Don't Be A Complete Tool

There are certain qualities that a manager should possess.  Without rattling off an entire list, we will focus on the one quality my manager lacks -- completely -- that would have come in handy today: composure.

Composure.  So important.  You panic, your team panics, the situation devolves into utter chaos.  You stay calm, put your thinking cap on, start to brainstorm, your team feels like things are under control.  That's really all there is to that lesson.

Do not do what MisManager did today.  She calls me from across town:

MisManager: (In a purely panicked tone.) Have you heard any rumors?
Awesomeness: Uh, no.  Is there something I need to know?
MisManager: Yeah....Can you tell everyone we're going to have a meeting tomorrow morning?
Awesomeness: Sure.  What time do you need us all here?
MisManager: Oh, normal time, but we're just going to have a meeting before we open.
Awesomeness: Is this a bad thing?
MisManager: (Confused.) Why? No.  I don't know.  (Again, panicky.) Are you sure you haven't heard anything?  I can try to make it back to the office tonight, but I'm about 45 minutes away....I don't think I'll make it....  Uh, I wish I didn't have to go to this meeting.... Are you sure you haven't heard anything??!! 
Awesomeness: (I give up on trying to get any information and now I just want to get her crazy ass off the phone.) I haven't heard anything.  I'll see you in the morning.

So, based on her panicked tone and lack of details, what is the first thing I want to do?  Damn right I want to call the other offices to see if anyone else knows about this mystery announcement.  I don't; a decision I'm still kicking myself for, because this is torture.

Is the company going out of business?  Are we getting bought out?  Are there going to be more layoffs?  Are they cutting benefits?  Are they freezing salaries?  Are they closing down offices?  These are all the questions that are running through my head right now.  Questions that I now have to wait until this meeting to have answered.

The worst part is now I have to try to spin this out to my staff.  I couldn't manage "positive", so I went for "indifferent" instead.  "Que sera sera," on the outside.  "OH MY FUCKING GOD!  AM I GOING TO HAVE A JOB TOMORROW?" on the inside.

So, we'll wait and see....

We watch a lot of the Nick Jr. channel in this house.  For the uninitiated, Nick Jr. encompasses all of the OHMYGODI'MGONNALOSEMYFUCKINGMIND shows.  Programming such as Dora the Explorer, Team Umizoomi, Blue's Clues and Ni Hao Kai-Lan.  These shows have actually proven to be a good way for the kids to learn shapes, colors, numbers and even some basic math, so I don't mind leaving it turned on for a while.

8:35 a.m.



Awesomeness: Hey, MisManager, I got your message that you needed to speak with me.  Did you have time this morning or is after lunches better?





MisManager: NO!  I don't have time right now.  I have a conference call and then a meeting with the business partners and then I have to...Ya know what? No one cleaned out that damn popcorn machine and I've had it.  No more popcorn machine!  They weren't busy on Saturday, I know they weren't, so I can't believe no one took any initiative to...Oh yeah, and since no one is going to work the daily reports for sales opportunities, you might as well just give them to me.  I'll work 'em.  I need sales too!





Awesomeness: ....  okay .... crazy lady

I declare war on your laziness, EmployeeVonMunchausen.

I have now called you to task on working on your goals for improvement.  I am done sitting across from you week after week, listing all of the tasks that you can complete to become a better person, coworker, employee.  I have given you resources to aid in your efforts.  I have cheered you forward with all the sincerity and positiveness I could muster.  In the race of life, you stand lamely at the starting gate.  I will not whip you to the finish line.

I declare war on your excuses, EmployeeVonMunchausen.

When you can't get your work done correctly, it's not that I haven't given you answers; you haven't asked any questions.  When you can't get to work on time, it's not that traffic held you up; you haven't left home at a reasonable time.  When you can't meet your sales goals, it's not that no one's interested; you haven't explained the benefits of the products.

The old saying goes something like, "When you point your finger at someone, the other three point right back at you."  If I could, I would have it tattooed on your forearm.  Or your forehead.

I declare war on your lies, EmployeeVonMunchausen.

To hear you talk, your doctors expect you to keel over at any moment.  To hear you talk, you're the only one in the office that works.  To hear you talk, you're the most overwhelmed human being on the planet.

You're unhealthy because you're seriously overweight and you crave the attention that faking sick gets you.  Jog, eat celery, smile.  Repeat.  I just cured your "illness."  Shut the fuck up.

You are overwhelmed because you confuse action with accomplishment.  I can work all day at a whole lot of nothing too, dipshit.  You don't get kudos for working five times harder than you need to at the most basic aspects of your job and not allotting yourself time for the rest of your responsibilities, dumbass.

So what's my battle plan?

Total annihilation.  You were 10 minutes late.  I gave you a documented verbal warning.

You decided to sit on your fat ass while a client needed your help.  You got another documented warning for your file.

You must see the writing on the wall, because you didn't step a toe outta line today.  Watch your back EVM, I'm all over it.

Imagine yourself in the middle of a 100 + degree desert.  You're going about your business despite the unusually high fall heat when all of a sudden:

Every other month I meet with a group of my peer supervisors in our market.  The meetings are led by MisManager (lucky me!) and two of her counterparts.  The meetings are really just good for nothing else besides bringing us together as a group so we can use each other as additional resources.  There, so far, is not too much information to be gained there.

In our last meeting, MisManager's team dropped a bomb on us. "Oh, by the way, you all will be presenting the majority of the content for our next four meetings."  Oh really.  So instead of being subjected to your sage advice, we're going to be half-assing our way through a 45-minute long presentation.  Goody!  They did let us know we would be paired off, though, so I thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Guess who goes first.  Yeah. Me.

Guess who got partnered up with the balding, cross-eyed, stuttering girl with facial hair.  Yeah, me.

So, because I'm a shallow asshole, my partner's personal appearance means I can't concentrate on what the poor girl is saying when we have in-person meetings.  I've done most of my communication with her by email.  It's just better this way, please trust me.

We were charged with the topic of "One-On-One Coaching".  At the time we were told that we could talk about whatever aspect of that we wanted, just so long as it was closely tied with the main topic.  Great!  We chose to focus on the difference between a coaching discussion and a disciplinary discussion.  Mostly, I wanted to do this because a lot of times my peers will intermingle the two and they really should be separate.

So we break all the work up in half.  I'm the more comfortable presenter, so I took the discussion piece.  I had to make up my own notes and materials.  It was no problem though.  One-on-one coaching is a part of my job that I enjoy and I have a lot to say about it.

My partner's job: tools and resources.  There are a lot of different forms that can be used.  We also have a lot of good advice and guidelines available to us on the company's intranet site.  Best of all, this woman is terrified of public speaking, so this gives her something very structured to put together.  She also doesn't have to get overly elaborate, just basically describe the materials she's pulled and call it good.

We met twice before the presentation.  The first meeting, she showed me her materials and the fact that she even wanted to organize them into a folder.  Beautiful!  She sounded confident in her presentation.  We discussed some weak points and worked them out.  She was good to go.

The second meeting, same thing.  There was no way she was going to fuck this up.  Except I'm writing about her on my "you're an asshole" blog, so we all know better.

Day of the presentation: she shows up with all of her notebooks and looks confident and then.... she starts telling me that she's not going to do the presentation we discussed.  She's just going to hand out her notebooks, but she has no plans anymore to discuss what's in them.  Are you fucking shitting me?  This is what we've planned for over a month now.  Our second meeting was the day before the presentation.  What the fuck changed your feeble little mind in one day lady?

I panicked.  She was going to sink the whole thing.  So what did I do?  I talked for 40 of our 45 minutes.  I let her mumble on for about the 5 minutes, but I kept directing her back to the materials in her folders.  I'm not sure anyone really noticed because they all liked the presentation, but I was on fire when I left there.

Guess who gets to do another presentation at the beginning of next year.  Yeah, me.

Guess who's going to beg for a new presentation partner.  Yeah, me.