Posted by noa on February 11, 2004, at 18:41:18
In reply to Feeling highly irritated and frustrated right now, posted by Penny on February 11, 2004, at 11:39:32
I can relate. Some days I get really irritated at the way people do and don't communicate at work. There are the ones who can't communicate anything directly--they talk around the issue and drop hints and all. To survive this, I've decided basically to ignore the hinting and indirectness and pretend I'm oblivious to it. If they want me to do something, they will need to come out and say it. The reality is that I do notice the hinting and it can make me really irritated, but I decided I have to stop taking responsibility for or reacting to these things because they need to just come out and say what they have to say. This approach has been helping me not get so irritated, and able to stick to doing my job. I just pretend I'm oblivious.
Another communication irritation is when they just don't tell us stuff and we hear it in some roundabout fashion or when it's too late. Sometimes the clients will call to ask us something about what they heard and we feel foolish because we haven't heard anything at all!
Duplication irritation is another issue I relate to, as well. We have a lot of overlapping and poorly defined roles and procedures so sometimes I will get on a problem only to discover that someone else is working on it too, and we eventually kind of bump into each other somewhere along the way. This irritates me. Often, the other person involved should have contacted me to let me know about this issue and we needed to decide who will follow up on it.
One type of dysfunctional communication pattern at work is that there will be a problem. Someone in the system will notice it and raise it but raise it with the wrong person. They'll bring in yet a third person who is not the right person to deal with it. There will be emails back and forth discussing how to deal with it, only in the meantime, the problem is not getting solved. Then, depending on their personalities, the anxiety level of these back and forth emails goes up and up and then suddenly one of them figures out the problem might fall under my area so someone cc's me one of the email exchanges only by now at least one of them is really irritated with ME about the problem and why isn't it solved yet anyway! When I read this email, I am coming in the middle of the story, of course and because no one had even let me know there was a problem how was I supposed to address it. I really resent these things. But I have learned to be assertive about them--ie, get someone to bring me up to speed, when was the problem noticed, what is going on, etc. and that I'll get on it. And I tell them they should have consulted me in the first place and this wouldn't have been such a big deal if they had. Some of them seem to get it when I tell them that and some say "sorry" but then go on to repeat the pattern some time later on.
BTW, what are the responsibilities of the person who went ahead and played with the stationary and logo, which is your job? IE, what is she not tending to on her own docket while she is encroaching on yours?
poster:noa
thread:312042
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040209/msgs/312213.html