Politics
Boy, was I dead wrong about my job not having interpretations.
It is now March, the month of winter's end. Some days spring practically oozes from the earth, breathing green leaves and pitter-patter rain. But mid-March is also a precarious time; just when you think you've turned a corner hell freezes over again. New England was this way too. It would warm to 60 degrees, frisbees and shorts came back out to the courtyard, one day you left the dorm, looked up and everything had turned a deep, breathtaking green. The next day there was freezing rain and you wore mittens.
March, in my most recent memory, is also the month of the senior thesis. I remembered this when cruising thefacebook.com. My friends describe their club as "thesis", or sometimes "@$#^ thesis". Their walls are covered with posts by fellow thesis-ers as well as cheerleaders from the outside world, profanity and encouragement side by side. Some people seem optimistic at the near finish line, others jaded with the intellectual journey, and still others make zany comments to ward off the pressure. Thesis is an intense and heady time, full of self-importance, mental instability, potential glory and incredible fear. I can feel those emotions like it was yesterday. Was it really a year ago? That March feels so far away as I sit in my office (after hours, mind you), maple desk, multi-line phone and all. It was an entirely different mental universe.
And now I'll tell you how I was dead wrong to judge the business/real world as having no room for interpretation. Recently I crossed a higher up person (not in my company) by asking her a question in a conference. It was unintentional, indeed my question was quite innocent, I just wanted to know how something worked and who was responsible for what part. Evidently this person took it as me questioning her authority. And instead of talking to me, she made her point by talking behind my back to some of our important partners that we count on to make the redevelopment successful. The story got around to my boss, and then to me. I was totally flabbergasted. How could my question have been so misinterpreted, and even if there is a disagreement, who would handle it in such a cowardly and underhanded way, especially when we are supposedly "a team in the effort to redevelop this neighborhood"? These two points had me incredibly angry and indignant. First, I would not have apologized for something that made no sense. Second, how could one even apologize for something without even knowing someone else was pissed. This was somebody else's megalomania, why I should concede to it? My colleagues supported me, but nevertheless apologized on behalf of me to this power-that-be, explaining that I was "just out of college". This made me mad too. I mean, wouldn't it make you?
I did wonder, after some cooling down time, whether I am overconfident with good intentions, having had eight years of idealism without consequences.
It is now March, the month of winter's end. Some days spring practically oozes from the earth, breathing green leaves and pitter-patter rain. But mid-March is also a precarious time; just when you think you've turned a corner hell freezes over again. New England was this way too. It would warm to 60 degrees, frisbees and shorts came back out to the courtyard, one day you left the dorm, looked up and everything had turned a deep, breathtaking green. The next day there was freezing rain and you wore mittens.
March, in my most recent memory, is also the month of the senior thesis. I remembered this when cruising thefacebook.com. My friends describe their club as "thesis", or sometimes "@$#^ thesis". Their walls are covered with posts by fellow thesis-ers as well as cheerleaders from the outside world, profanity and encouragement side by side. Some people seem optimistic at the near finish line, others jaded with the intellectual journey, and still others make zany comments to ward off the pressure. Thesis is an intense and heady time, full of self-importance, mental instability, potential glory and incredible fear. I can feel those emotions like it was yesterday. Was it really a year ago? That March feels so far away as I sit in my office (after hours, mind you), maple desk, multi-line phone and all. It was an entirely different mental universe.
And now I'll tell you how I was dead wrong to judge the business/real world as having no room for interpretation. Recently I crossed a higher up person (not in my company) by asking her a question in a conference. It was unintentional, indeed my question was quite innocent, I just wanted to know how something worked and who was responsible for what part. Evidently this person took it as me questioning her authority. And instead of talking to me, she made her point by talking behind my back to some of our important partners that we count on to make the redevelopment successful. The story got around to my boss, and then to me. I was totally flabbergasted. How could my question have been so misinterpreted, and even if there is a disagreement, who would handle it in such a cowardly and underhanded way, especially when we are supposedly "a team in the effort to redevelop this neighborhood"? These two points had me incredibly angry and indignant. First, I would not have apologized for something that made no sense. Second, how could one even apologize for something without even knowing someone else was pissed. This was somebody else's megalomania, why I should concede to it? My colleagues supported me, but nevertheless apologized on behalf of me to this power-that-be, explaining that I was "just out of college". This made me mad too. I mean, wouldn't it make you?
I did wonder, after some cooling down time, whether I am overconfident with good intentions, having had eight years of idealism without consequences.
posted by Quang Tran at 5:23 PM
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