Posted by allisonm on September 13, 2000, at 14:37:49
In reply to Re: followup---Shar needs help to read post, posted by shar on September 13, 2000, at 12:27:18
Shar, here it is:
Everyone, thank you very very much for your responses. They have helped a lot.The meeting was harder than I anticipated. I had to defend myself in order to keep my position. At
this hour, I think I succeeded, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. In any case, I am going to have to act
saner than a sane person to prove myself from now on.I went in and said thanks, but a leave isn't necessary. That wasn't enough. My boss threw out impressions she'd
gotten from our last tumultuous meeting, so I had to back up and show her the stresses and situations leading up
to that hour. She brought up comments I had made
about questioning myself when one of my staff resigned recently. I said that's normal, and
again brought up all of the stresses from that day.She brought up how I admitted that in April things were bad. That I had told her that even the people I
supervised noticed it. I said, yes, I was experiencing a dip personally, but also, bad things were happening at
work and my people were not handling things well. There was a lot of hand-wringing and fussing about things,
and instead of telling them to suck it up or telling them they weren't doing or acting the way I thought they
should, I stayed silent because I didn't want to make the situation worse, so yes they did detect more silence and
avoidant behavior from
me. Then I pointed out that the stigma of mental illness is pervasive and long lasting. .. more than I thought, and I
regret ever mentioning
it because I think it's being used unfairly as a reason. I brought up how just the Friday before last my boss told
me what a great job I'd been
doing and how I have a spotless record.In my office, we do things in two distinct areas. She presented this plan to promote someone I supervise (I'll call
him "Fred") so that he would be in charge of One Thing and I would keep my salary and title, but I'd just be in
charge of the Other Thing instead of both and supervising Fred. My boss would supervise him instead. I said
looking at the face of it, that would be a demotion. She backed off some, said it was just an idea and we could
talk about it some more. Then I brought out
many reasons why it would not be a good idea. I told her that Fred's and my jobs in both areas are so
intertwined that they could not be easily split into divisions. He does the routine and happy stuff. I do the
administrative stuff, the larger, riskier, more serious projects, and I handle the hard situations when crises arise.
She said she was only looking to try to take some of the load off me so that things would not be so stressful. She
said things were only going to get more stressful as we begin a new mega project.I told her that since she was moved out of our office, we communicate only a fraction of what we did, and I
think that my once-a-week hourlong
meetings probably focused on the very worst of the week, which for the last 3 or 4 meetings have had to do with
personnel issues -- one person
quitting, another threatening to start looking for another job because he didn't think he'd gotten a big enough
raise, etc. I kept my cool. I
spoke calmly, matter-of-factly. I did not cry. I maintained eye contact for most of the time except when I was
working to phrase my most crucial
answers well.I offered to supply job descriptions of those in my department including mine. I asked her who else knew that
she'd proposed a leave. There are two - the big cheese and another lateral to her in the administration. I
mentioned the stigma again. I said I would get the job descriptions to her and we ended it there. It was a tense
ending (again). We were staring at each other. I think she was searching me to see what I was thinking, but I just
stared at her with pursed lips. I had nothing more
to say. I knew she wasn't happy with the way the meeting was ending. The air was thick. She knew I was
angry/bothered but was not about to talk
anymore about it.It was not long that I was back in my office when the phone rang. It was my boss. She said she'd listened
carefully to what I'd said and had been thinking about it. She said she went right away to the administrators and
told them that a leave was not necessary.She said that she thinks she read me wrong in our meeting last week and suggested leaving things as they are and
having her be in charge of the mega project and the "larger picture" planning. Fine with me. Frankly, we're
swamped. I told her in several different ways that I did not want to give up that one component of my job. I feel
my background gives me an edge in strategizing and I like to do that. I also pointed out that Fred is not so good
in crisis situations. She agreed.So it looks as though I'm still in charge of what I was before. We agreed we need more communication. It was
good before, because we could
pop into each other's offices and talk about the work at hand instead of setting up formal weekly meetings where
only the most urgent issues could be addressed. She needs to be more connected again so that she'll understand
just what pressures we're under. She hasn't been able to be as good an advocate since moving out.I told her I felt better. I know she felt better. So things seem smoothed out. I am still watching my back.
poster:allisonm
thread:469
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20000813/msgs/533.html