Thursday, July 24, 2008

I just click the mouse... stay away from MY mouse

Since coming back from vacation, things have been getting more and more interesting at work. Confused N has been utterly nice to me, for one. Then, Consultant C has let me know that he's going to be our new boss (very fine with me indeed). C is asking us all to evaluate what it is that we do, and decide what is most important to us. It is getting more and more well known that I am spread very very thin. However, I'm not overly inclined to give up any of the things that I do. It's the burden of a control freak, I guess.

When Consultant C asked me which of two major directions I wanted to take, he asked me in front of the entire team. First off, I'm not sure I'm ready to answer that question. Plus, it's something I'd rather discuss with him one-on-one. However, everyone looked at me expectantly. I am VERY poor at hiding my feelings. Everyone was trying to read me. C joked around with me, "No opinion? That can't be." First I responded with our standard joke line of frustration: I just click the mouse. Then I responded that I had a lot to think about and that I wasn't ready to talk about it just yet. (It is pretty difficult for me to keep my own counsel. Though, I felt it was prudent since I really don't think the two main areas of my job can be separated.)

When Consultant C asked her what direction she would like to take now that she would no longer be burdened by management stuff she said she wanted to get back into doing some development work, maybe automated some of our processes. C mused that she was particularly interested in helping me automated some of MY processes. ... um ... I've been working on automating my own processes more and more, as time allows.

Confused N gave up all of her operational roles when she moved into management. Now that she's not going to be management, she needs to reclaim some of them or carve out some new space for herself. While I know that I am overtaxed, I am not about to give up any of my stuff to her. I like writing scripts on occasion too, you know. And, I know my processes quite well. I have just enough leftover bad blood with her not to want to spend significant time with her explaining my processes so that she can automate them for me. Nor do I want to give her the fodder to come through looking like a hero by letting her improve MY processes.

Petty? Of course. Controlling? No doubt about it.

1 comment:

briwei said...

I have NEVER known you to have control issues. Wait. Change NEVER to FREQUENTLY. ;-)