everyone's expectations and fail;
   
2. Complete the work successfully; or
   
3. Run away with my arms flailing.
   

I intend to dust off some Lombardi quotes and go for #2, although #3 is still a possibility.

I suspect my blogging is going to suffer.