I have spent the latter half of this week focusing on being more positive. I am managing a group of contractors for a project, and one of them arsed something up. Now, I am the queen of arsing things up and I started my professional life as a temp/contractor, so I am usually going to be the one who gives you all manner of latitude, and all manner of leeway.
My problem is that the contractor in question was told to do something a particular way. He was shown the way to do it, and it was explained that things had to be done in a particular way, or there were going to be problems. He was shown 5 times. So, on Tuesday, when I discovered that he had royally arsed things up by not following directions ( I drew pictures!) I was not the most positive of people. In fact, I believe I threatened something about a cast iron frying pan and his head. (Not to him. To Mr. Spit, my boss, my co-workers, Kuri, and anyone else who stood still long enough to listen to me)
This mistake is going to cost me my long weekend. While Mr. Spit heads out of town to see friends and deal with his dad’s house, I’m going to be in my home office, plugging away on my computer.
And this is where the positivity comes in. Whatever else I might think about this guy (and frying pans. Let’s not forget the frying pans) I need to keep reminding myself: I could have passed this off to my boss. I could have never taken on the project in the first place. I could simply not work over the long weekend. I made the choice to work and I need to accept that this was my choice, and I need to own it without complaining. It needs to be something I don’t talk about for reasons other than practicality.
I want more out of my career, and part of that plan is to put the hours in. Part of my plan for success revolves around leadership and initiative. The other part revolves around being helpful and polite and positive. This is the hard part. Not so much the polite and helpful part, but the positive part.
There’s a tendency, or to be more accurate, I tend to whinge about things like this. I’ll work all weekend, but I’ll make sure that everyone knows I’m doing it. I don’t like this about myself. If it’s worth doing (and in this case, it is) then it’s worth doing without complaining about it. What I don’t want is to be “that co-worker“, you know, the one with the list of grievances 6 miles long.
So, I’m confronting my tendency to whinge. And it’s interesting, because even though I’m aware of it, it’s the habit. The whinge-y words slip out of my mouth without me even planning on it. I forget that not whinging is about being modest, about being silent.
I wrote a while back about not trying to be the smartest person in the room. I’d love to tell you I have this licked, I’d love to be able to tell you it’s even a bit under control. The truth is, I have made minute progress – progress that only I can see – and even at that, it seems like every bit of it has been hard won. I come home most days and mentally review my day, and it’s still very rare that I don’t look back and think “Oh, I should have shut up, I was trying to show off, I was trying to be the brightest star in the room again. I didn’t listen and I wasn’t caring.”
So this week not only do I not have the behaviour under control, I learned that I am guilty of a whole new set of sins. I have fallen down in a whole new way. Which brings me back to the contractor. Again, tell me why I’m thinking about hitting him over the head, when I seem to be so slow to learn my lessons?
For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7: 18-25 (NIV)
I have to say that there is a difference between righteous indignation (you explained it to the guy FIVE times! With PICTURES!) and complaining. Sometimes, the difference is the length of time you spend expressing your frustration (oh, and how many things irritate you to the point where you MUST express your frustration).
Part of being a leader, though, is teaching. And part of learning is failing…so you sometimes have to build in time to correct for failure. Sure, you expect people to understand and follow directions, but it doesn’t always work out that way.
I guess my thought is this: Worry less about your verbal responses to unpleasantness and work more towards expecting the roadblocks and devising solutions to deal easily with them so you don’t get frustrated in the first place.
Also, I was involved in a leadership program sponsored by my employer (and if you knew anything about my employer and their “leadership” you would laugh so hard you’d give yourself an aneurysm). One of the segments involved having us read The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara – not only is it an engaging read about the US Civil War, it gives some interesting insight into leadership styles and the positive and negative aspects that go along with those styles.
Wish you didn’t have to work this weekend.
And I’ve hidden the frying pan, in case you are feeling some transference onto me!
http://livingimperfectly.blogspot.com/2010/07/perfect-poem.html
This poem reminded me of your post. We all do it to ourselves. In different ways, I suppose. But we all are guilty of it to a degree, I think.
I agree, there is complaining and there is doing what needs to be done. But you are entitled to some complaining and this guy should be fired if he does it again.
Oh, how the Lord loves to show us our shortcomings…especially once we recognize them and fail once more in our attempt to change. I have certain flaws of my own (sins, if you will) that I struggle with daily. Usually it involves the words from my mouth…which in actuality emanate from my sinful heart. And through out this struggle I still try to justify my own wrong behavior and put the blame on that “other person”.
All of that is not bad. Paul dealt with his “thorn in the flesh”. And my own “thorn in the flesh” keeps my humbly and painfully aware of my own sin before God.
I have a very special cast iron frying pan that you can borrow. I don’t think complaining about that contractor was whinging. I think your frustration and anger was/is justified.
Whinge-ing is a right, but must be carefully doled out to a safe few like bloggy friends.
Sorry for the loser contractor who needs a major arse kick.
frick i love you!
easter basket inded!!
You know, sometimes our anger is justified. Truly. But just because someone has behaved badly (or stupidly) doesn’t not justify bad behavior from us. We are always in control of ourselves. Or at least should be. The contractor might have been stupid. That might have made you mad, but you did not ‘blast’ him, and you shouldn’t have. You did vent your spleen to others. Understandable. The other thing I think that you should make clear is that this has been carefully explained. With drawings. If the man is incapable of following instructions, this will weigh heavily in future decision in future projects. Hold him accountable in a productive professional manner. And then go bash something inanimate with the frypan.
There is way too much ‘tit for tat’ going on in this world.
Yes – like Martha said – whinging can always be done safely here. But it does sound like said contractor could use some frying pan reprimanding. Of course, would that only contribute to future problems?!?!
I think this is a post we all should print out and hang in our offices. I bet everything in my pockets right now (which isn’t much, sorry!) that we have all a tendency to whinge about things just for the sake of whinging. I know I do.