It amuses me that right now the article about Switzerland’s accidental invasion of Liechtenstein is the most e-mailed article on the New York Times Web site. That is funny, right?
I realize that I’ve written a number of posts recently of the “I didn’t have a good day” variety, and that I’ve been dumping on you, dear readers, about the issues in my life. And if you haven’t been a fan of those posts, you might want to just skip over to the New York Times Web site and read about the invasion of Liechtenstein.
Today was supposed to be a nice, easy day. There’s a massively large public event at UT tomorrow–they’re expecting at least 45,000 people–and I tried to get as much prep work as possible done on Thursday so that I wouldn’t be running around like a chicken with its head cut off today. I did, and I still was.
When I got to work this morning, two of my coworkers–people that I had gotten to volunteer to help out with some of tomorrow’s events–told me that they’d just gotten an e-mail from the volunteer coordinator in the college assigning them to help out with someone else’s event. So, as soon as I put my stuff down in my office and booted up my computer, I logged on to my e-mail to find four more messages from some of the students who had volunteered in the same vein: we thought we were working with you, why is this person that I don’t know in the College telling us that we’re working for someone else?
And thus did I place my first irritated phone call of the morning. Now, bear in mind that I hadn’t even gotten to take off my jacket yet, and I realized around 10:30 in the morning that in all the fuss I’d forgotten to eat breakfast. The first person I called was the person in Natalie’s office who’s been wrangling volunteers for her while she was in Brazil. “Hey,” I said, “Have you gotten any calls from your volunteers saying that they’ve been assigned to someone else?” And I started venting … loudly … in fact, it got to the point where I had an audience of people who thought I was talking to the volunteer coordinator in the College until I mouthed that I was talking to a sympathetic ear instead. (I must give Jennifer credit–she’s always up for talking trash about people who don’t perform their jobs properly).
So, at some point after this I had not one but four phone conversations with the young lady who’s job this actually is, and the gist of all of the conversations is that everyone in her office thinks that it’s my fault for not filling out the online form correctly. She was nice enough not to tell me that, but I could tell from the tone in the conversation that she thought I was being a drama queen. While I am a drama queen, that’s totally beside the point in this case. I suspect, from what she told me, that the issue actually lies with the Web team who designed the submission form–this is, of course, giving her the benefit of the doubt.
So, as I’m still reeling from the shock and panic of trying to imagine what life would be like if I had to face the 1,500 children expected to descend on my booth tomorrow singlehandedly, I discover that a co-worker that I don’t particularly like (no one does) has pulled a counter-coup on me. Well, it would be a counter-coup if I had pulled a coup in the first place, but that’s clearly not how she sees it.
As you may recall (refresh your memory by scrolling down the page a little), on Wednesday one of our co-workers unexpectedly quit. As in, “Here are my keys, I have all of my belongings, I’m leaving and you shall not see me again.” Since I was the one charged with passing on this information to the big bosses, I also mentioned while I was meeting with them that we should all regroup next week, since there are a couple of major events this weekend (see: above for one of them) that everyone is focused on in the meantime. So, Thursday morning I sent an e-mail message to the pertinent players to that effect: “Hey, ___ is gone. Let’s think about meeting next week to make sure we all know what needs to be accomplished in the interim until the replacement comes on board. Let me know what you all think about this.”
What I didn’t know is that this was apparently a hostile act on my part. The reason I know this is because someone else in my office–the one to whom the departed employee reported, although it had already been decided some time ago that the new hire will report to me instead–decided that I was trying to exert my authority in areas to which it did not extend.
The professional thing would have been for her to come to me and say, “Let’s talk about how we’re going to handle this.” Instead, she came to me and said, “If there’s going to be a meeting, I need to be in on it.” In the ensuing conversation, I mentioned wanted several people who wanted to be at that meeting because they were willing to help out with the duties left abandoned by our departed colleague. After she left my office, she apparently went directly to their offices and told them point-blank that their involvement was not required, as these duties did not pertain to their job descriptions. Then, finally, she went to the big bosses and got them to formally put her in charge of taking care of things in the interim — and I can only imagine what she told the big bosses about me in her discussion with them.
The best part is that I had to find this out from everyone else. She never actually said a word about it to me. She did talk to me at length about many other things today and acted like we were just the best of friends.
This all transpired before 9 am.
I decided early on that if the issue was that important to her, she could have the position of authority she clearly needs. The last thing I really want to do is get into a childish argument about whose toys belong to who, and which side of the playground we’re allowed to play with them on. We are equals on the chain of command, and she has just as much of a right to exert her authority on this issue as I do (although I’d like to point out that everyone likes me better).
The thing that bothered me was that I realized at mid-afternoon that not only was I not moving past this issue, I was actually fuming. Like muttering to myself and violently slamming things around on my desk fuming. And then my coworker/friend Lisa made one of those Zen comments that suddenly put it all into perspective. It wasn’t the what of the issue in question that was making me upset, it was the how. This behavior–the lack of respect, the underhanded, subversive behavior on her part–is typical, and after several years, I’m just tired of it.
As I’m typing this, I realize that the question of why I was fuming is kind of silly. Seeing it in type makes me realize exactly why I’m irritated. And I’m so not the kind of person who likes being in a situation where he can’t do anything. Ugh.
But it’s Friday night. Never mind that I have to work all day Saturday. I am going to go do something that doesn’t involve thinking about the people that I work with — the ones I don’t like, anyway — and I’m going to enjoy myself. And I hope that you all can do the same.
Tags: work
