Sorry I've Been Gone So Long - Getting Your "Mean" On

Sorry I've been gone for so long. I was busy trying to get some things straigtened out. Work is going ok. I started to quit. The traveling was insane. I didn't have a personal life. Posting on the internet on my own blog and others was my little outlet as I sat in a hotel room and tried to relax after a 10-12 hour day working at a branch and then going to dinner with the big dogs and then trying to get some of my personal work done for a few hours, answer emails (work related
), etc.

I really just couldn't take it anymore. I was starting to have bad performance. Ignore some requests because I couldn't get it done or because, as I told my boss, I had lost some drive and a lot of my creativity. I couldn't plan anymore or think about what the next step was because I was just running around finding the next problem. No down time to think it through, come up with a solution and write a plan much less implement it.

So, I told him, in the interest of keeping my reputation, I thought I should leave on a high note with the company before I went the way of many fine employees and totally blew it. I knew for the last three months, I hadn't been performing up to my usual 150%. Hell, I might have even been down to 75%. I knew, if I knew that, it was coming across to the rest of the world.

A funny thing happened. I had my speech all worked out. Stayed up all night (I mean ALL night) Monday, even though I had to catch a plane to San Diego Tuesday morning, and went through my words, over and over. I wrote my resignation. Right in the middle of me giving my little speech, all of a sudden, I just broke down and started crying. Shocked me and shocked my boss. I guess you'd have to know something about me to understand the shockingness of this little episode.

In my company, I have a certain reputation. No, I've never been called a "bitch" at least not within my hearing or repeated to me, but I am definitely considered "tough", "no-nonsense", "decisive", "bad cop" to somebody's "good cop". Once or twice, I've even been referred to as "mean" or "unsympathetic". Those are just the few descriptors I can think of off the top of my head.

I have even expressed some serious disenchantment of folks that break down and cry on the job. For the love of Pete, it's just a job, right? Besides, I said before, I'm not a cryer (I think).

Well, as I tried to explain to one of my friends, after seven years with the same company, it's more like getting a divorce. The slow realization that, this thing that you've committed a major portion of your life to is not working out. It's really bad because, just six months ago, I was talking about wanting the next challenge. Getting promoted. Taking over a division of my own.

Things can change, though. After my Gramms passed on, I realized that I had been missing some really important things. Like family. A personal life. I had messed up on a few things and didn't have a clue how to get them back on line. I wasn't even home long enough to try and figure out how to fix it. That was working on my mind, too. Also, last year, I had looked into going back to college and getting my degree in business management, but things were so crazy, I couldn't even try to do it online at night. This year, I hadn't done anything to my house. No improvements. I was barely keeping up with the dusting. I hadn't even mowed my own yard this entire year. I was paying someone to do it. And, strange as it might seem, I really enjoy mowing my lawn with my riding lawn more. Kind of like meditation. I think men can relate to this pretty well. Maybe women, too, when you think of certain mundane household tasks.

Well, after I got it back together, I went on to say that I just couldn't travel this much anymore and thought it was best that I leave so they could fill my position with someone who could fulfill the company's needs.

The boss, he knew something was wrong. He had asked me twice before if I was looking for another job. I hadn't been. I was too chicken. Couldn't make a decision what I wanted so I hadn't gone out of my way to make something happen. Now I was getting serious.

What was the catalyst? Monday evening, right before I wrote my letter of resignation, I was packing for this trip and I was dreading it. I didn't want to go. I wanted to call it off. Not go to the airport. This was the third time I had those thoughts, so, I knew it was seriously time to evaluate what I wanted. The minute I decided to quit, I had a great weight lifted off my shoulders. I felt like I was free. I realized that this lack of decision on my part was one of the things that was dragging me down.

So, there I was, Tuesday afternoon, trying to hand my boss my resignation. Guess what? He refused to take it. He said there was no way the company could do without me. As a corporate level manager, you know that people aren't indispensible. There is always some way to get by, figure out how to handle things. Maybe he was bulshitting me because he didn't have a clue what he'd do to replace me, until he could figure out what to do. But, it was certainly nice to hear that I'm worth something and he seemed really sincere. Wishful thinking on my part? I don't know, but he went on to offer me to stay home and work out of our local branch for the next three months, at least, and only fly maybe once a month if they really needed me. He said he knew I had a list of ideas that could help move the company and I hadn't been able to move on them because of our work schedule.

Well, I still wasn't totally convinced. I mean, I know there are people in this world that just go to work and get a paycheck, but I felt like I needed satisfaction. I needed to "love" my job in order to give it what was needed. I wasn't loving it anymore. Further, I expressed my concern to him that I was not fulfilling the company's needs and that maybe they needed somebody to do this? I can look at what we're doing, I said, and we need somebody's eyes in the branches to see what they were doing, make sure we were getting what we needed.

He told me he agreed, but maybe we didn't need to descend like locusts like we'd been doing for the last year and, if we could look at some of these things from a distance, we would have more success at figuring a resolution and more time to come up with a thorough plan. Then, it would take less time to implement it because we would have something in black and white to present. Bullet points for the steps.

I then told him I was worried that, by insisting on backing away, that I couldn't handle this pressure right now, that I was knocking myself out of the future promotions I was looking for and thought I should just go somewhere else where I hadn't blown their expectations. He was insistant that this was a none issue. He didn't think any less of me. He just wanted me to be happy and to keep my knowledge with the company. Probably stingy on his part to some extent. One thing I know for sure, nobody but nobody knows the system like I do. Knows our business off the top of their heads. Every month end, I do the predictions for revenue, cash and profit. Am I bragging when I say I can predict it within a couple thousand dollars of the actual? When you're doing 1.5 mil a month, a couple thousand dollars is less than 1% error ratio. Nobody, but nobody, has been close to that accuracy in our company.

So, I guess I have my uses.

I thought about his offer for a day and he asked me again Wednesday what was my plan. Honestly, I couldn't turn it down. It was giving me what I wanted. I'm still worried that I presented a bad moment and wouldn't live it down, but, if they are willing to work with me, I am willing to try it out. I don't have anything to lose and it's hard to give up seven years. It feels like getting a relationship back on line.

You know how people end up divorced (besides abusive relations, etc)? People don't talk. They keep their feelings inside. They think it's just them and that they should deal with it. Or, they think if they bring it up, the other person is going to get really mad and would end up in a worse situation and they don't want to deal with it. Finally, they hold it in so long, they internalize it and the next thing you know, it's blown way out of proportion. That's what I feel like here. I feel like I almost threw away a good relationship (I've been promoted 3 times in the last seven years and gotten over 30k in raises) because I was too afraid to ask for something. Thought I couldn't get it. Now, I feel so much better that I don't have to lose this thing and can still be in the game.

Today, we had a number of issues come up at the branch. I felt really good and solved at three of them pretty quickly and had a bunch of ideas on how we could fix some of our other problems. I even had a suggestion on how to deal with an employee problem. One that's been going on for some time and no one could seem to get it fixed. Frankly, I thought the empoyee was a bum and needed to go, just nobody at the facility was following the right process to get him moved out. So, in typical fashion, I came up with a plan that could be easily implemented and quickly finish the persons tenure (1 year) with us. Everyone seemed really pleased.

You know, I know that sounds bad. I hate to layoff people or fire them. It is NOT something any manager looks forward to. But, when a guy is this bad, he brings down your other employees. He makes it hard for the people around him to get their jobs done. Makes them work harder (and they all work hard already). They start looking at this guy as a screw up and managers as worse screw ups because they just keep letting this guy shit on them. So, when it comes down to it, I'm not the kind to let somebody bring down the organization, just because I hate this part of the job. So, recommendation? If HR didn't like the documentation we had (the previous manager sucked at this) to get him out, it's time for RIF (hell, they need it some more anyway, still not making 10% profit margin, much less the 15% required). He is a high paid position and he doesn't perform and we changed business strategies this month to eliminate the need for these high paid positions. Time for reduction in technicians. Sound tough? This is one time, believe me, when it doesn't hurt too much to say it.

After dinner this evening (late) with my boss and the managers, we came back to the hotel room. I was here about 5 minutes when the phone rang. My boss said, "You know, you were really on tonight. I mean, you were back. You had your "mean" on." What could I say? It was true. As a compliment, some might think that's really kind of back handed. But, I knew what he meant.

Sometimes, what's bad for one employee is good for the company and is good for the rest of his team mates, too. These poor guys were working 10-12 hours a week picking up his slack. Customer service was getting too many complaints. We were having to re-visit too many of our customers because of his poor performance. I'm not letting this go down because the last manager couldn't do their job. This guy is out of there.

And you know what, I feel good. The Kat is back.

Sometimes it feels good to get your "mean" on.