Me, A Leader? (Scheduled Post)

Oh yeah, I don't think I've posted this yet.  A few weeks ago I got a call from the supervisor for the testing project I've done the past three years.  Not only have I been asked back -- thank God, seeing that I don't think I was that fast last year -- but I was asked to be a team leader.  A team leader??

What team leaders do is ... well, my team leader these three years basically had to put up with me pestering her with my incessant bullshit questions every day for the entire project.  I'm also supposed to keep track of how fast and how accurate the scorers are and pat their behinds to tell them to get on their bike if they're being slow -- I'm imagining myself as a sheep herder -- and kind of call them if they're wrong.  Finally, I have to oversee questions that might be used next year.

It's a step up, and frankly, I'm afraid.  Being in a position of authority is one I'm not used to at all, mostly because I like being the underdog.  There is no responsibility as a plebian, and all you get as a leader is grief, resentment and gossip of people hating and/or making fun of you behind your back.  Besides, if you know me, I don't scream "leader."  Finally, being elevated to a new position changes my perception of this project and the people I will be working with/for/over.  Will I like the other team leaders, whom I looked up to the past three years but now will see as equals?  How about my supervisor, whom I will now directly answer to?  Will I chafe under or, dare I say it, scorn her authority?  And will having control (for lack of a better word) over the scorers make me think of them less as guys just trying to do their best and more as sheep that can't think for themselves?  In other words, would taking this new job make me hate this job that I love so much?

But then my supervisor told me about the bump in pay and I said OK.

This comes on the heels of being named (well, volunteering) to be president of my alumni club.  Frankly, so far I've sucked at it.  I haven't been on the ball, I've let things slide, I don't know if I'm keeping the right amount of contact with the members of the group, and there's this huge project coming up next week and I'm deathly afraid I'm not doing it right.  And they call me a leader?

Is this called growing up?