Ruh-roh, I had some anger management issues at staff meeting today. There were at least three conversations going on at once as I was trying to explain to a new staff person (who doesn't read her emails, so it's not like I could send her a link to the document and to ask me if she had any questions about inputting data) the spreadsheet I'd created to track volunteer metrics, and another coworker, who has absolutely nothing to do with volunteers or their data, butted in with goofy mocking comments and derailed what I was trying to explain. In the end, all I heard coming about of her mouth was "what you are saying is not worthwhile, shut up". So I stopped talking and let the other conversations continue. Which would have been fine, except I was so offended (another reason I stopped talking, lest I put my foot in my mouth) that I snapped my pencil in half. Agression!fail.
I tried tracking her down during a quiet moment before the end of the day to apologize, but she'd disappeared, and I can't explain why my mood today was so foul that what my mother calls my "artist temper" reared it's ugly head. Can I be PMSing at the end of my cycle?
The buyer whose offer we decided not to accept as too low has come back - after about 3 weeks - with an offer we think we can accept. She must *really* want our house.
We'll lose a bunch of money, but I am pretty ready to be done with homeownership at a distance. And me having a job means we should be able to rebuild our down payment savings within a year or two I think.
This makes the fact that we just filed our taxes and need to send the Feds a large check much easier to bear.
How is that okay?
It's not, we're all hoping she quits soon, because she is constantly declaring how various aspects of her job aren't her job. And if the header of the email doesn't contain info regarding what she does consider her job, and is not from a person that she considers relevant to the topic, she simply doesn't read it. She believes that she should have six weeks of vacation, too.
So, basically, confronting her at staff meetings in front of nine other witnesses is the only way to pin her feet to the floor, because requesting fifteen minutes of her time to discuss something gets me an exasperated eyeroll and "I'm so swamped with grant-writing and the annual gala and they want ME to stuff the envelopes, I don't have time for this!"
That doesn't sound like a person who will quit soon, that sounds like a person who will not pass the 3-month probationary review.
I wish, she was handpicked by the ED, therefore anything she does is blameless. He surely didn't make a wrong choice, now did he?!
brenda - that was exactly my response!
Juliebird, you need to channel your sternest teacher when the talking-over happens. Sit up straight, organize your paper or whatever, and say in that teacher voice "We're getting off track and need to focus on _____." Just keep repeating that until you've regained the floor.
Now, I grant this might be easy for me to do*, but if you have a script, you can use it as a mantra when the frustration mounts.
* as the head of the dev team, who is definitely senior to me, said at a party a couple weeks ago "Oh, but Sara is such a wallflower. Never can get a word out of her" and as I smiled demurely and batted my lashes, everyone cracked up and one of the new people was thoroughly confused. Yes, I've shut down one of his temper-tantrums (his wife was amazed I survived getting lost with him driving. I was all buh? Apparently they get into a lot of fights about directions. Shut up and drive worked for me.) Yes, I'm known to un-derailing meetings rather forcefully, but without drama. I don't have time for drama.
Oh god, that reminds me, next week is a 3 day in house conference. Same as Spain last year. Except the new team lead, omigod. He is the most rambling and easily diverted and oh god, his meeting just ...you remember those stupid Family Circus cartoons with the kids' wanderings? That is a meeting with him. I had the misfortune of a year+ of meeting with him on a project and holy hell, it wasn't herding cats. It was herding fleas. With a rake. In a windstorm. Mission head privately complimented me when they gave me an award on it for my 'ability to keep the XXX team on focus, it's not easily done and was a sight to behold...'
But I don't have a lot of pull on the agenda for the meeting this time, I'm there as a resource. It's going to be painful.
It's awkward, because that really should have been a one on one conversation between me and the DD, but another coworker broached the subject and I saw the opportunity to follow up where she (the DD) couldn't squirrel out. And then keyed-up coworker started mouthing off, and I just shut down. My brain melts, and I was actually mentally lost as to what was going on, what conversation we were having, and what I was supposed to be responding to. Keyed-up coworker then started laughingly asking why I was looking at her like that (I have no idea what look was on my face, hopefully it was poker-blank, as it was when the DD said I could make a sample of a workshop wardian case or flower arrangement to advertise our adult workshops. Oh, why, yes, thank you for finally inputting thoughts as to preparations for the Daffodil Festival two days prior to it happening, and oh yeah, we don't do those kind of workshops anymore, thanks for being aware of what is on offer at our organisation).
Just give yourself tools to deal with this sort of derailment that you can fall back on.
