One of the most frustrating experiences I have far too often at work is that I am ultimately proven right about something. It happens often enough that I stopped keeping track, but apparently not often enough that anyone remembers how frequently it happens. That or they’re just ignoring it because I haven’t gone and rubbed anyone’s nose in it. As much as you might think otherwise, given my propensity for predicting bad outcomes and the frequency with which my warnings are proven out, I don’t enjoy telling people that I told them so. There is little joy in those moments for me since I don’t particularly appreciate seeing other people struggle or suffer, and I get little satisfaction from having been correct that something bad would happen when that bad thing has happened. Usually, there’s lots of work to do and my life has suddenly become more difficult as I either have to lend a hand to clean up whatever mess (literal or metaphorical) has been made or have to find a way to still do my work in what has become a shortened timeline. I don’t have the time to bask in being right and everyone is usually better served if I don’t point out how wrong they were, how right I was, and how they should listen to me in the future. People’s feelings get hurt by things like that and it usually makes people less likely to listen in the future, not more likely. That said, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I should be making a point of it more often than I do.
Continue readingEmployment
Sometimes You Have To Argue Even When They Won’t Listen
My most popular post over the last two years is “Don’t Argue If They Won’t Listen” and I honestly find it kind of funny how perennially relevant that is to my life. I was spurred to write that post after being talked over by someone who continued to insist I was wrong despite having no evidence or relevant experience to back up their claim. They were never able to provide a reason for this assertion and their subsequent insistence on ignoring my advice (that they had solicited) on a topic I happened to know a lot about forever changed the nature of our relationship. I was no longer willing to engage with them on anything but a surface level and I let distance grow between us since, prior to that point, I was the one doing most of the work to keep conversation going and make contact. Now, we rarely talk (this greater distance helped by the fact that this person also moved away a few months later) and while I miss the friendship, I do not miss the way it made me feel all the time. Unfortunately, as I’ve come to realize in my professional life, walking away or keeping your silence isn’t always an option.
Continue readingIn Memory of Being Unkown
Most of my coworkers have been with our employer for over a decade (one has even been here longer than I’ve been alive), many of them starting on other teams and in other roles before making their way to the Research and Development team for which we all currently work. They’re widely known and respected in the company, to the degree that we’ve struggled to get work done over the past year as our smoothly-operating department has been (temporarily) picked apart to assist other teams who were struggling (mostly for external reasons–2022 was a wild year to work in technology and electronics). A frequent complaint at our watercooler (which looks more like a cozy sitting/dining room tucked away in a corner of our lab than a bland water dispenser) is the number of emails they’re included on and how frequently they’re asked to split their attention to help others within the company.
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