I hate school!!! But I love learning. Learning new things about others, yourself, life in general is essential happiness and joy. When people stop desiring new information, knew experiences, they withdrawal from the world. Now if I could somehow keep the learning but lose the homework, group projects, and tests school would not be so bad. LOL
I have had a life lesson recently and learned a little something that made me think a little differently. I started a new job a few months ago. This position is a bit more responsibility than my previous position. I have always performed well in school (despite my dislike) and work environments and expect nothing different in this new position. Overall things are going really well and my immediate supervisor seems pleased. Unfortunately there has been a couple of incidence that has cast me in a negative light with my supervisor’s boss.
The first incident occurred a couple weeks ago. I turned in a document to my supervisor for review that I would eventually have to present to upper management for an approval. My supervisor returned the document to me with the go ahead to submit it to uppermangement and present it in person for approval. While going over the document again preparing for my presentation I discovered three typos. When I notified my supervisor of my errors she admitted that she had rushed through reviewing it. She also informed me that she would not be attending my presentation but her boss would. I fixed the errors and informed my supervisor’s boss of the situation. She advised me to bring the corrected document to my presentation. I brought the corrected version to the meeting, presented my information and received approval from upper management. Even though things went well I was upset. Coming into a meeting with uppermanagement with replacement documents because of my typos is not the impression I’d like to give at my new job.
The second incident occurred this week. I received an email originally sent to my supervisor from someone outside of my organization because my supervisor had the day off. The email had several questions regarding the procedures for bringing in visitors. Being new at the agency I did not know the answer. I also don’t know many people so I did not know who to ask. I asked a co-worker on my team and she found someone that she thought could help me. Unfortunately he only confirmed that the person I really needed to talk to also had the day off.
I responded to the email apologizing for not being able to provide the information in my supervisor’s absence and advised that my supervisor would be in the following day before 6:30 am. Unfortunately the email sender notified her boss of my unablitly to answer the questions. The sender’s boss immediately contacted someone form upper management (my supervisor’s former boss – the same one form the incident above) for the information. For clarification, let me state we are in the middle of re-organization and as of April 1 my supervisor was given a new boss to report to, who we’d not yet met. Because of the transition it did not occur to me to ask the former boss to help me respond to the email. The former boss then came to me and chastised me stating I cannot send emails out “like that” and I should never say I don’t know and in the future to ask her (even though she is no longer in my chain of command).
What troubled me about the second incident was not someone form upper management correcting me. It was her tone and approach. She came at me as though she assumed I’d not asked anyone for help or direction and simply read the email and replied I don’t know. She talked to me as thought I was trying to get out of doing my work. When I tried to explain who I’d tried to reach for help she did not want to hear that. Her overall attitude towards me was as thought she felt I was a slacker. From her point of view, 1st I turn in work with typo’s, then I respond to emails saying I did not know the answer without coming to her for help. Sadly when I discussed this with my immediate supervisor upon her return to work she concurred that her former boss did give the impression that she thought I was a slacker.
I have never been a slacker when it comes to work. I do my job to the best of my abilities and am usually recognized/ rewarded for it. I can say confidently up to this point no one who has worked with me would describe me as a slacker.
Unfortunately none of those people are at my new job to vouch for me and a person from upper management (that I actually respect and had hoped to get to know better) has developed this opinion based on two isolated instances.
So what is the life lesson? Proofread all of your work 10 times before handing it in to be proofread? No. Never admit to not knowing something and BS your way through it or ask every one you can think of no matter how long it takes to respond? No. The life lesson I have received from this experience is maybe I should not be so quick to judge others and form opinions. The 1st or even 2nd impression is not always accurate. How many people have who may have respected and hoped to get to know me have I misjudged and not given them a chance? How many meaningful relationships have I missed out on because I jumped to the wrong conclusion about someone’s character? How many joyful experiences could those people have brought to my life?
Joy is largely about opportunity, the opportunity to experience well-being, success, good fortune, as well as the opportunity to posses what you desire. I cannot limit opportunity and still Chase Joy. So I will work on being slower to judge and allow myself more opportunities to get to know people and see what joy they can bring to my life. Who knows maybe I can bring some Joy to theirs as well.
You bring up an important issue with your final point.Many people will leap to conclusions based on appearances. One thing I learned from my psych classes, is sometimes when someone is aggravated about something else they will take it out on an unrelated target. It is called displacement. I am sure this happens a lot in work environments where people are under pressure to perform.
It's hard not to judge, but I try. We all have judged someone at some point in our life.
I am hopping for Flashback Friday.
-Nora
http://norabpeevy.blogspot.com/2011/10/twenty-questions-with-editor-ellen.html
Anonymous, Thanks for reading. I appreciate every comment so please keep them coming!!! 🙂
I'm not sure I would have said anything about the typos. I mean if they did not bring it up to your attention and you caught it, might as well quietly changed it. No one was going to be any wiser. By pointing out your own errors can make appear insecure and unsure of your abilities which you need validation or reassurance.
I do agree that the previous supervisor should not have come up to you in any manner about how answer a email. Although you could have stated in the email that you did not have an answer readily available but to give you a few minutes to research the information and that you'll get back to them. At least then it will make you look proactive instead of just being reactive.
I think people forget what it is like to start in a new position in a new company. Everyone is established and have their little cliques and here are the newbies trying to fit in. But no matter the case, people do make mistakes and it's ok. It's not going to be the end of the world. All you can do is keep going and check your work. But don't constantly check it because you could become very neurotic about it and then make more mistakes. Just take your time and be careful. Glad you stood up for yourself!!
Wow… I thought that this post was going to go somewhere else, but the lesson you learned at the end was a great one. In reading it, I didn't think of that at all, so thank you for sharing. 🙂
I remember when I first started my job over 5 years ago. It was a very rough start. I didn't make the best impression at all: slacker, inaccurate, late, and a few other details. My boss and I had a few big disagreements and those "I need to see you in my office" type talks. I've never had quite a work experience like that.
I absolutely did not like her and thought of her as being too anal and not a good boss. It took some time for me to realize that she was, in essence, pushing me to be a better employee and person. I can't just throw crap together and turn it in. Make more of an effort to do a better job, because it was definitely in me to do. The other thing I needed to learn was to have a better attitude about my work and also, to speak up for myself. Don't allow people to pin things on me when they weren't my fault. Lastly, I learned that everything is not going to be perfect all of the time no matter how hard I work, but still work for perfection. If it isn't perfect, don't take it so hard. Make the correction and move on. I used to carry that stuff with me mentally and that is the reason, I think, that I started having migraines.
Now, we have a great relationship. She's taught me a lot and I think that I've taught her something too. She communicates better with me. I double and triple check things to the best of my ability. I still make mistakes, but I don't dwell on them and no one else does either. Last night / this morning, I worked on some huge spreadsheet making changes and correcting errors that my coworkers made. I had a few mistakes in there too and at midnight when I turned it in, there were only 2 minor errors and at the end of it all I heard, "Great job!"
I'm glad you stood up for yourself and not just accepted what she was trying to say about you. Keep doing that. She will come around. 🙂
Hey Shanita. Thanks for your comments on the blog. Keep them comming:-)
I am not letting the situaton bother me I'm just learning what I can from it and moving forward. I know I'm a good worker so I'll just continue to do what I do in the office and things will get easier as I get more and more familar. Thanks for the words of encouragement.
I understand this very well. I work in a small company. The owner is literally a few feet away from everything. To our customers, they think the company is a larger place with "departments". I am the only one in my "department"… and I handle most of the finances. There are some people that email the owner, he sends it to me, I send a response to the owner, and he forwards my email to "whoever". Could that person just email me? yes. But that's the way corporate BS works. It's BS. Everyone is trying to "C.Y.A." All you can do is work hard, learn from your mistakes, try to be proactive and don't let this bother you. You got the job because you can do it. Learning how to deal with the other BS is "on the job training". Brush it off and move on. Also new jobs take some getting used too. After a few months you'll be fine. Think positive 🙂