Work has been hell this week, for a variety of reasons. But the biggest thing was that I finally FINALLY had a talk with my manager about some of the things that bothered us both about our working relationship. My therapist says I need to be more assertive... well, I tried :-) here's a recap.

I went into this meeting frustrated, tired, and demoralized from my long week. The biggest thing though, was that the day before my manager had snapped at me while I was on a client call, and later after I'd gotten off the call accused me of not doing my job right, not "prioritizing" the client well enough. I didn't react well.

Let me back up and explain why I've had such a hard time with this manager. From the very start I've found it hard to approach him for any reason whatsoever, mainly because I find him hypercritical, long-winded, and sometimes difficult to understand. Sometimes when I've gotten off a client call, I talk to him and he tells me the one thing I did right and then goes straight in to a bulleted, itemized 30-point list of what I could improve on. Basically, my therapist explained that he triggers the hypercritical voice in myself which makes it very difficult to work. For this reason, I've spent a significant amount of my working hours trying to avoid him.

This is not a good strategy for a variety of reasons. For one, if you have difficult work to do it is hard to get it done without asking questions. Since I didn't feel comfortable with him, I just muddled through my work hoping to get it right. Whoops.

Secondly, (and this is one I didn't realize until I talked to him today) if you don't have a good line of communication, your manager must rely on guesswork to decide if you're doing a good job or not. I had worked 30 hours by the end of Tuesday (16 hours total on Monday! ), but because of the maybe 5 minutes he spent watching me on Tuesday on a client call, he told me that he didn't feel I was "prioritizing" the client. He chewed me out for going to a meeting at noon rather than working 1 on 1 with the client on a particular problem they had. Ok buddy... I've been in the working world for 1 1/2 years, I can't read your mind on what you want... I went to the meeting because I'm trying to do my job well and I thought it was required! Jeez.

Ok, so back to the meeting I had with him to hash these things out. I went into it determined to be professional, but unsurprisingly he took the lead in the meeting and it didn't go as I hoped. I tried to diplomatically apologize for panicking the day before when he interrupted me during my client call, but tactfully suggest he wait until AFTER I'm on a call to give me constructive criticism. That's when he started telling me he didn't think I had behaved appropriately, going to the noon meeting.

This eventually devolved into me saying what wasn't working for me in our professional relationship, and he got defensive. I found out (and this is the FIRST time he's ever said this) that he questions the quality and quantity of my work! That absolutely kills me, because whether he sees it or not, I put my heart and soul into this job. It's probably true that in the past I haven't worked as much as he wants. Partly because of the stress the job (and he) causes me, compounded with my SAD, there were weeks when I barely got anything done, and just sat at my desk for 40 hours. Also, this time of year, I move as slow as molasses and my thinking isn't as straight :-( However, I've been going to a therapist now for a little over a month-ish, and I've been using her techniques to help me focus and get more work done when I'm at work. If he knew HOW HARD I was trying... god if he knew how hard I was trying.

I'm not going to tell him about the SAD or any of that. I don't want to be attached to the stigma of a mental disorder at work. Unfortunately, in this meeting I had with him I got so upset because I'd been bottling in all these feelings and resentment for so long. That's no way to live. It wasn't pretty--fortunately for me, I'd been approached to join a different team last week, so at the end of our meeting/confrontation, I choked out that I wanted to join this other team.

Lessons learned: if you must approach a manager at work about a problem you're having, do it early (in a positive, assertive way) and don't bottle it in because that's not a winning strategy. In the long run, it will not help you. Relationships are very important at work, and even though avoiding someone in the short run may be easier, you need them on your side to an extent for the long haul. My manager, by the way, told me that he'd hold no hard feelings for me if I moved teams--I hope that's truly the case. I don't think I'm in danger of losing my job, but hopefully I can salvage my professional reputation if it's been damaged.

So there's my ridiculous essay-- I needed to get this off my chest somehow. Take it for what it's worth, and maybe it'll be useful to you and maybe not.

Also:

TGIF. SERIOUSLY.