(no subject)

[dr_tectonic]

In lieu of posting, I have actually been writing (*gasp!*) fiction! 1600 words today. It's not NaNoWriMo, but maybe it'll go somewhere. I realized that figuring out who to cast as the characters in a movie version gave some interesting insights.

Board games at Chris's last night. Pillars of the Earth (Yet Another Cathedral-Building Game, mostly resource-management). I did well at my steady-medium-growth strategy, but Jeff beat me by 2 points at the end.

So I had the followup meeting with Boss's-Boss about that lunch meeting thing on Tuesday. The one I was feeling trepidatious about? It went well, though not how I expected it to. I went in and said "I've been thinking about the right way to do this, and the conclusion I'm coming to is that I think we'd be best served by taking a different approach," and she said "Okay!" And then she pulled some kind of management-jujitsu on me, and I ended up volunteering to write the first draft of our strategic plan. Whuh?

Not that I object -- I'm probably the best person to do it, honestly, because I can write well, I'm good at synthesizing, I can do it with no ego investment at all so that when it prods people into editing and rewriting I won't care, and I actually can afford the time to do it (after Thanksgiving) because I'm better about not overcommitting. But it really was not the conversation I had planned for. My respect for her has increased considerably.

This is another one of the incredibly valuable things I learned at TEP: sometimes things need doing, and it doesn't really matter whether or not it "should" be your duty to do it. If you're the person in the best position to do it? Just do it.

Comments

[goobermunch.livejournal.com]

I love the tales of Dr. Tectonic versus "the Management."

Dr. T is learning that he has more mad skillz than he thought. And worse, his managers know it.

You realize this means you're doomed to becoming an administrator.

Just sayin'.

--G

[zalena.livejournal.com]

I also <3 Dr. T + Management stories.

However, it makes me mad that my own experiences are never quite so positive.

I've come to the conclusion that a)you have better management; and b) I'm female.

[nehrlich.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't generalize, but I am a male who has a long string of terrible management stories at a number of different companies. It's probably me that's the problem, though, given that I know many people younger than me (like Dr. Tectonic) who are far more successful at working within the system than I am.

I think I need to learn from "If you're the person in the best position to do it? Just do it." because I think that's where I often get hung up.

[nehrlich.livejournal.com]

Sweet, dude. Glad to hear that it worked out in a non-trepidatious fashion. You'll be good at the synthesizing writing thing, and it will be good for everybody to be pointing at a real document to comment on and edit rather than everybody hand-waving.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Of course, it might have been judo; using your own strength "against you", finding the direction you wanted to move in, slightly redirecting your motion, and further encouraging you in that direction.

Go, you!

[zalena.livejournal.com]

My personality is definitely a contributing factor, but seeing as I usually do way more work than is required for any given position (just call me the Little Red Hen) I'm not sure "just do it" is the problem.

Also, Dr.T can tell you I have had some genuinely terrible bosses. (And one or two great ones!)

I think the real key is finding an organization that is not totally dysfunctional to begin with and personalities are a good match with one another. Because god knows there's a limit to how much any given person can change just to please another. (Particularly without resenting it and ending up doing evil things like stuffing others' mailboxes full of icecream.)