Adequately deal with suckers (read all 2 entries…)

Pfffffff  — 1 month ago

I suck.

At least today I sucked at this goal. Why is it it feels so hard to speak out?

Today one of my colleague came to make a phone call in my office while I was working. She even used my desk to make some notes.

I can see that she did this because she had a visitor in her own office who was using the other phone himself. But the thing is she could have gone into the corridor, or in the lobby, or indeed in the empty office opposite mine!

It only lasted a few minutes but I thought it was very rude and intrusive. I cannot concentrate and work like this, specially if someone comes right next to me and uses my desk!

And during the phone call I kept thinking to myself that I should tell her something.

Then she ended the conversation and left my office. That was my opportunity, I could have said something. I didn’t. And she left quietly not even saying something nice, like oh I’m sorry I had to come into your office or anything. She just left. And I said bloody nothing! I felt paralysed.

I feel bad now :-(

Damn I must get better at this!

Comments:

Courageous Heart is having an adventure instead of a relationship - BEST. GOAL. EVER!

yes this is tricky

and now that i am the ‘boss’ at my new office, it’s my job to deal with problems like this. grrr – so tough. i already identified one problem staff member who is not pulling his wait but i keep thinking if i give him another chance the behaviour will improve. i have already had 2 other employees talk to me about him, so i know it’s not just me who sees a problem.

i will try and get the nerve to speak with him tomorrow – it will be tough though because he is completely ignorant of his own laziness – he thinks he is an excellent employee and a hard worker.

he will be surprised and i will need to be very assertive. he will probably get all angry and defensive and disagree with everything i say and then he will think i am a total bitch and hate me for the rest of the summer. oh i don’t want to cause more problems than i’m trying to solve…

i’m sure he will accuse me of lying or being wrong or something. i know he took a nap on the job the other day because he told one employee who told me. but if i bring that up he’ll know who told him and i was told in confidence (no one wants to be known as the tattletale, but no one likes a slacker. plus if he doesn’t lose his trust in other employees i can get more info more easily). tricky tricky tricky!!!! so much for the new exciting job – can you say stressful!!

Tink is treating herself to a 43T marathon this weekend.

A really great book on...

...tackling difficult conversations at work and at home is Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving Broken Promises, Violated Expectations, and Bad Behavior.

I’ve read numerous books on interpersonal communication, and this one’s among the most useful I’ve ever come across. Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High, by the same authors, is next on my list, after I finish Daniel Goleman’s Working with Emotional Intelligence, Susan Scott’s Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success in Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time, and Jim Loehr’s The Power of Story: Rewrite Your Destiny in Business and in Life.

Yes, I have a touch of start-itis when it comes to reading. Also knitting. I like to have lots of books and projects on the go, and switch among them according to my mood and location (e.g., I currently have bedroom books, couch books, a tote-bag-for-commuting book, a lunchtime-at-the-office book, a bathtub book, and a kitchen read-while-waiting-for-kettle-to-boil book). Not to mention various magazines stashed in the same locations.

:-)

Love your bathtube book and you read-while-waiting-for-the-kettle-to-boil-book !! Now that’s pretty inspiring.

I’ve only got one book that is in my hand bag at all time, which I read while commuting and which usually gets slightly cover-damaged by being carried around in that way, and a few ‘home’ books which are usually found by the bed or sofa (which are either too heavy to carry around or that come in nice editions that I don’t want to ruin by carrying them in my hand bag all day long). And of course, a few selected toilet reads…

Courageous Heart is having an adventure instead of a relationship - BEST. GOAL. EVER!

thanks for the links!

those books look interesting – i’m always interested in reading books about management skills or EQ because it seems like you can never know enough about how complicated people are!!

as for the scenario – well i know he has been given a rough time by his fellow employees lately, which is often consequence enough, so i figured i would choose my battles and leave the situation for now and see if the behaviour improved. (about the nap thing, i really couldn’t say anything without blowing the cover of my mole, so i figured i should keep that under the lid again). i also know that he has been late a few times when i have not been around, plus he was late once last week and i spoke to him about it.

so yesterday he was late again and i was happy that i had something concrete and measurable to call him out on so he knew i wasn’t being subjective and it wasn’t a personal thing. he got really defensive and lippy with me and gave me an attitude along the lines of “come on, you can’t be serious, it’s only 5 minutes.” it’s not the time, it’s the principle, grrr!!! i was super assertive with him, which i think caught him off guard because i’m usually nice, and he got really pissed off and took off in a huff. later that afternoon he cooled off a bit and came up to me and apologized and promised he would “try” and be on time more often. i don’t really want him to “try” i want him to do it but i guess i have to count my baby victories with this one.

sounds

like you aced it I would say!
The fact that he later came and appologise is very positive!!

Wow I’m in total admiration of your assertiveness, you are my role model for today because I need to be assertive myself with my boss this afternoon!

Courageous Heart is having an adventure instead of a relationship - BEST. GOAL. EVER!

yeah, he apologized

which meant he was taking me seriously. but i have another problem to deal with now: the employee who was complaining about him. basically this guy whines and complains about everyone at work now and thinks that everyone sucks at their jobs and he is the only great one. his arrogance drives me nuts because he is oblivious to his own flaws. and he is so hard to give constructive feedback to because he thinks he is perfect. the worst part is that he acts like it is my fault that people “aren’t doing their jobs” but really he is only looking at their shortcomings and not their strengths which he needs to do in order to be a team player. grrrr… i need to sit him down and have a talk with him – it will be tough because he won’t want to hear any of it!!!!

Nice to see that my fave manager is poping by 43 for a visit!

It does sound like a pretty delicate matter to resolve. It’s interesting though, and I’d be very much interested to hear how it went.

I’m not too worried about you, to me you are well equiped to do well because you have a gift for understanding complex underlying emotional matters, something too many managers don’t know the first thing about.

PS: Would you be interested in joining this goal ? It would be lovely to have you contribute and share your ideas and experiences.

Courageous Heart is having an adventure instead of a relationship - BEST. GOAL. EVER!

yes that goal looks interesting...

i don’t have room on my list at the moment, but once i check some items off, which may happen soon because things are progressing (odd how you can go weeks without completing any Things, then suddenly get 5 at once like a snowball effect)... once i get some space i’d like to add it :)


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