How To Accentuate the PositiveWell, it's happened again! Two weeks ago, ten months invested in a promising job went to seed; not because of any willful misconduct on my part; not even because of a tense moment as a harsh word, but simply because as things unfolded, the employer noticed less enthusiasm on my part, and I discovered that his long-term plan was my nightmare. I'm not a fool who expects a perfect work environment. I've learned over the years, sometimes painfully, to keep my opinions private. But I'm sure that the broadening of the job market in the emerging post-industrial society has placed a greater scrutiny on the personal values and attitudes of prospective employees than a few years ago. From a prospective employer's viewpoint, my greatest flaw is pobably a desire for autonomy/privacy while on the job. A long time ago, a friend of mine opined that the biggest problem with college was that it was followed by "a big long first perod with a tough cut policy and a stiff dress code". He had a point. In reality, I've never had much of a disciplinary problem at work. I've always had a good attendance record, no serious personality clashes, and no isubordination. But I've been frustrated on several ocasions after unwanted transfers to jobs where a heavy atmosphere of office politicking slows things up, and you can't finish up with your own responsibilities and stay out of the "Monday morning in nursery school" atmosphere.. To compenste for this, I've demostrated a willingness to work nights, weekends and other unpopular shfts. My writing skills are well above average, so that a situation can be conveyed to and understood by a person who wasn't there at the time. And I usually make the right move in an off-peak-hours situation where the available rsources are thin. But displaying these talents in a forum which would steer me toward employment where they would be desired enogh to overcome the interchangable-parts mindset is a hit-or-miss proposition, and the screening process either mislabels me as a hard case, which I am not, or, as in the last case, lures me into a situation which becomes less attractive as more of the negatives become apparent, or if an authoritarian supervisor decides to make a stiff point of establishing his/her authority. If any of the membership can offer some advice on this one, please lead on! Eddy, I've read a number of your posts on this topic, here's the thing. If you want a boss that's going to pay you money and completely leave you alone to do what you want, when you want to do it, how you want to do it, you're dreaming or you need to work for yourself. It is really that simple. Bosses feel that they're paying, they get a say. Some say a lot more than others, but they all want some say. You get privacy in the bathroom at home if you have a good lock and no toddlers around. You don't get it in the workplace. You are subject to changes in the direction of your work, the time, the place, the way in which you do it, who you do it for, who you do it with and almost anything else the boss wants to dream up for a real or imagined reason (or no reason at all). Either resign yourself to the reality, change your way of thinking about the reality, or create your own reality by working for yourself. www.sba.gov has some good tips for starting your own stuff. Tess you said: Either resign yourself to the reality, change your way of thinking about the reality. I'm trying hard, but your alternative seems to be to throw the door open for anyone in authority to run roughshod over the core values I hold. There seems to be no point at which an individual is safe/respected other than what has been written into the law under the culture of "political correctness" (to which, BTW, I do not subscribe). you also suggested: create your own reality by working for yourself. www.sba.gov has some good tips for starting your own stuff. I've tried this in the past, with only modest success. My personality is not in synch with the unrealistic expectations of too much personal service dominating the marketplace in our present-day culture. I'd have to locate a field in which the "ultimate customer" doesn't want to be "served". (Anyone taken notice of the huge interest in law enforcement by burned-out introverts?) I don't expect "a boss that's going to pay you money and completely leave you alone to do what you want, when you want to do it, how you want to do it", but I would like one that offers some positive feedback when the decision I've made is the right one, will offer me some clear definitions of things I can do or learn to increase my worth, and will simply recognize that not everyone is capable of everything, and offer a way to defuse a conflict other than total subjugation. The post-mortem on this one is probably that two strong personalities recognized their nemeses, and from there on out, some escalation to total war was inevitable (I could see it coming, as you probably could tell from those previous posts). I'm just looking for tactics to minimalize the chance of this in the future, but a person cannot deny his/her basic nature. I have been in sales since 1981. I love the customer/client interaction. I love working trade shows and conventions and I equally enjoy working sales demonstrations. What motivates me is seeing the product I represent being sold off the shelves of my dealers. My employer is a different story. I hated corporate America. Micro-Managing, bosses with BIG egos and jealousy was all part of the norm working for a huge electronics conglomerate. My nature is to get along well with my customers and clients. That was one of my greatest loves. That is why I loved working 12-15 hour days. I used to leave the house at 6am and rarely returned home before 7pm. What motivated me was the fact my former manager told me I couldn't or I did not have the ability to sell that much. Well, I was determined to prove them wrong and most times I exceeded their expectations even though it never paid off financially for me. So the positive in my career is my 'talent' in interacting with clients. That is where I promote myself. I do not harbor any ill will towards the manager who fired me. Nor do I harbor ill feelings towards a company who supported my former manager in firing me. Negative thoughts will only consume me so I do not even think about it. Your tale brought back some not-too-pleasant memories of when I worked as a technical CSR (cable-based internet) in a call-center environment a few years ago. At the time, general knowledge of computer operating systems was not as widely disseminated, so perople with this skill were hired to deal with customers, at a small premium over general-service reps. Unfortunately, as the required general knowledge became more prevalent, the value of the tech reps' skills diminished. But the problem was aggravated by the fact that a hard core of "difficult" customers remained, and dealing with them increased the call handle time (the primary measure of perfomance) of the technical reps. And to make matters worse, the sales force continued to attract marginal customers who required more personal attention, thus transferring the burden to another department. Tech reps thus not only were shouldered with the responsibility of cleaning up after mostly-young, short-term-oriented and not technically-savvy sales personnel, they had no opportunity to develop themselves into more-advanced technicians (who presumably would deal less with personalities and more with hard data), but were encouraged only to cross-train into general-service (at no raise in pay). No one needs to tell me that unfortunately, more often than not, technical advances tend to eliminate "good" jobs rather than "bad". I would be delighted if my skills could be directed toward actually solving problems. But the present "culture of short-sght" tends to focus more on resolution of internal disputes, or on "revenue enhancement" (the last straw for many of the tech reps was a mandatory sales pitch, even if the customer's issue had not been resolved), rather than recognizing the value of knowledge and experience and allowing it to be applied in a less-rushed, more-deliberate and analytical environment. | |
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