Work Related

I get called 'mom' a lot. Of course my boys call me 'mom', but so do a lot of other boys that I do not remember giving birth to. I know there are some pretty fabulous birthing drugs available, but I think at some point I'd remember at least changing a diaper or two.

The boys are all around the same age- early to mid 20's. Some of them are friends of my boys, but lots of them are just guys from work.

Maybe I'm not old enough to let this offend me, or perhaps I'm just not someone who has issues with wanting to hang on to my youth. I like it. I like it when one of my "boys" emails me after I've worked on their site and says, "Thanks Mom". Sometimes they just pop over to my building to come visit 'Mom'. I like having a lot of boys. Funny thing is, I've never had a girl call me 'mom'. I guess I've always been a "boy mom". Not sure if I'd of been a good "girl mom", but hoping to be a great "girl grandma".

::To my REAL boys- when you read this, I do not want to be a grandma anytime in the near future. Thank you. Love, Mom::

What's really fun is walking into a building and having guys representing various ethnic groups call me 'mom'. I like to think it makes people wonder. Especially if someone has seen several different guys greet me this way.

I think I'm 'Mom' to so many guys because I don't let them get away with stuff. When I chastize them, I tell them I'm only shaking my finger at them because I care about them and want them to be successful. I also listen to their dating woes and laugh at their 'boy' humor. One of my clients gets me with the same joke every time. When he calls me on the phone at work he recites his entire title. "This is [guys name], assistant vice president and manager of [guys department], reporting up through [guys division], at [name of our company]. He's done this, oh, a hundred times and I still laugh like an idiot. I really shouldn't egg my kids on like that.

Since Mother's Day is coming up, I'm thinking of cashing in on all this mother love. Maybe next time I get an email that reads, "thanks for taking care of me again Mom" from one of my clients, I'll write back, "You're welcome. Oh, and flowers are ALWAYS appropriate for Mother's Day. Love, Mom".

Surely you must be tired of reading about the snake. I know I'm tired of living it. This situation has invoked such a strong reaction in me that I am absolutely sure there is a lesson buried in here somewhere. I want to let all of this go, but I can't until I understand what it is that I need to learn here. Maybe it'll come to me as I write all that has happened in the last 24 hours. Or, if you can stand to hang on until the end of the post and it seems clear to you, please share your insight with me. Really, I can be rather dense at times and I'd sure like to get this lesson over with.

I met with my manager yesterday morning to try to get this whole thing resolved. I didn't bash the snake in this meeting, because it's not my style. I simply stated facts. The end result was one in which I was not comfortable, but I was not prepared for this outcome therefore I didn't have a response.

It's been a very long time since I've worked for someone who has the technical knowledge that I have. Generally, my managers have been people who have the other half of my skill set. My managers like me because I can speak both languages. They also like me because they don't have to get involved in my daily activities. I just do my own thing and get a lot of work done. I've liked this too, and it hasn't really caused me many problems until now. If I had a manager with web design background, I'm certain that the outcome of this meeting would have been different. My manager doesn't have this background and doesn't understand that web design and layout is a skill set. It's not a matter of slapping information on a page.

Additionally, even web designers don't always make good decisions. Sometimes they're just order takers. They do what the client tells them to do, rather than listen to why the client wants something. I'm a good listener and that has been good for my clients. They may say they want something, but in fact, they really wanted something completely different. They just weren't aware of what could be done. I take a lot of pride in the fact that I'm able to really hear what my clients want, and then deliver it.

Since the snake is responsible for communication plans, my manager feels that it's OK for the snake to do layout, or at least be the last word. My manager feels that the snake has a vision with his plan, and it's my job to make that vision a reality. I'd agree with my manager if the snake had a web background, but he doesn't. I have heard many comments from the team that used to work with him about how difficult he was to work with because he "just didn't get it", yet insisted that it be done his way.

After pondering the meeting outcome for a while, I sent my manager an email telling him that I wasn't comfortable with the outcome of our meeting and I'd like to discuss it further. I indicated that the idea of the snake having the final say in web pages didn't make a whole lot of sense to me given our skill sets. The good news is that my manager is very open to talking about it some more.

During the last 24 hours, I've thought a lot about my strong reaction to the situation and several interesting things happened. It's almost as if I'm being pelted with a hailstorm of information, but I'm unable to understand what it all means.

I thought seriously about job hunting, but dammit, I love my job. I also weighed the pro's and con's of quitting this job in my head. The con list was much longer than the pro list.

Con: Would have a difficult time finding a job to allow me to telecommute more than half the week; it'd be hard to find a salary to match what I'm making now; I love my job; I really REALLY like my clients; I have a lot of freedom to learn new things. Really, the list is huge.

Pro: I'd be rid of dealing with the snake.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that quitting my job would be plain stupid.

Here are the other events, innocuous by themselves, but added together makes me feel that there is something behind it all:

1. The manager of the team that I send work to sent me this message and copied my division executive: "I just want to thank you for always being flexible when dealing with all of the changes to [company intranet] and for quickly adapting to them and putting them into practice. It makes my life a lot easier and your Web sites more user friendly. Thanks for being so easy to work with!" She has no knowledge of went down that day. This came completely out of the blue.


2. I got this email from one of her employees, whose last day is today: "It has been a joy and a privilege to work with you. I wish you the best of everything for both work and personal life. You are someone I highly respect and have learned a great deal from you about keeping it real while maintaining a sense of humor."


3. And three more email messages from clients thanking me for always being on top of things, listening to their needs, and delivering their product on time.

All of this happened in 2 business hours. HOURS. On a day that I felt defeated.

I am resigned to doing whatever my manager wants me to do. I really am. He's a great guy and I want to keep the good relationship that we have. I also want show him that I do appreciate the perks that I have, and if that means that I have to do the snake's grunt work- then so be it. I don't see where being cooperative will take me down a bad path. Perhaps this will give the snake enough rope to hang himself.

I will have the last conversation with my manager about the situation and then I'll accept the outcome and I'll change my attitude about this whole thing. Life is too short for turf wars, ya know?

With that, I leave you with this lesson for the day. Keep watching until the lesson of the day message comes up....



Signed,
The cat

Yesterday? Good day? Not so much. Wanna hear about it? Sure you do!

I was supposed to meet my manager on the train going in to work yesterday morning to talk about 'the snake'. We both had a meeting-heavy day, and I wanted to meet with him before a three hour class that I was taking with 'the snake'. Since our train commute is over an hour, and we take the same train, we thought that would be a great opportunity to talk. Good idea, huh?

There is a one lane stretch of highway between our house and the train. It can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 25 minutes to get down that stretch of highway depending on traffic. One would think that at 5:30 in the morning, one could count on the 15 minute commute, right? Ummmm... that's not how it went down. Grandma and Grandpa Jones and all of their old relatives were on the road at that time of day, and as a result, I pulled into the train station just as the train was pulling out.

Rather than wait for the next train, I decided to drive in. At that time in the morning, I can usually get to work as fast as the train. I knew that would give me a half an hour to talk to my manager before my manager's first meeting at 8 a.m. Well, what do you know. Ms. RisibleGirl, being famous for always getting lost, got on the freeway going South (toward home), rather than North (toward work). I was not amused. I did get to work in time for a 15 minute meeting with my manager.

So how was the meeting with your manager, you may be asking?


Since this post is going to be rather long, I'll post about it separately. I'm still not quite in the right frame of mind to post logically about it. I need to process my thoughts a little more.

Off to class I went. Tra-la-la... I found a seat next to someone, rather than leave the option open for the snake to sit by me. The tables were arranged in tables of two and I found a seat next to a fairly innocuous looking guy.

At 9:45 a.m. we had an earthquake drill. That's right. An earthquake drill. We all had to crawl under our tables. IN OUR WORK CLOTHES. There I was for what seemed like an eternity under a desk with a guy I didn't know. He wasn't even cute (but at least he didn't have bad breath!)

After class, I went back to my desk and began tackling the pile of work on my desk. It seemed that yesterday was the day that 90% of the projects on the back burner suddenly came alive. One.After.The.Other. I started feeling overwhelmed, which just doesn't happen to me too often. It was probably due to still needing to process what I was going to do about the snake situation.

Finally, it was time to go home. I couldn't wait to get home and beg BJ if we could medicate me with some pizza.

I can't tell you how many times I've driven home from work, yet I missed my normal freeway connection. There is another way home, so I kept driving a few more miles to the next freeway connection. Unbelievably, I took the wrong off ramp. Unfortunately, this one didn't have an on ramp to get back on the freeway, so I ended up getting lost trying to find my way home. I did find my way home, almost an hour later. You see, I didn't bring my navigation device with me. Who needs that when you've been back and forth to work a gazillion times? Apparently that'd be me. Yesterday, anyway.

Gee, do you thing something was on my mind?

Two guesses who this post is about. The first one doesn't count.

OK folks, I'm done.

My job now is to figure out how to MAKE.IT.STOP. I need to figure out how to get rid of the snake.

The thing is, I'm in a precarious situation. I haven't really explained the small detail that is keeping me so nice (well, I'm a nice person, but there are additional circumstances). It's difficult to explain the situation without giving away too much about my job, but here goes....

Because of my background, my division was given a special favor in allowing me to do what I do. My company has centralized a lot of jobs, mine included. But my skill set allows me to do things over and above what the centralized communications department can do. My previous beloved partner (do you hear me previous partner? You are my BELOVED partner and how dare you leave me!), also had a specialized skill set. So, they put us together and created a mega team. I know that sounds vain, but it's true. Unfortunately, our department was off to a slow start and my partner got a better opportunity and left.

The caveat was that they (the centralized communications department) could pull this special favor any time they want. When they went to replace my beloved partner, they decided to replace him with someone from the centralized team. The snake reports up to that department, rather than mine.

So, the fear in the back of my head is that they could pull me from my division and place me into the centralized communications department. Or worse, lay me off. I adore this job more than any job I've ever had; and that's saying a lot because I've had some really kick ass jobs.

I've had it though. I had no less than THREE occurrences of the same friggin' issue from him today. I wasn't nice anymore. I basically replied with the same response to each of the occurrences: "This isn't your concern. Again, your job is "x" and my job is "x". "

He called me and tried to tell me that he wasn't trying to run the show. I wouldn't give him the time of day. He asked, "So, I can't even suggest "x"?" I answered one word: "No". Everything he asked me, I answered with "No". Then he said, "OK" and hung up. If I were him, I'd be pretty clear about the fact that I was 100% done with him.

I am just seriously tired of it. Apparently being nice isn't working, so I have to bump up the confrontation. People who know me know that I avoid confrontation at all costs, but I've been pushed past my limit. Once I'm pushed past my limit there is no looking back.

So now I have to figure out how to get out of this situation. It's down to the "either him or me" stage. I'll be drafting a memo to my manager and think that in two days I should be over the crying part so I can talk to my manager about this without any emotion.

I hate it that he brings me to tears. I can't begin to express how pissed off I am that I allow this *ASS* to reduce me to tears. I will end this though. I am someone that refuses to stay in a situation that makes me feel like this.

Stay tuned.....

I had a dream about my boss the other night. In this dream, he was giving away Fisher Price toys out of his office. He gave away the cool city garage, the farm, and a host of other assorted toys.

Not being one to keep this sort of information to myself, I casually mentioned this in my weekly status report email to him.

His reply.

Perhaps I'll keep this sort of thing to myself in the future.