power structures

[gurdonark]

I used to hate being an employee. I have felt the fury of a direct verbal assault by a superior more than once in my life. I have had the job reviews in which each raise or promotion was accompanied by expressions like "you're bright and talented enough, but we wonder why we keep you on in light of your many shortcomings". I have felt the smooth, sharp stilleto of an office politics "assasination", slid earnestly into the back, leaving me bleeding (though, interestingly, always suffering, yet never, sadly, quite politically dead). I have survived a palace coup or two, and even developed some facility with the dark arts of subtle defense in my own right.

I've sat through "team meetings", in which the "team" is constructed for the primary purpose of emphasizing how some few in the team are to be exalted, "in control", and largely at relative leisure, while others are to do the real work. I am not by personality a cog on someone else's team. I want to be a contributor in my own right.

But far worse than being an employee is being a boss. When I was a youngish lawyer, I was considered a fun boss. But as the pressures in my life to "succeed" increased, so, too, did my patience and good humour decrease. I am one of those people who is very task-driven. I had very little patience for subordinates who did not take their work seriously. I always thought that finding another profession, not slacking through the law-related professions, was the best way for one to deal with job malaise. As a result, I was a very demanding boss. I tended to insist that things be done, and get frustrated with people who could not stay "on task", particularly as a deadline loomed.

I really disliked being a boss. I do not like to hold authority over other people; more accurately stated, the part of me that does like to hold authority over other people is a part of me I deeply despise.

When we moved to Texas, I resolved that I would never be a traditionally demanding boss again. I by-passed potentially more lucrative avenues so that I would not be an employee. Now, as a boss, I tend to avoid putting any pressure on anyone to get anything accomplished. I assume that I must be the motive force in getting anything done. There's a kind of harmony to this, because under the "rules" applicable to such things, I'm the only truly responsible party when it comes to official deadlines and the like anyway.

I must admit that the sheer stress reduction of being neither a boss nor an employee really has lowered my stress levels measurably.
Even times like now, when I am under a lot of work stress due to sheer workload and deadlines, I feel much less "stretched" by the dual "rings of power"--authority and servility. I am sad to admit that I get somewhat less productivity from those who work with me than I expected in hard-driving days. But it's no fun being Machiavelli--give me Gandhi any day.

Comments

I'm Just Now Getting a Taste of What You Mean

[ziactrice.livejournal.com]

Now that I'm self-employed, I do not have any others to deal with, besides the customers for whom I am cleaning houses, alone. This has made a tremendous difference in how willing I am to get up and go to work in the mornings.

And in how often I have tummy aches, insomnia, and ulcers... I like working for people, too, but I will not tolerate being abused well. I think that sort of job simply isn't worth it, these days. And I've been unemployed since November 1st.

Re: I'm Just Now Getting a Taste of What You Mean

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I hope that you are able to get the additional customers necessary to make your business self-support. I have a relative whose training was chem. e., as yours is, but who went back to school for speech and language pathology. She's now in her first year of practice. She likes it. Although she is an "employee", she works in an environment where she does one on one therapy with kids, and the improvement over a corporate environment is noticeable for her. Your business really offers some potential for independence--and the nice thing about a nasty client is you can always "lay down the law" and say "life is too short for this".

[amatrixangel.livejournal.com]

ha ha. Forgive me for laughing (smiling I should say ;)

It's like 'Welcome to the world' :-)

um ....that's why I left the 'real' world btw for a life in arts and entertainment. I've never had one day of stress ever since I left the ranks of 9 to 5. Or 'boss' or 'employee'. If it's not fun, I don't do it.

Life is short.

Actually I did run into some trouble today for the first time in years. I spoke to someone and said, "Are you trying not to make this fun?" (something to do with a casting director or more to the point, me not being a casting director or a member of the CSA, they gave me a rough time). They looked at me rather strange.

R E L A X should be in more people's vocabulary, don't you feel?

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Not only RELAX, but also FOCUS on the *right things*. :)

[amatrixangel.livejournal.com]

ahhh. Yes. Relax is easy. Focus is easy. The 'right thing'... is where we often stray. As a boss you know the right thing for the employee to do. As an employee we know the right thing. Or do we?

For me, the 'right thing' gets more into the spiritual realm. Yoda territory. I mean, not as much as 'what's good for 'me' ' but what's the best thing for my soul at this moment? Even better, what's the right thing for the other person in what I'm doing?

Just taking it back to the personal, how do we really know when we are focusing on the right thing? Is it when the boss stops 'yelling' at us? Is it when you don't have to yell at an employee and they start doing what you actually want them to do?

Say I'm daydreaming at my desk. Thinking wonderful thoughts of my girlfriend. I'm not paying much attention to what work is in front of me and the boss notices and comes over and tells me to get on with it. To the boss, the work was the right thing. To me, collating and sending out the vibes of love was the right thing. At that time, 'two right things' were in place, from different perspectives. Could they both be right? Only one of them? Neither of them? Or was another thing the 'right thing'? Like the room catching fire next door but neither of us noticed because we were focused on two different 'right' things.

One day the right thing will be revealed to me. In the meantime, I sit around and smile a lot like an idiot.

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I came to that realization a while ago. For almost a decade I had the problem solved by teaching part-time and running my own one-woman business. I avoided becoming a boss at the cost of no growth, however, and eventually sold the company. The teaching was great, except for the department politics which are as bad as any boss/employee relationship but at least have the trade off of classroom autonomy. When I left to re-enter the 9-5 workforce, I couldn't have been in a more difficult frame of mind. Having experienced this joy of NO STRUCTURE-- or at least very little structure and lots of autonomy, trying to shoe-horn myself into an extremely binding situation was just unbearable. Bearing it for a year and a half did significant damage that I'm still trying to repair. But I learned my lesson. The only way I can go anymore is on my own-- with independent projects.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think that you and I are similar in that we are both people who can enjoy people, but who are not "people people" in that 9 to 5 corporate sense. I work a lot longer than 9 to 5, of course, so it's not a work ethic thing, but a mindset thing.
I dislike all those power structures and inner politics. I like to own a business with a like-minded partner, because we have essentially no concern other than how to meet the client needs. We pay some prices for that, in subtle ways and not-so-subtle ways, but I've never looked back at the choice.

One of my skills is that I'm a patent lawyer. I thought long and hard about getting some more science training and some more law training and going into that field. I'd always done "intellectual property licensing", but never the "hard patent" work of "filing the application and getting the patent issued". A few years ago, a good patent prosecutor could write his or her own ticket. It's a very lucrative field.
But I just could not imagine going through that corporate firm grind again. For me, it just wasn't worth the money. Of course, in hindsight, the IP recession makes me look positively wise in my choice, but at the time, I realized that money was less important than not belonging to a firm.

Re:

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

Good for YOU, I say.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

thanks, but now my partner and I ask: why did it take 15 YEARS of practice to realize this? We could have done this in 1992, not 2000.

Somehow, when you are ready to work again, I picture you doing consulting type work solo, rather than the grind.

Re:

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

I would love to do consulting type work. I just don't have a clue as to how to set myself up as such, or find clients.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I have some clues on that. It'll take me a while to come up with ideas, if this interests you, but this is something I know a small bit (not a large bit) about.

boss and employee

[reneesarah.livejournal.com]

I very much appreciate your comments about supervisors and being supervised. The worst part of my job anywhere I have worked has always been the agency politics, and not working with the client population. For myself as well many others I have known working in social services, the rewards of working with the clients are sufficient to keep one working at the job despite the pain of working with grating colleagues and supervisors. And this is in mental health, where it is so often assumed that the clients have the problems and it is the responsibility of the staff to assist them in resolving those problems.

Where I am working now I am both manager and managed. I don't like being managed, and would rather work on my own. I don't like working with employees who act in a subservient manner as if we are all a pack of dogs and I am the alpha. I don't want that, I don't ask for that, and it makes me really uncomfortable. I think that behavior is driven in part by the horrible economy we have, and the job losses in the SF bay area being much larger than official reports indicate. People are afraid of losing their jobs. Having been without paid employment for almost a year before I got this job I know what that is about. When it was necessary to change the schedule of an employee for reasons that nothing to do with her personally, for example, she cried in a meeting with me (big tears, gasping sobs) that she had interpreted this schedule change as an indication that she was not wanted anymore.

People, at least around here, are so afraid. Afraid of losing jobs if they have one, afraid of what is going to happen with California's budget disaster and how that is going to impact them, afraid of the threat of war and massive death and destruction. Among other things, it makes for a very volatile work environment where feelings of fear and anger and insecurity get displaced, projected and warped and bounce around between relationships in hurtful ways.

More than once I have wished I could retreat to a quiet corner and make art and make a living at it, and get away from this whole supervisor-supervisee thing. I don't believe I have the ability to pull that off, so off to another round of politically nuanced meetings I go.

I very much hear what you are saying and appreciate that you have said it.

Re: boss and employee

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

That servility thing is odd. I must admit I like to be treated with respect and deference, and I try to make it a point to treat folks the same. I lost that thread for a while there,
amid tough bosses and employees I was tough with, and I'm glad to get it back.

The key is the task. It's okay to want badly for the task to get done. But the task never seems to get done as a result of pure servility or pure domineering.

I have to admit, though, reluctantly, that in the old days, sometimes even the nicest approach did not result in the
desired effort, which put me in the bad situation of being a "tough boss", but at least the job got done.

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

back in my corporate and pre-corporate days i had some really good bosses and some really bad ones

it's interesting how the good ones did not stick around long

as for being in charge of others, my own high expectations of myself made me not so sympathetic or patient but life has rounded off many of those hard edges

in the last ten years of working on my own, i've collaborated with others and sometimes that was not even a pleasant experience which i attribute to the largess of egos more than anything

i like working alone, i like the variety and spontaneity of working for myself and i like that you make a good boss because you "show don't tell"

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think your story is a good illustration of how the "true path" sometimes is NOT the teamwork path or the corporate path, but an individual way, where you step through the obstacles, and make it your own way. I've come to think that independence is very precious, although very demanding in its own way.

I had some good bosses and some awful, too, and I have sadly been each. I think I'm much better now, after extreme conscious effort, though I'm still not the perfect boss.

[mouchette.livejournal.com]

Do you, by any chance, have access to a t.v. show called 'The Office'? It's a British sit-com and the boss, David Brent, is perhaps the most cringe-worthy boss ever to have existed. If you can see it, especially the first series, I recommend it. You'll never have a boss worry again I'm convinced!

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

That's about to start screening here. Award-winning, I believe. Now that it's got your recommendation, I'll have to take a look.

And I do intend to reply to your comment in my LJ btw - I just don't always have a grip on chronological time. But I do appreciate your writing.

(Thanks for the space to say that to Mouchette, Robert! It applies to you too, actually).

Have a stress-free weekend everyone : )

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

You're always so good about commenting, you're welcome to take hiatus from time to time, or use it for third party comments at any time :). Or at least, so says the great and powerful Oz....

[kelquestor.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I do so like being welcome.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the referral! I don't think we have it, but I must seek it out. British shows frequently appear here as "educational TV" on the public stations (our public stations are much more symphony and documentary oriented than commercial TV, but nothing like as omnipresent as the BBC). It's always funny what qualifies as educational--witness "Coupling" at Saturdays at 11:00 p.m.

I'll check the office out!