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.

Bridges Burned

For someone who spent the first half of his life being a Christian, I don’t really understand forgiveness. How do you let go of a wrong that’s been done you? How do you walk away from the hurt and the feeling of being wronged? How do you trust again after that?

I could blame it on the fact that I grew up in a fundamentalist sect more prone to judgment than forgiveness. But Dad never preached more than once or twice a year on the whole “hellfire and damnation” thing, and even then he never really liked doing it. A few times he just read a little Jonathan Edwards and that was it. He always believed his role as pastor was to be more of a counselor than a condemner – the finger pointing at the moon, not wagging in judgment.

Of course there was a fair gap between preaching and practice in his home. And make no mistake, it was always his home.

I’m not sure how much (if any) of this story I’ve told here. So I’m going to tell it again. B was one of my employees. When I took over the team back in August, she hadn’t met performance standards since leaving training that spring. In fact, she was one of the lowest-performing agents in the company. Some of the responsibility fell to my predecessor, who hadn’t tried to help her. I considered letting her go, but decided to do the fair thing and give her the coaching she hadn’t been given.

She didn’t implement the coaching. I’d spend half an hour explaining how to use technique X, get her to demonstrate it back to me successfully, and make sure she didn’t have any questions. I’d send her back to the phones with plenty of encouragement. And a week later I’d do the whole thing over again. B is a smart woman, and she claimed she wanted to do well, but she just wouldn’t consistently do what she needed to do in order to be successful. I tried everything I could think of to explain it and present it in different ways. I looked for ways to tie it to her own experiences and motivations. I encouraged her when she got it right, I recognized her when she did well, I gently reminded her of her commitments to do better and the benefits of doing so. I stuck up for her every time my superiors brought her up and asked me to explain her poor performance, which did not reflect well on me and made a very substantial impact on the team’s numbers.

Another manager in the office said some inappropriate things to her. She brought it to my attention, and I immediately took it to my superiors and to HR. I was with her when the HR director flew in to meet with her and investigate the matter. I was with her when the HR director explained the resolution to her situation, which did not satisfy her. I explained why the process was what it was, I commiserated with her dissatisfaction, and I set myself up as a buffer between her and the offending manager so she’d never have to interact with him again.

Her performance didn’t improve. I had to concede that despite my best efforts this had gone on too long. I put her on a formal warning – basically the “shape up or ship out” situation. She wanted to transfer to another department, but since she wasn’t performing well here they didn’t want her. Feeling her back against the wall, fearing she’d lose her job, she decided to put her energy into fighting me instead of fighting for her job.

I understood. I thought it was a poor decision, but who hasn’t made those under stress? I handled it calmly and professionally. I kept coaching her and doing everything I could for her, but she was completely unmotivated. She resisted everything I encouraged her to do. She resisted understanding even things she’d mastered before. I kept trying to help her see her way past her frustration with the harassment problem and her inability to transfer. I kept trying to focus her on the positive, on making the changes she could instead of dwelling on the ones she couldn’t. No dice.

Finally it got to be too much. I decided to try a firmer approach, hoping to shake her out of it. I listened to several calls immediately after my last coaching session with her, and she wasn’t even trying. No effort at all to implement what we’d discussed. I brought her into my office and asked her to explain herself. I reminded her of her tenuous position, and that the feedback I’d given her was intended to help her be successful and keep her job. I reminded her that she had committed to implementing this feedback, and I pointed out that the calls I’d heard only minutes later clearly showed she wasn’t doing so. I strongly encouraged her to change this behavior immediately and sent her back to her desk.

Within 48 hours I was explaining myself to the HR director and our new VP. B had complained that I was creating a hostile work environment, that I was not coaching her effectively, that I was a nice guy with good intentions but no skills, that my predecessor and I had not given her a chance to succeed. She was transferred off my team to another supervisor, and I was left looking like an ineffective idiot.

Now B wants to be friends on Facebook. “Hope you can understand why I needed to put business first,” she said. “Got a family to feed.”

I want to tell her, “You idiot, I was trying to help you feed your family. You’d have lost your job months ago if I hadn’t stood up for you, and if you’d just put in the effort to do what I asked you wouldn’t have had to worry about the job. But in your desperation to keep the paychecks coming for a job you don’t want, don’t enjoy, and don’t care about doing well you stabbed me in the back. You painted me as some kind of tyrant after all I did to help you, and left my boss’ boss thinking I’m a complete incompetent. ‘Just business’? If I’d been playing by your ‘just business’ rule book, you’d have been out on the street last fall. I ought to send you a bill for all the bonuses you cost me, and the company ought to bill you for all the salary they’ve paid you since then.”

And there’d be a certain satisfaction in going off on her like that. I might even call it justice. But I can’t convince myself to feel right about it. What does it get me? Another burned bridge, another lost opportunity to help instead of hurt. Another one-eyed person in this world of walking wounded. It won’t repair the damage done to my reputation at a job I just left. It won’t assuage my anger at being made to look like an ineffective fool. It won’t repair the feeling of betrayal.

All I could accomplish by that would be adding a little more to the sum total of hurt in the world. I don’t need to do that.

I don’t know that I can ever be friends with her, even just on Facebook. But I don’t have to be vengeful about it, either.

I Seem to Be Having Difficulty with My Lifestyle

“You care if somebody blow you away?”

I watched the bubbles rise in my beer glass.

“No,” I said.

Hawk nodded. The waitress brought us our food. Hawk ordered another Dos Equis. The waitress looked at me. I shook my head. She went away. The room was half empty and not very noisy. I could feel the weight of Hawk’s impassive stare. The waitress brought him his beer. He poured half of it into his glass and watched the head form and then drank a swallow and put the glass down.

Looking at Hawk, I knew why he frightened people. The force in his dark eyes was intensified by the absence of any expression.

“You better move on from there,” Hawk said. “See a shrink, read a book, join a church, talk with me. I don’t give a fuck how you do it. That your problem. But you don’t move on, you gonna get flushed.”

I sat motionless and didn’t want my food. The beer was going flat in my glass.

“And something I won’t do is try to explain to Susan how I let that happen,” Hawk said. “Or Paul.”

I nodded.

- Valediction, Robert B. Parker

Every day I’m just watching the hours tick away until it’s time to go to sleep. Days at work, days at home – the only difference is what fills the time. I know that’s not good – not healthy, not a wise way to spend the finite time I have in this world, but there it is. I don’t like doing it. I don’t dislike it enough to stop.

I can’t really imagine another 30 or 40 years of this. That sounds like suicide talk, and I want to be clear – it is not. That is absolutely, categorically NOT an option EVER. I’ve done some awful things to people who deserved far better, and if I do nothing else right by them I will keep my promise on that score no matter how awful I’ve let things get. Nietzsche can keep his “powerful solace”.

And I know how to stop it – get back on the meds, get back into therapy, get my life back – but I’m scared of some of what I’d have to do, and I’m still sure there’s some level of unhappiness I haven’t put myself through yet that I really ought to let happen. I used to tell myself it was important to bottom out so I could climb back up. Sort of a “nowhere to go but up” thing. I know a little better now. It’s just me wanting to suffer, to punish myself for all my bad decisions and weaknesses and errors. My capacity for passive self-flagellation is pretty much limitless, I think. My capacity to endure it may not be.

The worst part is that I don’t care. I know I’m headed down a very dark path. I’ve isolated myself. I’ve put myself in a bad position with very few choices. I’m cornered, and I’m not thinking clearly, and I know it, and I don’t much care. And because I don’t care and don’t have anyone kicking my ass to force me up the hill, because I’ve made poor choices and compounded them with still poorer choices, I’m not doing anything about it.

I need to find the energy to do something different. My current strategy of “do nothing and eat sweets” isn’t working. Odd how a lack of endorphin-building activities tends to lead to a lack of endorphins. It’s as if hurting myself doesn’t actually help. Life is funny.

Some of it’s long overdue and perhaps hopeless but nevertheless necessary. Some of it’s just me needing to exercise some of that potential I used to be so proud of.

What happened to me? I keep asking that. I don’t recognize me any more. I’m so small and sad and tired. Maybe I wasn’t the most impressive person, all direction and energy and drive. But I was better than this. I had good stuff going for me. I used to blame it on a couple of twists like getting laid off from a job I enjoyed and rocked at, and losing the girl I was nuts about, and finding myself working a job I hated. But that was years ago. I’ve come back from hard times before. I’ve landed on my feet and dusted myself off and did what had to be done. Now I’m just watching my life roll by like a rerun I didn’t like that much the first time.

I have to take that first step out onto the rope bridge. The chasm has to be crossed, and me whinging about how hard and scary it is doesn’t make the chasm smaller or the rope steadier. “I don’t want to” doesn’t matter. “I’m scared” doesn’t matter. “I hate my life” matters, because I don’t want to keep feeling like that. I can’t imagine another 30 or 40 years of this because that kind of awful defies even my vivid imagination.

Whatever I’ve done or failed to do, I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve to suffer through a tiny twisted life. I don’t belong in a little box with two cats and a television. I deserve my share of sunlight and fresh air and smiles and love. And the people I love deserve better than I’ve given them.

First step: get some fresh air and exercise. Time to strap on the running shoes and find a little peace.

I’ll be back.

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.

A Palette Easily Muddied, A Span Frequently Shortened

I recently started cataloging my books. (There’s an app for that.) It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, since I’m starting to get to the point where I’m not sure what I own and what I don’t. I bought a copy of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” a while back, only to find I already had one. And I nearly did the same for Robert Pinsky. Profitable for the authors and publishers, less so for me.

Anyway, it got me thinking about how much less I read than I should. Reading keeps me thinking, keeps me engaged with art and ideas. I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember: one of my first memories is sitting on the couch with Dad and some flash cards.

So why haven’t I been reading lately?

I come home from work and I’m tired. It’s easy to get dinner, play with the cats, and watch TV all night. Before I know it the night’s gone and it’s time for bed. Not the most fulfilling use of my free time.

When I do read, I do it poorly. It’s as if I just want to check it off the list as one more done thing. I don’t retain what I read very well, and I lose interest quickly. I have to go back over what I’ve read sometimes. And my eyes get tired.

I could chalk this up to age, but really? Come on. I’m forty-one.

It’s practice. It’s motivation. It’s focus. And perhaps my eyes aren’t exactly 20-21 anymore. I have to read aloud in my head so I really pay attention instead of speed-reading my way through it. It’s not French fries, it’s literature.

I think a lot about who I am and who I want to be. But you cant just “be” without being something, and that means doing stuff. Reading. Writing. Committing. Engaging, making it so.

“Life is for the living”, right?