Posted by noa on June 8, 2003, at 12:32:48
In reply to Re: P.S. » noa, posted by Dinah on June 8, 2003, at 11:35:22
Dinah, thanks. No, you are not off base at all. In many ways, I am ready to move on. There are things I like about this job, though. And I really do think that these managers are engaging in behaviors that are self-defeating for them and for their goals in the long run. It seems so personality-driven, not any kind of hard-ass policy-driven stuff. Does that make sense?
Aside from the things that this job offers in terms of responsibilities that I enjoy carrying out, there is also the salary and benefits thing that would be hard to match. Not that I am making such a terrific salary. But looking in the paper, I see that there isn't much that I would like that pays well enough for me to meet my expenses the way that this job does.
I have been looking at ads, but have done nothing about pursuing the leads. I don't know why. I do need to. And you are right about how that changes the power differential, even if in an intangible way.
I do lately feel more empowered because the level of absurdity in their process has just made it so clear and therefore more easy for me not to let my own inadequacy buttons get pushed. That is how the process usually goes. But given all that has happened in recent months, from the time in late December when my three member team was told, vaguely, that one of us would lose our jobs, through all the nonsense that they put us through and the distorted communications,etc., and now this stuff, it is easier to see things clearer. But not that easy--it is taking a lot of effort.
In addition to the stuff I am dealing with, my other remaining teammate called me to tell me that the junior supervisor had really gone over the top with her and screamed at her in public in a very out of control way, about something she had percieved impulsively as a problem but hadn't checked out what was really going on. My colleague had been able to keep her composure and say that she felt she did not want to address the issue in public. The supervisor kept at it, and my colleague just kept repeating her request to deal with it at a better time and place. Finally, the supervisor stormed away. My colleague reported it to the senior supervisor, who tried to minimize it by telling my colleague, oh, you know, sometimes people yell at each other in order to get things done around here, don't take it so personally, as if my colleague was being too sensitive, so my colleague then responded that she did not agree that yelling and screaming was an appropriate way to carry on business, and that, while she is not saying this as a threat, she would need to think seriously about whether she needs to subject herself to this kind of environment. I was so proud of her!!
While I was on the phone with her she got another call and it turned out to be the junior supervisor calling to apologize, saying she had been way out of line, and trying to explain it as spillover from a frustrating meeting she had just come out of when she encountered my colleague. My colleague thanked her for the apology and for taking the time to call. The junior supervisor then tried to make friendly chit-chat with her (!) which my colleague did not respond in kind to, just thanking her for calling. She got back on the phone with me and told me this. We were wondering if she apologized at her own initiative or because the senior supervisor had spoken to her about it.
You can see from the chit chat attempt, that this junior supervisor seems to be confused about boundaries. She used to be at our level but was promoted a half step last year. I think it is an issue for her not to be 'part of the crowd' anymore. In my mind, though, one of things that shows readiness for management is the ability to cope with this kind of adjustment and accept that you are not in the same kind of relationship anymore. She seems unable to deal with it and is acting it out, imho.
What they are doing with me is different than this loss of control blow up incident, because they are trying to act out control issues in the guise of policies. I wish she would just have an out of control incident with me once and for all! Actually, she did have one last year, right after she was appointed as manager, but never apologised to me about it. She got super micromanaging with me about the most absurd things during a few days when we were moving offices. She was really a bully in her behavior to me and I lost it right back at her at the time, crying and telling her that if this was the way she was going to speak to me as my supervisor, then I would have to leave. I stand by the content of what I said, but it was not the right time to say it, and I was crying at the time. It then pushed her buttons and she cornered me and blocked the door to my office. She had always been assertive with our senior boss about how micromanaging she had been, and when she was micromanaging me (if you knew the kinds of things she was ordering me around about and the belligerent tone and inappropriate space boundaries--ie literally getting in my face, etc.--you would not beleive it. It was so incredibly over the top) so when she was doing this and harassing me on one particular day when we were moving our offices, I just quietly asked her if she was planning on micromanaging me the way the other supervisor had and she had been so unhappy with. She yelled back, I will because you are making me micromanage you, said in anger out loud in public. I wasn't purposely trying to disobey her, but there were logical reasons I was proceeding with the day as I had that I tried to explain to her but she wouldn't listen. She was simply stuck on how she had imagined the moving process to go, and couldn't seem to accommodate to the fact that some real circumstances were calling for us to modify the procedure slightly. The problem was that the office I was moving into was not ready to be moved into because when they removed the previous occupant's belongings, it was clear that the room needing some repairs and cleaning. The maintenance crew were in agreement with me that these repairs and cleaning--nothing major--just cleaning the floor which had never been cleaned due to the volume of stuff that had been in the office before, and patching up some rather large holes in the walls and doing some minor paint touch up. But the junior supervisor, when she found out about it, made a comment that tried to paint me as some kind of primadonna for wanting these things done. In any event, it didn't disturb the overall move plan because I also worked out with the moving crew that I would make room in my old office for the stuff of the person who was taking it over. That person (who happens to be the colleague I mentioned earlier) was away on vacation anyway, so did not need to occupy my office yet, and wouldn't be there to unpack her stuff anyway. I made the space for her belongings. In the meantime, since I could not proceed with my move, I continued to work on tasks that were do-able given the disruption of the moving process. I found "portable" tasks and went to another unoccupied computer and worked there. But the supervisor was enraged at me for not moving my office, and refused to listen to me explain why I was not moving. It was awful, and I totally lost it, crying.
We never spoke about it again after it happened, and in our first official supervisory meeting, it was not mentioned, and she presented herself as very positive toward me, so I just decided to leave it behind us. I had brought it up with the senior supervisor, and at that time I was naive enough to think of her as someone I could speak frankly with and be able to trust her. But, as I was explaining my concerns about what happened, the senior supervisor started rehashing some old criticism of me that I thought we had addressed months before. I let my buttons get pushed again, although I think I did have enough composure to ask her if something new had come up since she and I had addressed these older issues that indicated to her that I had not absorbed the previous criticism (ie, had I repeated what she thought was a problem?). She said no. Her response was so hostile, and began a period of hostility when I received snitty memos about little infractions, some real some not, that was clearly the prelude to the whole job cut thing--ie trying to create some kind of paper trail.
My goodness, if you've had the patience to read this far I thank you so much!!
Anyway, it may be time to leave. I've been lazy about it. I need to update my resume, and haven't gotten to that. But I need to. I guess it is somewhat like a relationship thing, Dinah, in that I am sad because this *could* really be a great job for me to stay in, if it weren't for the unprofessional behavior of the managers. And I wish I could go over their heads but I don't have confidence that I could get the upper level people to understand what I am saying, even though I think that if they really knew how these managers run things, they might be appalled. But such is how power structures work. I have no plans to go over their heads because I know that doing so frequently backfires badly on the employee.
As for documenting--I will need to do this more consistently and thoroughly. But I resent it because it does take time away from what we are all supposed to be doing--our jobs. And it seems like I have to document every little utterance, given how distorted their version of things comes out.
Yes, it's time to update the resume and try to find something else.
Thanks for the support. It is so important to me.
poster:noa
thread:232354
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030604/msgs/232402.html