Skipping the Middleman

The more I look for another job, the more I dread the idea of another job.

I know what I want to do. I want to write. I’ve always wanted to write. When I wanted to be a lawyer, it was to pay the bills until I could write. The one thing I will always be grateful to my first girlfriend for is talking me out of that, talking me out of majoring in poli sci and into majoring in English.

It’s not a bad idea to have something to pay the bills while I write. The problem is that I keep forgetting that my day job is not my real life. I don’t think I can treat managing as a day job, and I don’t want to put myself in charge of other people again. I’m good at administrating and being the boss, which makes me a decent manager. I’m lousy at motivating people, which makes me a crappy leader. I expect them to do what they need to do because it’s what they need to do, because they’re paid for it, because I damn well told them to, because I’m right. It’s not a good approach, and it doesn’t work. The one and only time I’ve been really successful running a team was when I had partners to restrain my more authoritarian impulses. Doesn’t take much to solve that equation.

More importantly, I just don’t want to do it. Let someone who cares even when others don’t do it. Let someone who’s passionate about it do it.

So I’m working on making this writing thing work. I’ve been putting together a web site to advertise my services as a freelancer. I’ve been trying to sell ideas for greeting cards. I’m thinking of stories and articles to sell. I’m planning a second web site as a kind of web-zine. And I’m looking into self-publishing for electronic formats like the Kindle and iPad.

I’m also looking at finding a day job, something not so demanding (or high-paying) that I can do and just go home at the end of the day. Because I just can’t see myself going back.

Bridges Built

One of the reasons I wound up at my last job was that a friend recommended me. She was someone I’d worked with back in my salad days at the bank, and I’d always had a lot of respect and affection for her. So I was excited at the chance to work with her again.

A few weeks ago the third member of our little trio resurfaced and wound up working with us. It was really exciting that we were “getting the band back together”. Combine that with the arrival of a new VP who understood  how call centers were supposed to work and wasn’t afraid to make changes, and I was excited. I was looking forward to a more modern, more professional organization. Someplace with a little more structure and discipline, someplace open to new ideas.

It didn’t quite pan out, at least not fast enough to keep me from making a choice between my sanity and my job. My two friends were very worried. They’d already been concerned because they knew how stressed I was – when you have a weekly meeting with your boss’ boss to convince her to keep you, it’s stressful. So they’d been talking to their connections in the company to try and get me help. Apparently if I’d hung on a little longer things might have been a lot different. Apparently I was not the only one noticing my manager’s very significant deficiencies. Part of me feels a little bad about that, like I should have stuck it out. It’s a little worrisome that I’ve quit my last two jobs – I don’t generally think of myself as a quitter.

They reached out to our old boss, who runs a call center not far from where I live. He called me last night. As it turns out he’s looking at starting up a unit very much like the one we used to run for him, and was thinking of me to run it for him. He won’t know anything for a few weeks, and I don’t imagine there’s any guarantee even if he gets it set up, but it’s a very interesting possibility. On the one hand, I’m not wild about the babysitting aspects of being a supervisor. On the other, that stuff’s a lot easier when you’re working for someone supportive who has your back and lets you get stuff done the way you want to do it, not the way he would do it. It’s an intriguing option.

They’ve also been telling me how shocked everyone was at my departure, and how much my colleagues miss me. How our recruiter put together some numbers that show how my team was actually the third-strongest team over the last year, not the weakest – especially considering my team is a lot newer than most. How they were going to fly someone out for a couple of weeks to help me. How the VP is keenly aware of my manager’s shortcomings. How my team was stunned and disappointed because I’d just got them all psyched up. (Funny, they didn’t seem in any way psyched or committed when I was there. I’m still a little annoyed that a team that professed to like me wouldn’t commit to doing the hard work needed to be successful. But I digress.)

There’s also a job I applied for that’s essentially all my favorite parts of my favorite job – more of a project manager role, working for a company that runs call centers for businesses that don’t want to set up their own call centers. It’s a lot like the work I used to do at the bank, and I was pretty good at it. And it doesn’t involve managing people.

Lastly but far from leastly, I’m working on getting my writing career going. I’m setting up another blog (unconnected to this one) to provide writing samples so I can sell my services to companies needing ad copy or web copy or maybe some proofreading/editing. And I’m putting together an idea for a kind of literary web site run on a “pay what you want” model, which I may try to get off the ground with Kickstarter.

So I have options. And many of those options come from friends. Friends are a wonderful thing.

Climbing Solsbury Hill

Work hasn’t been going well. For the last year I’ve had the distinct pleasure of leading the lowest-performing team every month. I’ve done everything I know how to do to change that (within the confines of my employer’s culture and my boss’ direction), and it hasn’t made a difference.

A few weeks ago my boss and his boss met with me and made it clear that my job was on the line. I wasn’t happy, but I understand: as a supervisor, I’m responsible for my team. If I can’t get them to perform, I’m not the right person for the job. I could make a case for not having nearly enough support or training or feedback, but at the end of the day it’s still my job to get them to perform. And I don’t have the confidence any more that I can make that happen.

I also don’t have the passion for it. You can’t get your team to be passionate and committed if you aren’t.

I started thinking about the parts of my job I like. I like analyzing numbers and solving problems. I like figuring out what works and what doesn’t and finding ways to make it work. I like writing. I like data entry, oddly. I want a job where I can come in, do my work, and go home at a generally reasonable hour.

I don’t like babysitting, telling people the same thing over and over and over. I’m a little old school about my management approach sometimes: after I’ve shown you how to do it, and you’ve demonstrated you understand and can do it, it’s up to you to make it happen. And if you don’t I’m going to expect you to explain your choice not to do so. I believe in balancing the carrot and the stick, and these days management is more about the carrot.

I resigned this afternoon. The stress of waiting for the axe to fall and knowing that no matter how hard I worked it wasn’t going to change – and more importantly, that I didn’t particularly care – was just too much. My manager and my colleagues were very understanding. I apologized for leaving them in the lurch – it didn’t make sense to spend another two weeks struggling with this, given the handwriting on the wall. May as well let them bring in someone who can get the job done and lead the team to success. And I figured it’s better to resign than wait to be fired.

I’m looking for something where I’m only responsible for myself. Something I can do, go home, and have time and energy for my life. Maybe even a writing job. I’m a little anxious about all this. I’ve been supervising and managing for years now, and that’s most of my resume. But I just don’t enjoy it anymore. I’m just going through the motions, and I can’t be effective or happy like that.

Time to make a change. Time to be happy again.

No Oracle

I’m seeing a pattern in my career. I’m not completely sure what to make of it.

I spent the first ten years of my working life in retail, often in supervisory roles. When I left retail for call centers, I decided not to stay in a supervisory role. I was unhappy with the stress of being responsible for others and unhappy that I kept butting heads with those who wouldn’t let me manage the way I wanted to. So when the recruiter suggested I interview for a management position they had open, I politely declined. I just wanted to be responsible for myself.

It wasn’t long before I got frustrated with seeing things done wrong. That and wanting more challenges (and money) motivated me to move up into management. I struggled at first. Then I got the hang of it and found a role where I had the freedom to do what I wanted. And it worked like a charm.

Two call center management jobs later and I’m frustrated and stressed. I think of my job and I groan. I dread going to work to see how my team will disappoint and frustrate me today. And I’m aggravated that I can’t just do it the way I want to.

So I’m thinking of looking for something else, something where I’m just responsible for myself. Something that leaves me more time and energy for my real life.

Maybe I’m not really cut out for management. I can do it, but when it doesn’t go well I’m tempted to indulge my more tyrannical tendencies. I get frustrated when my team don’t just do what they’re told. I’m more interested in the planning and analysis than execution. (I tend to think of a problem as solved once I know what to do. And no, that has not worked well for me.)

On the other hand, it’s not like I have a lot of other marketable skills. I’m a good writer, but it’s going to take time to make money at that.

I’m not sure how much of this is sour grapes because things are going poorly, and how much of it is the fact that I’m not doing what I’m meant to. I just know that I’m tired of feeling like this.

Lessons Learned Not From Tigers and Turtles

(A bit of new silliness next door.)

When you grow up in a house where discipline means a two-by-four, bad dogs get thrown over the fence or beaten with their favorite toys, people who come to the church looking for help are assumed to be worthless drug addicts or alcoholics and given nothing but a brushoff, nothing you want matters, not even your room or your piggy bank or your privacy are your own, and the things you love most about yourself are routinely derided and dismissed, you learn a few things. They aren’t always healthy or wise lessons.

You learn that violence is power: the strong do as they will and the weak submit  as they must. It’s not the best argument or the most righteous cause that wins – it’s the loudest voice, the strongest arm. Mix in three years of literally daily verbal and physical bullying from virtually the entire student body and you get the point driven well home. That’s where I learned to value coldness, ruthlessness, detachment – it was a way to survive. I couldn’t fight back, not against any of them. So I went where they could hurt me less.

You learn to fetishize violence like Travis Bickle. You dream of vengeance and a way to repay all that humiliation.

You learn to cling to what’s yours, to what should belong to you and no one else. You learn to keep that close and held tight behind your back because if they see it or even know it exists they’ll make you share it with them. They won’t ask or persuade because they don’t see why they should. They will take it and you will lose it.

You learn not to trust. Everyone uses everyone everywhere. Help is for those too weak to have made the right choices, and they deserve the shame that’s come to them. Let them admit it and be forgiven or keep their pride and get nothing.

You learn that love is contingent. Be who they want you to be, think what they want you to think, live like they want you to live. You have no voice but the echo of theirs. You learn that they love you for who you are to them, not who you are in and of yourself. You learn that when you make them angry or disappoint them they will make you feel small and unwanted and unloved. And you cannot make them happy without becoming someone else, and if you give them that you will have nothing. You will be nothing, because if your will is not your own then what is? That’s where I learned to keep to myself. For someone as naturally and exuberantly wordy as I am, I am very good at weaponizing silence. I wasn’t born introverted or antisocial or weird. I had to learn all that.

But that was decades ago. I don’t have to live there. Not one of the bullies who made every school day a living hell for three straight years has given me a second thought in all that time. My parents – well, they remember what they remember. I don’t expect much from them but that they keep their distance.

So I try to teach myself different. I fight the impulse to crush, bully, and silence. I learn that there’s more to life than tigers and turtles. Tomorrow I’m going to frame the first dollar I made as a writer, and to hell with the ghost that scorned my imagination.