The Double Standards Were Off the Charts
(by the BA and ECOLAB to boot)
She made a federal case out of everything. If something wasn’t formatted to her liking, she wouldn’t budge on it (refusing to take on even the smallest of tasks while holding me up in the biggest of ways). She took issue with anything she didn’t instantly understand — sucking the life out of me for months (which felt like a year). The exhaustion from working nights and weekends to turn this shop around is not what wore on me most:
It was the dread of the drama I could count on like clockwork the next morning.
She fussed over every single thing unfamiliar to her (never missing an opportunity to gripe). Manager2 once told me: “I could just hear you biting your tongue.” I loved his “ticky-tack” term to describe her behavior that’s hardly limited to me (it was just in smaller doses in minor degrees). None of those people work with her in the same capacity — which is why they don’t see her issues in the severity I saw.
So what’s ticky-tack to him in meetings from time to time — takes on a whole other level in the trenches trying to get a job done with someone so incredibly uncooperative. But just like I did when she broadcasted this bit below in a meeting. I stayed silent on a litany of things just like it and far worse. It’s not this item in and of itself — it’s the attitude:
I don’t know what these staging tables are. I don’t need ’em.
Just because you don’t need something — doesn’t mean it’s not needed.
And for someone who pays damn good attention to detail on the business side, she is wildly off the mark on mine. To be fair, the bit below was in the aftermath of her medical leave. But if she can’t chat by Teams and won’t take a meeting or even a quick call:
At the very least, you could refrain from barking back at me the second you don’t understand what I’m asking you to do.
And in one breath . . .
How do you go from not grasping the purpose to casting judgment on its value? And who knows, perhaps in pausing a moment for professional courtesy — you might learn something valuable to add to your toolbelt for data analysis. She had no such notion:
Right now, I got from you over 53 hundreds of rows without the information what is the difference etc. And I should be checking it one by one. Rick, I do not know if that is on purpose but this is a huge waste of time for both of us.
— February 9, 2024 4:55 AM
Other than the number of rows . . .
Everything else she wrote was wrong. By the way, in about 20 minutes she saved me hours.
And are you are telling me that I can decipher a 28-page document in need of a rewrite or Rosetta Stone — but you can’t glance across some columns to see what’s different? And if for any reason you don’t see it, that’s fine — just politely ask me to explain (which I’d planned on doing but she didn’t give me a chance). She was too busy snapping at me for not sending a document instead of staying up to work with her in an interactive matter on the task (at whatever pace she wanted).
Since we hadn’t talked in months, it was high time we start. But the mere mention of a call became a “meeting.” Never mind that I was simply saying:
I’ll stick around all night for ya — and you can take one task at time and call me if you have any questions
To be fair, I’ve been doing that kind of analysis for decades — and that’s at the core of what this is all about: Being in the habit of doing things that are easy to us but may not be to others. I think it’s a minor miracle that she can manually process the steps in that document in the time that she does. But she wrote it and has repeatedly done it, so it’s a breeze to her: Hence the reason she was so casual about requesting I review it in the first place.
Keep in mind: We knocked this thing out of the park when I first showed up.
But then everything stopped on a dime on the development side (simply due to the nature of the of this project). I fell into a lull and got bored until the team was ready for me again. I blew it by not realizing we had a golden opportunity on our hands. I should have been shadowing her on deployments until I had that doc down cold. Automating it would have been a piece of cake at that point. But it’s your business and I just got there, so you have some degree of responsibility to impress upon the seriousness of the need. I’ve had people ask for far less with far more emphasis.
That thing should have come down from management as a priority right after the first phase of APW2.
Incredibly, after ironing out everything on my own (and matching up almost perfectly to her Exclusions Excel workbook): She was still complaining about not having summary of discrepancies she “asked for months ago.”
To which I essentially wrote:
Well, I retooled that process and now we no longer have those discrepancies (because I fixed everything). My entire summary is that I’ve got a couple of general questions on my understanding of one step and a couple of tabs (clearing up both of which would produce a 100% match).
Validating my automation of incoming files was the next step. With the foundation being right on the money with the Workbook, the rest was gravy. And since much of this process hinges on dependencies, it would make no sense to do another waterfall approach to producing a summary:
As fixing problems in one file could fix another.
While she’s complaining about her missing summary that’s no longer needed (once again refusing to answer a couple of quick questions): I was already documenting a detailed account of some missing values in a file she put into production. The data in her views was right (which we matched up on). But why is it missing in the file (and there’s a clear pattern I highlighted for her).
How much of an issue might that be? I have no idea — but somebody of her caliber of knowledge and insight into this business certainly would. And perhaps there’s a simple explanation that would amount to no concern at all. I provided a detailed explanation, the SQL to review the results, and highlighted records in the production file — and she has a professional responsibility to act on that information.
15 minutes ago — she’s griping about not getting specific questions on general inquiries. And now she’s carping about getting exacting detail (complete with everything she needs to investigate the issue) — but it’s not in Excel:
So that’s not gonna work for me
Well, why not just do some work for me tonight — and tomorrow we’ll do what works for you?
And since I spent many a night up at the wee hours of the morning trying to help on her time in any way I could (and killed myself every day for 6 weeks around her absence): Just what does it take to get a little grace? When she was glad to see me during deployments, she’d ask:
How long can you stay?
“As long as you need” . . .
No matter how I felt — no matter how she treated me.
To be fair, she played a part in improving our Issue Tracker (however much of a pain it was in getting there). It should have been fun though — just like a lot of this stuff should be enjoyable. I’m not saying it has to be, but why not? Even if you don’t get a thrill out of process improvement like I do, it should be inherent responsibility to keep the door open in exploring our options.
And what a shocker, the same guy from Enterprise Architecture who came waltzing in here after wasting 6 weeks — while pressing the urgency of due dates untethered to reality:
Since he has no idea what they need to do and no resource to do it even if they did.
Naturally, knows what’s best on DevOps too:
Lemme get this straight:
- This crew at Enterprise Architecture can be monument to ineptitude and get away it with ease
- That guy has the gall to suggest it’s “reinventing the wheel” to utilize a tool for what’s designed to do
- Not to mention that in all of 10 seconds — he can feel free to shut down discussion on any and all concerns unworthy in his eyes
- The BA can refuse to talk . . .
- Refuse to act on anything that doesn’t conform to her format
- Refuse to listen and learn
- Sling assumptions and judgments on things she knows nothing about
- And treat me like shit for 6 months
All that — is perfectly permissible!
- But the guy who’s bent over backwards trying to turn it all around . . .
- Openly accepted responsibility for every mistake he made
- Drove the implementation of our issue tracker for increased accountability and smoothness of operation
- Offered ideas for both short-term and long-term solutions to fix our underlying problems (while facing resistance every step of the way)
- Automated her manual process to run in 4 minutes that took 4 hours
- Was on the verge of a well-oiled machine (even without fixing the underlying issues)
- Delivered 4 deployments at once (complete with automated jobs for each one) — and did it all while being miserably sick (working through July 4th and the weekend to boot)
That is the guy who needs a talking to for telling Enterprise Architecture the unpleasant truth. Fine, I could have been more diplomatic in delivering what I am not alone in thinking. But it’s just laughable that harshly calling a spade a spade is what prompts your immediate attention:
Not the nightmare I’d been through for 6 months — requiring a “creative solution” you seemed incapable of crafting.
3 calls in one afternoon (2 from my managers and one from the rep): Making it clear that I can’t do that again (or I won’t be extended when my contract is up in September). They did what they had to do (and all 3 were perfectly fine in how they did it). I don’t dispute any of that:
It’s just the façade of it all!
And that’s what set the wheels in motion for me to go HR. In sight of the staggering hypocrisy — I lost faith in your ability to handle the situation. After decades of going it alone in addressing systemic problems poisoning the atmosphere of possibility: This time I thought I’d try a new tack by seeking assistance from HR.
We have very different definitions of “professionalism” — and same goes for “assistance.”
If my managers were going to fire me — they would have done it in response to my email below (which was 2 weeks after I contacted HR). I asked them if they had any update earlier that day — and was just stunned that they were “still looking into it” (or something along those lines). That they took another 2 weeks just blows my mind.
Just how long was I supposed to wait for you to do your job so I could properly do mine?
ECOLAB’s not the first to spark a piece based on the opening line below — and what I have say on all my sites is rooted in the same (long before this song came along). In a world spinning its wheels on symptoms — you’re missing a mountain of pay dirt in the roots. For those who think they see a pattern developing, you’re right: I’ve always clashed with a culture that increasingly values bullshit as currency.
And my concessions could never keep up with the pace of pampering that plagues our society. I’ve got an idea on how to change all that and a great deal more, but “it’s locked up from those who hurry ahead.”
When the machine has taken the soul from the man
It’s time to leave something behind . . .
Oh, wisdom is lost in the trees somewhere
Oh, you’re not gonna find it in some mental gray hair
It’s locked up from those who hurry ahead
My aim was always to find a home where I could settle in for an ever-evolving future — a quest for belonging in the right company with a crew that continually hones its craft on Saint Jerome’s journey:
Good, better, best. Never let it rest. ‘Til your good is better and your better is best.
I wanted one tiny space in the world where people do right by one another — and rise to the occasion when we don’t. It was just a dream, so I’ve had to repeatedly lower my expectations if I wanted to continue in this career.
All I ask for now is that people be in the ballpark of their beliefs, but even that seems too much to ask — and my sample size is extensive.
Deep down, the dream lives on — and it always will . . .
Workin’ all day in my daddy’s garage
Drivin’ all night chasing some mirage . . .
You have no idea!
I learned early on in life that what you want gets in the way of what you see.
How you respond to criticism can be life-altering — and I would know (many times over). How you adjust to mistakes and what’s not working — same principle:
To look at the situation objectively (especially your role within it).
I made a big mistake below, and in the wrong hands — it’s over: A ton of work amounting to a big block of wood, waste of money, and a vision shot to hell. A solid block was not too bright, but not only did I come up with a way around the problem I created . . .
It was a blessing in disguise!
Sometimes we do things with the best of reasons behind ’em — with rock-solid experience shaping our approach. But problems can arise when we get too comfortable relying on our experience — then make assumptions that don’t account for other factors.
That can happen to anybody, but if you wanna accomplish your goal — keep the door open for when things don’t go as planned. And ya gotta be willing to wonder:
Is this working? Will it ever work?
I was right on the money with my CAD/CAM approach — I just had the wrong CNC machine. You’d think a waterjet that could cut through 2 inches of solid steel would buzz right through that block.
Not so fast!
But by reassessing the situation:
I solved the problem — and then some! A solid block was stupid in the first place — a decision driven by my vast experience in building solid furniture. That made perfect sense in that domain, but I was in new territory and didn’t adjust. Now I was about to: By going old-school to reset the situation — and new-school to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
I didn’t want a gap when sliding the CD into the slot, but I was so dead set on that from the start that I never even asked:
Is a solid slot “really” necessary? And was the excess weight worth it?
Once I was willing to consider such questions — inside of 60 seconds, I came up with the idea for how to fix my misstep. And the only reason I could pull that off is because I’d explored other CNC options for possibly producing an acrylic plastic wall-mounted version:
In prehistoric times when CDs dominated the day.
How you adjust from mistakes and knowing the tools available to you — can make all the difference in the world.
We will cut the [wheel] down the middle
For the rest of the story . . .
Music in Motion: “We Will Cut the [Wheel] Down the Middle”
When you see your ship go sailing
When you feel your heart is breaking
Hold on tight to your dreamIt’s a long time to be gone
Time just rolls on and on
When you need a shoulder to cry on
When you get so sick of trying
Hold on tight to your dream
When you get so down that you can’t get up
And you want so much but you’re all out of luck
When you’re so downhearted and misunderstood
Just over and over and over you could . . .When you see the shadows falling
When you hear that cold wind calling
Hold on tight to your dream . . .