Iron City Blues
Dear Dr. Ding—
This week I contacted my boss about setting up a training for some of our staff, and he was supportive in an email saying to go for it. Now he is telling other staff not to come! I am very pissed and want to send him an email expressing my anger and frustration at his wishy washy attitude with this. I also want to inform him that I am not willing to travel to this training and have to train all of the staff at a later date one-on-one because there is no computer lab there. I also am not willing to field hundreds of calls from them asking how to run the fucking program because they didn’t bother to attend the training.
I know I can’t flame him because he is my boss and does have the final say but I really want to tell him he is being an asshole! He has now become part of the problem rather than part of the solution related to this whole fucking ordeal for me.
He also told us he wants us all to send him a written schedule every two weeks. I had a discussion with him a week about this. I told him I already put my schedule in our intranet’s calendar system and that he, all of my staff, and all the other supervisors have access to it. I don’t want to have yet another document on paper that can be handled by just using the technology we have. I despise doing the same work twice or more if it is not necessary.
I reminded him of this conversation at the meeting. His response was that it’s my job to inform him of my schedule and he shouldn’t have to go looking for it. He also said because no one else has bothered to learn how to use the schedule in this software we all have to do it hard copy.
I told him I was very frustrated because I brought this issue up over two years ago (before he started) and got the same response! And further, people still have not bothered to get familiar with the expensive technology purchased with public funds at our disposal. I don’t think he appreciated that comment.
From the time I got to corrections almost three years ago all I heard was bitching about needing more computers so all would have access to them. Now they spend all of this money to make sure we all have access and they refuse to use it. This is such a backward ass system I don’t know how much longer I can handle it. Technology can only make your job easier if you fucking use it. I feel like I have been and am wasting a huge amount of energy on a project that no one intends to utilize anyway! And it is a project he signed me up for in the first fucking place.
I could schedule a time to meet with him to discuss it but I don’t know if I could stay professional and appropriate at this point. What would Dr. Ding suggest?
Locked Up and Pissed Off!
Here’s the summary of what I’m about to say:
- 1) You work in corrections. The standards of technology usage will change in oh, say 100 years give or take a decade.
- 2) You’re more capable than your colleagues and staff. Waaay more capable.
- 3) You’re feeling trapped and extremely angry on a chronic basis.
- 4) Something radical has to change.
Let’s take #1: I don’t even have to tell you this, but for our gentle readers I’ll provide a little background. Corrections lags behind substance abuse treatment in terms of up-to-date technology usage. Substance abuse treatment in turn lags behind mental health, and then mental health lags behind the rest of the world. There is, at a minimum, a 10-year gap between these nodes, so if you do the math and assume that the rest of the world is about one year behind the cutting-edge stuff, we’re talking about at least a 31-year gap. Effectively, Locked Up, you’re trying to function in an environment that still thinks it’s 1975 and that The Fonz is a real groovy guy. You made an excellent point about the public funds at your disposal, but you and I both know that a public institution isn’t going to suddenly get tech savvy — instead they will do what they’ve always done, and get what’s always been gotten. So I’d bet on them. It’s just not likely to change in your lifetime no matter eloquently you flame your boss.
#2: You’re obviously far more comfortable with and capable of using computer technology than your compatriots there in ole Stony Lonesome. Even your boss is using a Flintstonesesque tablet and chisel, which therefore means you’re a space alien from The Future, and probably not to be trusted with your fancy silver jumpsuit and cathode ray tubes. This perception of you isn’t going to change, either. Are you sure you want to work in an environment where you’re that much more clever than your peeps? Is this lack of stimulation and forward motion leading to #3? Are you dying an agonizing, Shatneresque death as you attempt to get the mouthbreathers around you to suck air through their noses? Can I possibly make any more sci-fi references in this paragraph?
#3: In three years nothing substantive has changed and therefore nothing substantive is likely to change any time soon thanks to omnipresent organizational malaise. You sound angry and thwarted beyond words. You’re at a crossroads; your intense feelings are definitely telling you something important, trying to get your attention. Any ideas as to what’s going on here? Have you ever felt this way before in your life?
In a way, your situation really isn’t about staff training or your boss’ willful ignorance at all. It’s about you and why you’re putting up with being manipulated and taken for granted. My sense is that your boss may have tasked you with the training responsibilities is because he wanted to get credit somehow for having someone on his staff who could use the technology. You are the sacrificial lamb on the altar of bureaucratic politicking, Locked Up. No wonder you’re so pissed off! You have no real authority to affect change processes that were asked of you. Total bummer.
#4: Dr. Ding senses that right now it may be hard to see the big nasty existential forest for all the pesky situational trees you’re walking amidst. Taking the larger view of the situation…do you know why you do what you do? Why did you choose to work there, what were your expectations when you started, and how are they being fulfilled (or not)? What does your anger mean when taken in a larger context? Is it just that you have some control issues and just need to chill a la some New Edition lyrics, or is it telling you that something deeper is amiss here? It’s time for a life review.
A fundamental tradeoff between working in private v. public settings lurks ickily beneath your dilemma, sorta like that bald skinny fish-eating guy who always murmured “Precious….loves the Precious…” in the LOTR movies. In private settings one usually has far more control over scheduling or type of work taken on, and the income potential can be virtually limitless. However, things like benefits, retirement, and job security can be lacking. Conversely, working for federal or state agencies is great in terms of these latter three factors, but you may have less creative leeway, more scutwork, and far more bureaucratic entanglements with which to contend. There will be other differences of course, but these all usually boil down to some variant of a power v. no power dynamic in effect. Where is your power in this situation? It sounds like you don’t have a particularly collegial relationship with your boss, which makes communication tedious. Can you leverage anything? Can you threaten, albeit politely, to simply refuse to capitulate to his crazy-making demands or have him suffer the consequences of you leaving or transferring or quitting on the spot? What are your other options here?
Are you ok with not having much say-so? Are you content to take orders? Are these things worth it? Or is it that indeed, as you succinctly state, you simply work for an asshole? Only you can answer these questions.
Alternative to #4: You may want to consider learning to not give a shit. This is characterologically impossible for a lot of people and I don’t recommend this as a way of life, but it may help you preserve your well-being in the meantime. Generation Xers (I can only assume you are one of these) tend to place a tremendous amount of stock in job satisfaction that actually might be better placed elsewhere. While Dr. Ding never advocates being a Suzy Punchclock 24/7, it’s sometimes refreshingly liberating to just not really care a whole lot about whether or not your ideas are taken seriously, sort of like being pantsless. Aah. The feel of a cheap vinyl desk chair on the bare backside is the stuff of life! Consider reserving your passion, heat, and venom for things other than work. Think about beginning to look at your career as more separate from your actual life, and spend as little time thinking about work when you’re not actually doing it. Learn to regard it as a job versus a career and see if that approach improves anything for you. If you find this impossible, refer back to the life review stuff.
Here is your mission, Locked Up, should you choose to accept it. Sit down some evening when you’re not distracted or angry and answer the following questions.
~ Are you sure you want to work in an environment where no one else cares about the things you care about? Are you getting enough mental simulation? Are you dying an agonizing, Shatneresque death as you attempt to get the mouthbreathers around you to suck air through their noses?
~Are you ok with not having much say-so? Are you content to take orders? Are these things worth it? Or is it that indeed, as you succinctly state, you simply work for an asshole?
~ Any ideas as to what’s going on here? Have you ever felt this way before in your life?
~ Why do you do what you do, and why have you made the choices you’ve made? What does your anger signify?
~ What’s your leverage? Can you leave? What are your other options here?
Dr. Ding suspects you’re a really smart cookie who ended up in a jar of stale Nilla wafers. Mouthbreathing Nilla wafers who have silver jumpsuit envy. Being a raspberry in a can of pears can be very uncomfortable, but it doesn’t have to be. You’re working in a paramilitary organizational structure where change isn’t decided by merit but by authority. It’s possible that this isn’t a very good fit for you. Become a Nilla wafer or find a can of raspberries. I’m going to go have a snack now myself because this whole discussion is making me hungry for some unfathomable reason.
Shakespeare -Julius Caesar (Cassius at I, iii)
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