Quitting jobs is not my style – or so I’d like to think. I
know I did it once when I was still at university. I took on a factory job for
the holidays and lasted 7 or 8 days. It involved mindless feeding of sheets of
metal into a machine that cut them into the required size. And stacking the cut
sheets. Hour after hour. I guess I was doing it for extra travel money but at some
point in the middle of the working day I realised I was not enjoying it and
that I didn’t need to do it. In my memory I simply walked off the job and out
the door and never returned.
Fast forward 50 years. I have been working on a fascinating
project assisting in the deployment of technology solutions for remote
locations in the Pacific. I loved the work, and the project’s aims, but I was
working with a project manager who eventually made the job a misery.
It started out OK. We met mostly online but did spend a whole
day face to face early in the project that was pleasant and productive. Things
started to go adrift when this project manager – let’s call her Joy – didn’t
seem to have a grasp of some of the basics of the technology we were working
with. This was fair enough as she had only recently started working with it
whereas I’d had twenty years’ experience using this technology. She wasn’t much
interested in hearing what I might know about it. Rather she launched herself on
a crash course and impressively learnt a great deal about the technology in a
very short time. The problem was she then started to behave as if she was the expert
on it, disagreeing with me about how it might be employed and using different
terminology to the standard ways of referring to various processes. In short, it wasn’t long before I started to feel like she was
always right and I was always wrong. In addition, I felt like she was unilaterally
making wrong decisions and rising roughshod over whatever I thought should
happen.
I began to drift away on my own and do things the way I
preferred to do them. I was a little unfair to Joy as I let her think I agreed
with her about certain things but then went ahead and ignored her. This I see now
was foolish. She was however very hard to reason with because as I
said, she was always right.
This project had many stakeholders. The company we worked for,
the relevant education department of the country concerned, and the users/owners
of the technology in various locations around the world. My preferred method would
have been to enter discussions with these various stakeholders and together craft
a plan of action and implementation. I was however effectively blocked from
communicating with any of these third parties. Joy did all the negotiations and
I was fed dribs and drabs of relevant information in haphazard fashion. I was
very uncomfortable about this – I did not think it was appropriate for me to be
parachuted in after all these discussions to help deploy the technology when I
had not been party to any of the lead-up discussions. I felt sidelined.
So, because I had been over-ruled on many issues, barred from any meaningful discussion with
stakeholders, micromanaged by a project manager who just seemed to think I was
there to do her bidding, and feeling very much undervalued I was already quite stressed
about the job and no longer enjoying it. As I saw it, I had been employed to
perform a task that she had taken over.
And then came the bombshell. “Michael” - as a friend she
said – “do you think it’s possible that you might be forgetting things?” I couldn’t believe my ears. She thinks I’m old
and forgetful! I can see why she’d think that – that was a consequence of me ignoring
things she said and just going my own way. But the dam wall had burst. Bottom
line? She didn’t trust me, and I could no longer feel sure about anything I
said around her.
I have always prided myself on the fact that I am not afraid
to admit mistakes; I don’t mind admitting I don’t know things; I don’t mind
coming across as imperfect – I have often forgotten things over the years, or
have needed others to point out where I have gone wrong. That is part of
working successfully with others – being able to learn from and with others.
But now I had to be perfect. No mistakes, slips of the tongue, lost emails, wrong
dates, getting someone’s name wrong – none of this could happen or I’d be written
off as old and forgetful.
So I quit. I quit what was potentially a really exciting and
rewarding project. I just couldn’t work with her anymore. Frankly I don’t think
she wanted to work with me anymore either because she seemed to think she knew
it all and I just got in her way.
It must be said that after having worked as a leader in my field
with quite a lot of responsibility – I had project managed several national
projects with groups of up to 20 people over the years – I found it very
difficult to be play second fiddle to someone half my age, who was a new kid on
the technology block, and who did not appear to respect my experience or judgement.
So – am I forgetting things? Probably. But that’s not new.
And besides, that’s for others to tell …..
