I Want To Be Mad

If I said this whole thing is a lie, it could be a way to tell the truth with the plausible deniabilty built into the story.

Or it could be that this whole thing is a lie.

This whole thing is a lie.

Any similarity to person or persons fictional or real, is entirely coincidental.

So, check this shit out.

My employer was forced to utilize WFH when COVID hit. It was (like nearly every other company and instance) much better for the employee.
They introduced 25% in office.
A significant portion of employees, knowledge and talent leave.
They just introduced 3 In / 2 WFH (not Mon or Friday*) in a live Q&A session.
In retrospect, it was a good move that wasn’t going to work with their motives.
They did not want honesty, or feelings, they only wanted questions that came from a place of Ideal Perception : We Look Good.

That’s not what ended up happening, obviously.

It’s quite simple, How To Be Perceived As Good.

Step 1. Do Good Things
Step 2. Don’t Do Bad Things

That’s it.

So, the Q&A.

Highlights :

Someone calls the VP a liar*
*Two weeks previously, in the exact same setting (live Q&A for ‘transparency’), The Company said they were not thinking about it at this time.
In retrospect, the keyword was ‘thinking’.
They’d already made the decision, so technically they weren’t lying.

“If we are going to WFH like other companies, can we get paid like other tech companies?”

“Did anyone ask what is the right thing to do for the employees?”

“Do we need to change our WFH policy because management has nothing to manage, or feels redundant to a degree if people aren’t in the office to be managed?”

This is the question that hurt some feelings.
Which, to me, is strange.
If you are not redundant, or do not feel redundant, this is an easy ‘No’
Hurt feelings isn’t a ‘No’.

Anyway, I get called into the office for an In Person meeting to Discuss My Comments.
I am outraged at this Consequence I saw before I hit enter on my keyboard.
I knew they would be mad, but this is some petty level of mad.

I wanted a fight. I’d been talking in circles for the last year, the last 5 years, my whole 8 year career with the company.
I was outraged, but I was excited. Finally. A Chance to say the same things I say to someone another step up the chain.
If you are above me, but cannot do something for me that someone above you can do, you are redundant.
*in that capacity. You are so much more than this one thing you cannot do, but in this one thing you cannot do.
R e d u n d a n t.

I knew this was coming, and there was so much I wanted to say, I only said a little.
I kept a good tamped lid on my anger, but it’s still there and needs to be felt.

I go into the office.
I am mad.
I am mad I had to drive in.
I am mad this is even being talked about.
I am mad.

I show up nearly 11:30 on the dot, go and wait in the conference room.
My Manager’s Manager sits farthest away from me at the table.
My Manager sits across from me.

This is telling. There is a lot of things that are telling in this ‘discussion.’

Coincidentally, I tell that that I have spent my life observing people, and I can read them incredibly well.
I don’t like the story I read in that room.
It was a pretty redundant story.

I still can’t get a pay raise. Still.
I may be getting one soon, but they will start me at the bottom of the scale.
An exemplary employee, at the bottom of the scale.
Their words, not mine. I work very hard to be exemplary, for zero reason beyond the world needs to be better.
They indirectly benefit from that work in a significant way, but I’m Bottom Of The Scale.
I have a nearly perfect review with one star knocked off because ‘we can’t give perfect reviews, everyone has somewhere to improve’

yeah, including you, fuckface.

We almost do small talk, but I cut it off.
”You want to dance around, or get to brass tacks”

Uncomfortable chuckles, but we get down to it.

“When you called all of management-”
I cut them off.
”That’s not what I said.”
I’ve written down exactly what I said. I know the wording is important, because I worded it to be so. Deniability is woven into the fabric of the ‘comment’

(“Do we need to change our WFH policy because management has nothing to manage, or feels redundant to a degree if people aren’t in the office to be managed?”)

My Manager’s manager speaks up from the far side of the table.

“What you said was - - - - - - I tune him out and read off my notepad until he finishes the quote I am reading along with”

I nod. “Yes, that’s exactly what I said.”

“When I read that I felt insulted. I felt”
I tune him out again. What about how I FEEL

He finishes, and it’s my turn.
”When I wrote that, it was aimed at people that are actually redundant.”
I point at my manager “I do not think you are redundant.”
I point at my Manager’s manager “I do not think you are redundant.”

because I know you are

“It was not my intent to accidentally hurt feelings in the process.”

Then they go on to have a problem because it was in a ‘public setting’

Yeah ok, the motherfucker presenting this WFH information to us was making much more people feel bad in a public setting.
What about how we feel? You are making people feel bad and they are making you feel bad in return?
You get what you fuckin give, and this is what you give.
No, though, this is a problem because the Feel Bad only points down, not up. Down not hurt up. Up control Down!

“If this question or comment, makes you feel redundant, I did not make you feel redundant. You had that redundant feeling all along, I did not make you feel it. You read my question, and felt it speak to the parts of your role that feel redundant. Those feelings were already there. I didn’t put them there.”

The parts that make you second guess, imposter syndrome, compartmentalize, view humans as numbers, whatever parts resonated with ‘redundant’.
I. Am. Not. The. Source. Of. Those. Feelings.
You are.

“Do you get a bonus?” I point at my Manager’s Manager.

He gives a smarmy half shrug “I didn’t listen to what he said back, because I already knew he got a bonus, based on MY metrics.”

I ask the same of my manager. “Same story, I also didn’t listen, if they weren’t going to Listen, then I wasn’t either.”

“I don’t get a bonus. No bonus. No incentive to do well. You have incentive for me to do well, you both do. I do not. Give me incentive to do well. Give all the first level employees bonuses based on performance, and give any ‘leadership’ bonuses based on the bonuses of their subordinates”
I call it ‘Everyone Fuckin Wins You Morons’

I have a whole bag full of banging ideas on how to help people work better.
I know people. I know employers. I see exactly where they’re fucking up.
I see exactly where they have the capacity to succeed.

As we’ve established (or I have, via 8 years experience) they do not give a tangible fuck about how I feel.
So why would they listen to me?
I bet it’d fuckin kill you to take the great advice of someone who called you redundant.

I didn’t say what I wanted to say.

I said what they wanted to hear, partially saying what I wanted to say, all without having to say what they wanted me to say.
I recognized that art I carry with me, the power I posses to retain myself while somehow getting others to feel like they’re retaining it.
It’s dancing a dance I didn’t realize I knew the steps to.

Here’s what I wanted to say, but did not.

If you feel redundant, you should talk to your supervisor for more responsibilities to make you feel more useful.

Do you want to not be redundant?
Get your power back from the person that holds it.
You’re mad at them, not me.

Calling me into the office, because you got your feelings hurt, because your boss doesn’t trust you to make the right decisions in certain aspects, is fucking childish.

Fucking.
Childish.

On the plus side, in doing this, I realize now, all your feelings are for you / your supervisor.

They’re not for me, and thus, I tilt aside and let them slide on by.
See yah, someone else’s bad feelings.