Stop Pissing Me Off What to Do When the People You Work with Drive You Crazy (28 page)

relationship toolbox

How to Move froM PiSSed off to Powerful

PiSSed off

Powerful

Throwing up your hands when a Using last-ditch conflict techniques conflict recycles

Complaining or whining

Asking specifical y for what you want

Documenting complaints that

Documenting verifiable facts

include biases or conclusions

Complaining on e-mail

Talking in person

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17.

WHEN YOu CAN’T “LOvE THE

ONE YOu’rE WiTH”

How to create a plan to move on.

Sally walked along the new outdoor mall, blind to the brilliant blue Colorado sky and deaf to the laughter of children playing in the outdoor fountain. Nothing could brighten her mood. She noticed the planter and the decorative retaining wall on the curb but didn’t care to know if her architectural firm had designed them or not. At one point she’d taken great pride in the work her firm provided to the world. As one of the group’s PR mavens, she had written books and articles trumpeting their success but now she could care less about their progress. Her new boss of the last six months—alternately overbearing, irritating, condescending, or sugary sweet—had drained her of any pleasure in her work. She’d read all the books, and tried everything they suggested, but nothing worked. She needed out NOW!

throwing in the towel

It is a useful exercise, as we’ve discussed in previous chapters, to learn how to “love the one you’re with” but at some point,

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 Pissing Me Off!

even the best of us need to fold our cards, pack up our tent, and move on. How do you know if it’s your time? Take this test, answering yes or no for each item:

n You honestly do not have a bad habit of leaving jobs at the first sign of difficulty or conflict.

n You’ve diligently tried all the tricks in this book in order to improve your chances of loving your current job and managing the difficult people with whom you work. n You’re constantly miserable.

n Your mental or physical health is suffering because of your job.

n You’re being subjected to mental or physical abuse or harassment.

n Your spouse, best friend, significant other, priest, and/or therapist is telling you that he or she can’t stand to hear about your crummy work situation one more time.

If the answer is yes to two or more of these questions, you need, as U2 advises, to “Walk On.”

disaster preparedness

Before you do make your move, however, be prepared. Consider these essential truths: 1. It is much easier to get a job when you have a job. 2. Burned bridges are difficult to rebuild.

3. An updated resume and a financial cushion should be in place, if possible, before you leave.

4. You may need emotional and financial support during the process.

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17.
  When You Can’t “Love the One You’re With”

Before, during, and after your move, one thing to be aware of is that you will most likely go through a process of grieving, even if you believe that the move is ultimately for the best. Because most of us are comforted by the familiar, we go through classic and predictable stages of leaving the old ways whenever we have to learn or do something new. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, the famous therapist and death and dying expert, outlined this process. In her experience in working with many people who were dying, she learned that there are five stages to the process. Other theorists have realized that those stages are the predictable stages of
all loss
, not just death. The first stage is
denial.
You deny that the loss is necessary or even happening. You want to avoid the move, change, or loss, and ignore all of the warning signs.

The next stage is
anger
. At this stage you realize that the change is inevitable and start railing at the universe in anger about the fact that it’s occurring. You may lash out at those closest to you, or your anger may turn inward and you may find yoursef dealing with depression. It’s common at this stage to be unaware of the real source of your anger.

The third stage is
bargaining
: trying to negotiate with whatever power or gods you believe in, promising that you’ll do or say anything if the change doesn’t happen. Like desperate gamblers, you may promise piety or your firstborn child in order to avoid the loss.

The fourth stage is
depression.
You realize that bargaining won’t work and you feel a deep sadness, usually disguised as depression, over this realization.

Acceptance
is when you realize that the gig is up: this terrible thing really is going to happen. You accept that the change will occur, adjust your life accordingly, and plan for the future. The application of this system in the workplace is important. You need to work your way through all five stages before

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 Pissing Me Off!

you can really be present and available to your soul to discover what you want to do next.
It is critical that you not make a
final decision about what to do next until you’ve worked your
way through all the stages, unless your emotional and/or physi-
cal health makes that impossible.

Be aware that most people do not travel through these stages on a straight line. You may proceed with one step forward, two steps backward. Yet if you’re aware of the grief process and if you chart your progress, you generally move in an upward spiral to resolution and acceptance.

When you’re faced with the possibility of a new idea or change, you must take stock of where you are in the grieving process and work though your feelings. The only way around these feelings is through them. If you deny they exist, you block the energy that you could use more successfully for the future. If you sink too deeply into any stage, especially depression, you can become mired in analysis paralysis and fail to move. It is easy to get stuck at any stage of the process. Anger (gone inward as depression) is certainly the most common, but it can happen at any of the other stages also. Many people, in fact, can stay stuck in anger and its twin, depression, for most of their lives, unable to move on after being blindsided by a big loss. In order to avoid this fate, you need to make sure that you work your way through all of the stages of loss. You may need the help of a mental health professional, minister, or priest in order to do so. Grief work truly is work.

Various kinds of expressive endeavors, such as art, dance, and music, can also be helpful in moving you along the path. The trick is to do something—not just sit back passively and assume that your emotions will take care of themselves. Taking care of your emotions responsibly, through one of these methods, is just as essential as taking care of your body through diet, exercise, and visits to a health-care practitioner.

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The other paradigm that I’ve found useful in moving through these stages is that of William Bridges, PhD, whose classic book
Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes
also provides help for the journey through the maze of walking on. In his system, it’s not the new idea that most people are avoiding; it’s the sometimes painful, disruptive, and scary movement through the transition. His theory is that transition involves three distinct phases and that failure to complete any particular phase can lead to an incomplete and unnecessarily painful transition.

The three Bridges phases are:

endings.
The old has ended but the new has not begun. In order to move on, you need to acknowledge the old. This is the phase at which many difficulties appear. Bridges recommends that people consciously plan “funerals” or other rituals that commemorate this phase.

The neutral Zone.
The old has ended but the new way is not clear. I call this the chaos zone, because “the neutral zone”

sounds much too benign to me. Many chaotic events occur in this zone, and it’s easy to become lost and confused. Bridges uses the analogy of Moses leading people through the desert for forty years, during which time people must have been totally frustrated and questioning how Moses could possibly know what he was doing! Can you imagine being Moses? Every day he had to get up and convince people. “All right! Another great day of marching! Only twenty more years left!”

The new Beginning.
At this point the new way is clear. Bridges recommends that people also celebrate this phase by marking it with some ceremonial or ritual gesture.

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 Pissing Me Off!

All of these issues occur in groups. For example, one of my clients began a large-scale reorganization effort designed to change the company’s command-and-control environment to a more inclusive one. The CEO expected employees to love the changes, because they would have more input into decision-making. Much to his surprise, however, workers balked. They questioned the changes, carped that the proposal was too complex, and generally stalled on implementing new processes and procedures. At first the executive team assumed that the employees were resisting the change itself, so they charged ahead with a series of focus groups to better inform people about why they were installing the new methods and procedures. What the groups revealed, however, was that workers didn’t object to the goal. What they were resisting was the transition process. Their number one question was, “What resources are going to be available to help me do my job during this transition?”

Without knowing
how
they personally could get through the change, the workers wanted no part in understanding the
why
behind the change.

What tools and resources do you need to get you through your particular change? Consider the following list: psychological help, career coaching, or spiritual support; more information about your legal rights; or perhaps Friday night out with the girls, drinking margaritas.

Please take all the time you need to determine what support you need to get through this transition. Certainly friends and relatives can be helpful (although you should stay away from those nervous nellies who question your need to leave a “perfectly good job”), but you may also need to seek professional support from a job counselor, therapist, minister, or other counselor. Such professionals can provide the objectivity that others lack. If you’re the graduate of a college or university,

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your alma mater may allow you to come back and use its career support services long after you’ve graduated.

yes, virginia, there is a santa claus

Sometimes when you leave a job, you may be able to do so with your pockets full of money (or at least a check). At a minimum, you want to research using all your sick leave and vacation time. Also, be sure to find out whether your health insurance can stay intact if you’re going to be unemployed for a while. A federal law called COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) requires your employers to offer you the option of keeping your insurance for some period of time. You might want to explore any other legal rights you might have.
get the law on your side

A one-time consultation with an attorney can pay off. Employment law, as with most other areas of the law, is quite specialized these days. Because employment lawyers specialize in representing plaintiffs (employees) or defendants (employers), you need to be sure to find someone who specializes in plaintiff’s employment law, preferably as all or most of his or her practice. Ask your local bar association or the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA) for a referral.

What legal claims might you have? Sally, for example, the depressed PR person for the architectural firm, walked on when her boss tried to change her long-standing schedule. Because of health problems, she’d always worked four short days. Her new boss basically took a take-it-or-leave-it attitude.

“This is the job you have,” she sniffed.

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 Pissing Me Off!

Sally consulted an attorney who analyzed her situation under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), which provides that employees have the right to take off up to twelve weeks a year (unpaid) to take care of their own health situation or the health problems of their immediate family members. You’re not required to take all twelve weeks at the same time, as long as you can document the need to take the days at different times. The attorney also looked at whether Sally had any partial disability claims. Though the attorney was unable to determine for sure whether Sally had any claims, she helped Sally draft a letter outlining her concerns and advised her what to request from her employer.

In a panic, Sally called her attorney in the middle of the negotiations. “I’m afraid that they’ll think I’ve talked to an attorney if I say what you’ve suggested,” she whined.

“So?” responded Ms. Attorney.

“But then it will turn into a confrontation.”

“So?” repeated Ms. Attorney.