Goodness, me!
Has it been this long????!!!! Alas, yes, it has...
My last post having been posted in 2017 -- and here we are on the precipice of 2018, sliding down into 2019 at an insanely rapid pace! All of my best attempts to be vigilant about staying in touch with the rest of the world, dashed. I run the risk, at this very point, of going on ad nauseam about how disappointed in myself I am and how I, of all people, should have had -- and exercised -- the self-discipline required to follow through on keeping up with just one post every other week...Making feeble attempt after feeble attempt expressing how, try as I might, everything seemed to get in the way of my writing, interfering with my very BEST intentions to do the right thing: to do what I was meant to do - that is, share the practical wisdom that I had acquired from my travels amidst my journeys in the professional work world.
BUT...I'm not going to do that (liked that curve-ball, didn't ya?). Seems like a wasted sentiment, really - especially since I will never be able to: 1) fully verbalize all that has happened to me over the past 12 months, and 2) make you, the reader, fully understand why it was a big deal in the first place. It's simple, really. My experiences are mine and mine alone. You weren't there. You don't know the backstory, you don't know the players in the game, and it's impossible for you to know their influence, therefore, in assigning the significance to what happened to me that I did. In short: Based on my subjectivity in this situation, and my unwillingness to even begin to explain what my reality has been, to you, I may, very well, have no acceptable excuse for my delinquency.
Humph. Sounds a little flimsy to you? Maybe a little flippant and nonchalant and unconcerned about how I sound and look in your eyes? Well, that's my point exactly. How many times have we as managers, or supervisors, or committee chairpersons - heck, even just co-workers - been on the receiving end of one such situation: Our co-worker or employee provides no acceptable excuse for having been absent or MIA (missing-in-action) when we expected and often needed them to show up? At the moment, it seems as though there could be no less reasonable an occurrence and we are more than willing to meet such insolent disrespect with write-ups and or immediate dismissals, resulting from recidivous behavior. Yet, when was the last time that we spent a little time to actually "talk" with the offender, to attempt to get at the bottom of the matter creating the undesirable behavior in the first place?
Is it possible that we are approaching human management incorrectly, erring on the side of either giving offenders cart blanche or else no-leeway-at-all? Living in an era and time during which the "me" - not to mention the "me too" - generation is so prevalent and political correctness is inspired by our hyper-sensitivities, it can be extremely difficult to navigate the "people management" waters. One wrong comment can potentially mean an unwelcome invitation to the Human Resources Division. However, there are ways to tactfully broach those difficult topics - namely, asking, "what's going on?"
Simply put, for all of the reasons that make it scary to ask questions, there are a million-and-one other reasons why you can't afford NOT to ask your employee what is going on in their minds, what is causing such disruption in his or her life. Blame it on being a human being, trying to connect with someone that you spend most of your working hours in the same general vicinity of. Blame it on concern for the work environment and productivity (motivation, or even the mental health of your employee and, potentially, that of his or her co-workers). The point is that it SHOULD matter that one of your teammates is not showing up. It SHOULD matter that your organization is not operating at a minimum of 80% capacity productivity. It should matter because every contribution that is made by every part of your organization contributes to its functioning, its success. And if it DOES matter, then we hold those difficult conversations - even if we have to do it in the company of the HR staff, or having first discussed the situation with HR. If it DOES matter, instead of resorting to the grade-school automatic response so many of us used to experience - being branded a trouble-maker simply because the teacher didn't take the time to understand what was really going on with us - we might invest as much time training to understand the psychological challenges facing employees as we do in trying to improve process efficiencies and/or upgrading our technology.
I would submit that, just perhaps, that troubled employee may feel as bad about not showing up for you at work, as they do for not being able to show up for themselves in some other area of his or her life. After all, besides the frustration that can come from having personal or familial issues preventing us from doing what we often expect to be able to do on any ordinary day, mental health issues, such as depression and other mental illnesses, are increasingly becoming widely-recognized as conditions severely impacting the American, and indeed the global, workplace. Upon closer inspection, it may be that he or she, like myself, may feel just horrible about his or her disappointing behavior. It may not have been premeditated, and sometimes it couldn't have been helped because they had a problem they just couldn't talk about at the time (depression can seriously cause some folks into a sort of paralysis).
We've heard it so many times, by now: the problem of social media making us less personal, less connected with our fellow man, in general. I'm not quite sure social media should bear all of the blame for this. Maybe, even taken from the vantage point of work, I think the sentiment may not be that far off message: Maybe we need to talk more with one another in person in order to understand what's going on with each other in the workplace. Sometimes just the act of allowing a person the space to verbalize their personal grief and disappointment in themselves will inadvertently also usher in the opportunity for him or her to forgive themselves. Then, and only then, will he or she - we - be able to ask one another for forgiveness and plan how to move forward in a positive, self-nourishing and mutually-beneficial direction...Imagine what could happen if we gave one another that "gift"...
I'll close by saying, Happy New Year, everyone! Here's to doing more posts in the new year! Or being more "present" for the people who appear daily within the spheres intersecting our lives! May we be blessed with family, friends, good co-workers and prosperity in 2019!
My best regards,
Vanessa
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