Not all of us are fortunate to work in the field where we are passionate. By that I mean to be a pro rider in the Tours, to write for a cycling magazine or something connected to the bicycle. That would by very cool and probably so adrenaline filled I would be a maniac, see earlier 'a-type personality' comments. But even in these environments there are still squabbles and petty turf wars that hamper even the coolest of heads on the team.
Thus enters my story. I am a low level bureaucrat of choosing. For years I worked in the upper echelons of corporate management and got burned out on take-overs, unending contractual loop-hole squirming and yes, petty turf wars instead of team work. So I made a choice to take a government job that is out of the sniping scope of mid level bureaucrats and where I could effect everyday people for the better. Well that was until New Years Eve when a innocent remark by yours truly and that age old game of 'telephone' got word back to said mid level turf protecting bureaucrat that I had indeed slandered and besmirched their discussion. Not so!
There are three, count them 3, different government offices rolled into one where I work, kinda like a 7/11 where you can take care of several different thing in one place. The efficiency is mind boggling for a government right? So anyway each department has a supervisor and an assistant and by all reasonable accounts the laws governing each one necessitates the redundancy. But all in all we seem to get along in our little fiefdoms, we being the vassals of course.
But on the fateful day we were crushed with business and not realizing the time of day and having just received a stern lecture on the amount of time it was taking the staff to take care of business was not what I had quoted to the customer, I formed a simple question out loud. Not realizing that those simple words I uttered would be followed by a crap storm of he said-she said with me as the the one holding the dagger still dripping the blood of a mid-level supervisors character.
Sound dramatic to you? Well you should be able to imagine my surprise when I got called into the office for this breach of protocol...I was taken back to the 5th grade as it were. The way it was handled made me recall when I was a manager for the first time and felt that my authority was being threatened, not that there was a problem with the service or the quality or the safety of the employees. It was my my little kingdom and no one should utter words questioning my abilities.
I guess bottom line is the old saying that seems to making it's way around again, it is what it is. The other sayings on this foolishness reminds me of the one that managers must have thick skin and you can't believe everything you hear. I'm sure there are a plethora of sayings for just this kind of crap but it still doesn't stop the insecure would be lords from beating the help dose it.
In future if you should find yourself in this type of situation I hope you can remember that we are just here for a while and that if we were to have, say, been in Lances shoes last Tour de France would we have been so team oriented as to help Berto win the Tour in-spite of Berto's turf war with his own team mates?
If I pass you on the road stop at Peets, because your buying.
No comments:
Post a Comment