Amongst the things my boss mentioned to me at my review back in December was that some people in the office set goals for what they want to get accomplished in any given day so that when they get there they can get right to work. This is was not a new idea to me and is something that I had been doing and still do, but apparently he didn't think that I did. Last Friday I showed up to work with two tasks that I definitely wanted to get done and felt that the small amount of work on my other project wouldn't keep me from completing the other two.
I had to make one phone call to my client to clarify something that was going on with another member of the design team and it got out of control and became a shit show that consumed the rest of day entirely. My boss and I talked about me calling the client to talk about the situation and instead of just picking up the phone and calling him like I probably should have, I decided to email him and ask when he'd be free. He runs a company so it made sense to me find out rather than to just surprise him with a call. He responded fairly quickly to say that he'd call me in a half hour. That was fine with me, it gave me time to work on my two main tasks of the day (incidentally not a part of this clients projects). Giving him that half hour sealed the fate of my productive day. In my email I mentioned to him what I wanted to discuss, and I find out later that hadn't been paying much attention to this particular issue and in that half-hour he was able to look into it and to get himself pretty worked up about it.
He called me from the road and started right off on the offensive and shouting into the phone about the problem and how it shouldn't be his responsibility, nor should he be on the hook for the cost, and even further that he was the one coordinating the project when it should be my company. This isn't remotely true, we've coordinated more than he realizes, and it's only when he's struck with an additional cost that he accuses others of not doing their jobs. Regardless, he was upset and came at me with such a fervor that I couldn't respond, I was caught so off guard that I didn't know what to say to him, which is exactly what he wanted I'm sure. Clearly I don't react well to being yelled at, never have in my life, and unfortunately this project has seen me being shouted at on multiple occasions by the client, the GC, the designer, and less directly, by my other boss at my review.
But I digress.
Aside from the fact that I had a lot of damage control to do, this conversation so flummoxed me that I couldn't recover for the rest of the day and made no progress on my other tasks. And its not as though I sat around moping all day, there was a lot of management-type work to do on this project to keep the client happy. I feel as if I've been talking for the last two weeks and not actually getting any work done. This project has had a series of deadlines set first by the GC, and then by the client, and now the GC has set another for this Friday, so I once again feel that I need to get through this week and everything will be fine - again. I hope this time is really it and that 95% of the remaining project close out work gets done this work so theres less to be yelled at about.
Even once this project gets done I'll still have to deal with the fact that I'm going to get yelled at by people who want to have control and the upper hand in a situation. That's a real fault of mine and one that is not conducive to leadership.
I need to work on this.
I had to make one phone call to my client to clarify something that was going on with another member of the design team and it got out of control and became a shit show that consumed the rest of day entirely. My boss and I talked about me calling the client to talk about the situation and instead of just picking up the phone and calling him like I probably should have, I decided to email him and ask when he'd be free. He runs a company so it made sense to me find out rather than to just surprise him with a call. He responded fairly quickly to say that he'd call me in a half hour. That was fine with me, it gave me time to work on my two main tasks of the day (incidentally not a part of this clients projects). Giving him that half hour sealed the fate of my productive day. In my email I mentioned to him what I wanted to discuss, and I find out later that hadn't been paying much attention to this particular issue and in that half-hour he was able to look into it and to get himself pretty worked up about it.
He called me from the road and started right off on the offensive and shouting into the phone about the problem and how it shouldn't be his responsibility, nor should he be on the hook for the cost, and even further that he was the one coordinating the project when it should be my company. This isn't remotely true, we've coordinated more than he realizes, and it's only when he's struck with an additional cost that he accuses others of not doing their jobs. Regardless, he was upset and came at me with such a fervor that I couldn't respond, I was caught so off guard that I didn't know what to say to him, which is exactly what he wanted I'm sure. Clearly I don't react well to being yelled at, never have in my life, and unfortunately this project has seen me being shouted at on multiple occasions by the client, the GC, the designer, and less directly, by my other boss at my review.
But I digress.
Aside from the fact that I had a lot of damage control to do, this conversation so flummoxed me that I couldn't recover for the rest of the day and made no progress on my other tasks. And its not as though I sat around moping all day, there was a lot of management-type work to do on this project to keep the client happy. I feel as if I've been talking for the last two weeks and not actually getting any work done. This project has had a series of deadlines set first by the GC, and then by the client, and now the GC has set another for this Friday, so I once again feel that I need to get through this week and everything will be fine - again. I hope this time is really it and that 95% of the remaining project close out work gets done this work so theres less to be yelled at about.
Even once this project gets done I'll still have to deal with the fact that I'm going to get yelled at by people who want to have control and the upper hand in a situation. That's a real fault of mine and one that is not conducive to leadership.
I need to work on this.
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