Scary things, for the win. Or "speak the truth, even though your voice trembles"
I did a scary thing today, and it paid off.
This afternoon, I spoke up at work about the one person there who has been giving me trouble. My stomach was doing flip-flops from the minute I got in the car to go to work, and my hands started shaking the moment I arrived, but I had promised myself I would speak up, and I did.
This person was one of the four who interviewed me way back when I first interviewed (a year ago this week, in fact!), and while not a manager or technically my boss in any way, IS senior to me and provided a goodly chunk of my training.
The problem is, and if you know me, you know I don't speak this way lightly, she's kind of a cranky person. There have ALWAYS been snarky comments about the quality of my work, or about me doing something differently from the way she would do it.
And on a couple of occasions, there has been yelling -- one, literally, because I changed the scheduling on a Facebook post she had set to launch at a particular time. My boss characterized this as "crazy." I did not disagree.
And on the weekend of the 17th-18th, displeased about the way I had handled a situation -- and despite the fact that she was absolutely looped in on why I had done it the way I did, and it couldn't have been THAT bad, because the bosses never said word one -- she jumped up out of her chair, threw herself against the half-wall surrounding the Desk station (where I was), and did not so much yell as scream at me. Then stormed off down the hall to calm down, came back, and spent the rest of our shift overlap making nasty remarks about my incompetence. In front of a witness, this time.
I thought about this for a good week. I knew damn well which one of us was being unprofessional, and I have always brushed off her attitude because I know she's sort of a miserable person. But if I can feel the impact as you slam against the wall, and just about see your tonsils? It might be time to say something.
So, today, I asked the assistant news director, who IS the boss of me, for a few minutes of her time, and then told her about that and some other occasions.
My boss was appalled. And told me I am NOT alone and I am NOT the problem -- this person talks to a lot of people that way, INCLUDING said boss. Though the yelling and screaming are new. She told me they had allowed this woman to change her schedule for a reason (she was the social lead when I started; she and the other web/social person basically traded). And that she has a history of this and they are/were already "in a process" with her. Not sure what that means, but it's kind of ominous. ...
I also said that I knew I still had things to learn or to do better, and would be happy to be told about them, and asked if there was anything I could be doing to make the situation better. She assured me that I was not the problem. (I had been fairly sure management had no issues with me, because the Tuesday after that bad weekend, I DID get called into a meeting with management ... about what the next step of my growth and added responsibility should be. But it was still good to hear!)
She had me write out all the incidents I could in an email to her and to the actual news director. I managed to get it written before they left (management is mostly dayside). And I mentioned the witness who had seen that most egregious display, in case they want confirmation.
Before the ND left, he replied, thanking me and saying he would "take care of this tomorrow." My weekend starts tomorrow, so I may not know anything before Friday. But SOMETHING is going to happen. Guess I'll find out when I find out!
This afternoon, I spoke up at work about the one person there who has been giving me trouble. My stomach was doing flip-flops from the minute I got in the car to go to work, and my hands started shaking the moment I arrived, but I had promised myself I would speak up, and I did.
This person was one of the four who interviewed me way back when I first interviewed (a year ago this week, in fact!), and while not a manager or technically my boss in any way, IS senior to me and provided a goodly chunk of my training.
The problem is, and if you know me, you know I don't speak this way lightly, she's kind of a cranky person. There have ALWAYS been snarky comments about the quality of my work, or about me doing something differently from the way she would do it.
And on a couple of occasions, there has been yelling -- one, literally, because I changed the scheduling on a Facebook post she had set to launch at a particular time. My boss characterized this as "crazy." I did not disagree.
And on the weekend of the 17th-18th, displeased about the way I had handled a situation -- and despite the fact that she was absolutely looped in on why I had done it the way I did, and it couldn't have been THAT bad, because the bosses never said word one -- she jumped up out of her chair, threw herself against the half-wall surrounding the Desk station (where I was), and did not so much yell as scream at me. Then stormed off down the hall to calm down, came back, and spent the rest of our shift overlap making nasty remarks about my incompetence. In front of a witness, this time.
I thought about this for a good week. I knew damn well which one of us was being unprofessional, and I have always brushed off her attitude because I know she's sort of a miserable person. But if I can feel the impact as you slam against the wall, and just about see your tonsils? It might be time to say something.
So, today, I asked the assistant news director, who IS the boss of me, for a few minutes of her time, and then told her about that and some other occasions.
My boss was appalled. And told me I am NOT alone and I am NOT the problem -- this person talks to a lot of people that way, INCLUDING said boss. Though the yelling and screaming are new. She told me they had allowed this woman to change her schedule for a reason (she was the social lead when I started; she and the other web/social person basically traded). And that she has a history of this and they are/were already "in a process" with her. Not sure what that means, but it's kind of ominous. ...
I also said that I knew I still had things to learn or to do better, and would be happy to be told about them, and asked if there was anything I could be doing to make the situation better. She assured me that I was not the problem. (I had been fairly sure management had no issues with me, because the Tuesday after that bad weekend, I DID get called into a meeting with management ... about what the next step of my growth and added responsibility should be. But it was still good to hear!)
She had me write out all the incidents I could in an email to her and to the actual news director. I managed to get it written before they left (management is mostly dayside). And I mentioned the witness who had seen that most egregious display, in case they want confirmation.
Before the ND left, he replied, thanking me and saying he would "take care of this tomorrow." My weekend starts tomorrow, so I may not know anything before Friday. But SOMETHING is going to happen. Guess I'll find out when I find out!