Re: What to do???
A boss that is willing and able to occasionally let you pull them aside on
occasion and just vent is a valuable boss indeed. Such venting often enables
you to get past the emotions that you're generating in your situation and
renew your approach and find productive solutions. Once you get past the
venting, too, you can talk with your boss about how you feel without getting
caught up in those emotions, making the resulting discussion more productive
as well.
The three best bosses I've ever had in my thirty+ years of work experience all understood this very well.
The first Terrific Boss---at my first fulltime job out of school---taught me the importance of 'safe' venting by insisting that I complain to him first before I mentioned even the smallest problem to anyone else. Once a day he'd come in to my office, close the door (this was back in the days when nobody worried about harassment lawsuits), set a timer for 5 minutes minutes and tell me to yell at him about the worst problem I was having. When I was finished, he'd lead me through a set of problem-solving questions to determine the real cause of the irritation and help me outline a set of at least 3 alternative courses of action. ("Everybody has a Plan B. It's expected. If you want to get promoted you need Plan C, for the cases where Plan B is a flop.") After a few weeks, I had internalized the problem-solving mind-set and rarely needed to vent at all. Knowing I wouldn't be punished for admitting I didn't know how to fix a problem situation made me a lot more creative in handling most issues on my own.
Terrific Boss #2 had also worked with TB#1, so we naturally fell into a mutually-safe-venting relationship. Whichever one of us needed to let off steam on occasion would rant as needed. When the venter's stress level was reduced enough for civil conversation, we'd brainstorm solutions together.
Years later, after I'd changed careers and had been freelancing as a technical writer for 14 years, I encountered Terrific Boss #3. During my interview, he asked me how I liked to be managed. I took a risk and told him <grin> and he liked the approach. When I needed to vent, I vented. When I stopped for breath he would say "Are you venting, or do you need me to do something about this?" and we proceeded from there. Either I said thanks and walked out of his office, ready to handle the situation calmly, or we'd set a time to sit down together and hack out a course of action. Worked great until the tanking hi-tech economy caused most of that company's clients to cancel projects and our employer had to cut costs by cutting our 'non-essential' jobs <sigh>.
--
K@ Kat Nagel
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