Pride – Part 2
My new boss is trying to rehabilitate me politically within our company. It’s a futile gesture, but it’s nice to know he cares.
The problem is that I don’t.
Step one in the Kinder, Gentler Me process was to forgo six hours of work and two hours of family time to attend a meeting for which I used to tele-conference. One hour versus eight.
As we were preparing the first half of the five-hour drive to attend the 3-hour meeting the boss says, “I understand this may seem inconvenient, but it is a good move politically.”
I raised my eyebrows and said, “Really? That’s funny. I’ve never been very good at politics.”
He laughed and said he hadn’t either…a calculated, good-natured, politically aware response.
Today I played ball, as requested, and was met with the same futile diminishing of measurable progress I have come to expect from the Game Changer with whom my new boss wants to make me over for.
The boss saw it. He knew it didn’t go well.
“Give me some time. I’ll get him off your back.”
“Don’t bother. If you clear up this issue, there will be another. There always has been.”
He assured me I was a victim of the old politics and vowed to clean up the mess if I would trust him.
I responded in my characteristically ill-advised way, “I really prefer you not to raise a stink over this, because I can take it. I don’t want to have to drive five hours for these public floggings, but it’s not something I can’t handle.”
It doesn’t bother me at my core, because I have examined and found a clear conscience. I represented the smallest newspaper at the table and brought the largest revenue project for the idea exchange. What’s going to make the Game Changer like my revenue project more than the one that brought in half as much? Ass kissing. Or at least some measurable bend of deference in me.
I won’t. It just won’t happen.
They have purchased my time and my talents. I’ve given way more of the former than what I owe and they get all I have to offer of the latter.
They get not one iota more.
Long after we have all forgotten I was ever an employee of that company, I will know I gave it my best without throwing away the invaluable for temporary benefit. Letting others extract from you what you are unwilling–and is unnecessary–to give changes your character. Mine may not the kind that is prone to much more advancement, but…it. is. mine.
