Burn Fest

Every Wednesday morning, we hold a full team meeting at work. Not only does my team join, but all of our business partners within our office join as well. It's usually me and my manager that lead these team meetings. This past Wednesday, my manager was away so the meeting was all up to me. Anyway, we were talking about the boring but very important subect of Legal & Reputational Risks when three of our business partners decided it was time to bitch about a small but very important part of our day that they feel disrupts their day. It was all a very terrible turn of events because the three of them were completely attacking me and complaining without providing any input on a possible resolution. Total burn fest - and I was the one getting burned. The worst type of people are ones that bitch and complain, but when you ask them to help solve the problem they just shrug their shoulders. Those three ended up making complete fools of themselves in front of the entire staff (there were about 20 of us altogether) and they were totally testing my patience. In the end, I came up with a resolution that works for all parties - they didn't necessarily agree upon the resolution, but they knew they weren't getting anything more from me so they settled. I was and still am so disappointed in the fact that these people are my professional colleagues yet so immature when it comes to dealing with problems - the rest of the team couldn't believe it either.

One of the three has been very vocal about wanting to transition into management in the near future. She's talked to me and my boss about it, and she's talked to our district VP about it as well. I was shocked that she, who has aspirations to go into management herself, would treat a manager the way she did at the meeting. She approached me later that very same day,

"Luv, you have a minute?" She said as she was standing at my office doorway.

"Sure. Come on in."

She came into my office and sat down, "I want to apologize for the meeting this morning." She paused and looked at me, waiting for me to say something. For those of you who don't know me very well, I kick ass at 'playing the game'. I kept looking at her with the most serene look on my face and didn't say a word.

"Um. I didn't want it to look like it was the three of us against you. And I want to apologize for that."

"Thank you."

She blinked. She blinked! Oh my goodness, she did not expect me to say thank you! This is a very interesting turn of events. She actually expected me to say 'oh, it's ok' or 'no that wasn't the way it seemed' or 'no need to apologize'. Heehee.

"Well, I just didn't want you to take it as an attack against you or your management skills."

"It could've definitely been handled differently."

She blinked again, and her back just went straight! Oooo! She's literally got her back up now. I wonder what she's going to say next.

She puts up both her hands, "Well, I'm only apologizing for myself and not anyone else."

"Thank you. I do appreciate it."

She gets up and leaves my office. As I watch her walk away, I realize that there's a reason she has yet to transition into management. At least some shit doesn't float.