I also learned this weekend that saying "No" at work terrifies me. All my mentors have told me that this year I need to say no whenever people try to get me to take up administrative work that no one wants to do, and I had to learn to do that this weekend.
It was the safest, best possible scenario for me to say no--which isn't saying that it was all rainbow and flowers--but the decision also took hours of agony to make followed by hours of agony that haven't quite gone away yet. Basically, it still makes my stomach hurt when I think about it.
Wtf, gender roles, wtf. Because hey, a woman needs to say no. N. O. No.
Weekend? What weekend? Who had a weekend?
But being privy to different people's thoughts, I also realized that everyone wants Boss to do what they think is the right thing. Someone in that position must be on the receiving end of so many contradictory demands that it really must be maddening.
Now that I'm thinking about it, when Boss first sat in on our meetings, he was always calm and unruffled. He still tries to be fair in our meetings now, but he's starting to show annoyance and irritation a little more. And the people can be quite a handful:
1. Always angry and incensed, and sees problems everywhere but never brings any solution to the table.
2. Always takes any disagreement as the possible start of WWIII, and begins almost every discussion as an attack hound. Very divisive even when there is no need to be. And there's even a biblical warning on divisive people (Titus 3:10)!!!!
3. Gets angry about the weirdest things, mostly out of insecurities imho. This person needs clear rules about how things done or otherwise feels unsafe and thus becomes very distracted from other kinds of work. I'm sympathetic to this person because I like clear rules too and our dept has been incredibly chaotic and disorderly ever since I've been here. But we all have to roll with it, and ignore as much as possible.
Person no. 4 is new and so far hasn't said much but I'm hopeful that s/he is more sane and fair than other personalities have been in the past.
We are a mess.
The meeting happened on Friday afternoon, we spent most of the weekend making a few more decisions over email, and it's now Monday afternoon, but I can't stop thinking about it either.
It was the safest, best possible scenario for me to say no--which isn't saying that it was all rainbow and flowers--but the decision also took hours of agony to make followed by hours of agony that haven't quite gone away yet. Basically, it still makes my stomach hurt when I think about it.
Wtf, gender roles, wtf. Because hey, a woman needs to say no. N. O. No.
Weekend? What weekend? Who had a weekend?
But being privy to different people's thoughts, I also realized that everyone wants Boss to do what they think is the right thing. Someone in that position must be on the receiving end of so many contradictory demands that it really must be maddening.
Now that I'm thinking about it, when Boss first sat in on our meetings, he was always calm and unruffled. He still tries to be fair in our meetings now, but he's starting to show annoyance and irritation a little more. And the people can be quite a handful:
1. Always angry and incensed, and sees problems everywhere but never brings any solution to the table.
2. Always takes any disagreement as the possible start of WWIII, and begins almost every discussion as an attack hound. Very divisive even when there is no need to be. And there's even a biblical warning on divisive people (Titus 3:10)!!!!
3. Gets angry about the weirdest things, mostly out of insecurities imho. This person needs clear rules about how things done or otherwise feels unsafe and thus becomes very distracted from other kinds of work. I'm sympathetic to this person because I like clear rules too and our dept has been incredibly chaotic and disorderly ever since I've been here. But we all have to roll with it, and ignore as much as possible.
Person no. 4 is new and so far hasn't said much but I'm hopeful that s/he is more sane and fair than other personalities have been in the past.
We are a mess.
The meeting happened on Friday afternoon, we spent most of the weekend making a few more decisions over email, and it's now Monday afternoon, but I can't stop thinking about it either.
No comments:
Post a Comment