Last week I gained a new insight to my mother’s dealings with La Princessa [I get these ‘give em aliases’ tendencies from her..that name’s all her creation], who was a person at her Slavery that did no work and had no business being in the profession she is. Needless to say, working with La Princessa was a guaranteed irritant for my mom when they were working at the same time. I say I have insight because I was constantly irritated by the same persons all last week, one more than the other..and there was no getting away from them. Considering both of them are two states away..that’s quite a feat.
So irritated was I that if Meddler Manager that if he called me later near the end of the day on Friday like he said he would, I don’t think I would have been able to manage a civil tongue. The conversation would end with a notice of ‘I’m hanging up now. I have more to say, but I’ll say it when I’m 100% certain I can maintain a civil tongue. Have a nice day.’
How MM fits into this- he oversees a group of people like I do. In the hierarchy of it all, I ‘oversee’ him. My bosses aren’t his direct bosses, as his bosses aren’t his. Completely exclusive. If this has you thinking of a temp agency and how they provided employees to companies..then you’ve got it. Most of you know I’m a slow burn when it comes to stupidity and people. I tend to just ignore it in terms of it bothering me- I have much better things to do. But when you circumvent me and talk to my bosses about progress and issues that have cropped up before I’ve had a chance to, you cross a line. It would be one thing if it was just my mentoring engineer, but it’s beyond that. Bad enough Meddler’s lack of tact or even ‘thinking forward’ when he goes the route of CYOA [Cover Your Own Ass] can cause my bosses to have the impression that I’m not talking to him or anyone, but for Meddler to tell my bosses of the issues that have arisen before I get the chance to, can we say overstepping bounds? He has also blown the issues that we’ve encountered way out of proportion, which has caused for my boss to call me and ask me what this he’s heard about $problem. Which, translated means: why did I not hear this from you or via your mentoring engineer first instead of Meddler? Not only that, but he doesn’t give me the chance to even update my mentor, who wasn’t happy hearing about issues second hand. It’d be one thing to ask can I ask on your behalf since your busy trying to resolved things. I don’t know even know if that was even a consideration. To say I was and have been consistently ‘upset’ would be putting it mildly.
Not only that, but Meddler’s numerous phone calls mucks up the works. As I’ve said, we’ve had some issues that crop up as they do on a job like this, but none of the crew nor myself can try to work through them if we’re constantly on the phone with him giving you updates [because if we don’t answer lord only knows who he’ll talk to next.] He also paints this crew in a bad light..which, I don’t know about them, but I don’t like it. If I didn’t know the work ethic of the crew..it’s almost like shooting yourself in the foot. Why would you paint the people representing you in a bad light. I fail to see the advantage in that even when you’re trying to make yourself look good, you don’t. Ultimately, I hate to pull the me: $title, him: $title_lower_in_the_pecking_order card, but I am, and he is. Therefore if I want to get nit picky about it, there is no him telling me what to do. And with his proclivity for no delivery with tact, although it might be a suggestion it comes off as a demand/order. I’d like to think I’m laid back when it comes to a job environment that is very dynamic and has associated with it a dynamic stress flux. But irritating me, misrepresenting issues to my bosses, degrading my bosses confidence in me and then inferring I haven’t even given your suggestion a try without asking tests my slow burn.
This is a small slice of what I had to deal with the past week. Fact of the matter is Meddler’s actions are impeding my task when all the fluff is cut away. So much so that I actually noted it in my weekly report which I sent to my bosses. I would honestly have much rather had glass slivers shoved under my fingernails and cleaned with alcohol. At least they can be removed and the sting will go away..eventually.
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