FWD: RE: Troublesome Writers

[anonfwd -at- raycomm -dot- com]

Andrew,
Some time ago, I was in a senior technical writer position on a project
team with two other documentation staff members. One was recently hired and had
more years of experience than me at other positions. She was also about 15
years older than me and in the process of obtaining her bachelor's degree,
while I held a master's degree in technical communication. I was in charge
of the documentation but not technically her manager - not an easy role to 
fulfill, since this person resented taking work direction from someone she felt
more senior to. She had *lots* of personal problems - medical for sure, and in
my opinion, probably psychological as well, based on my dealings with
her. She would feel personally hurt at each and every edit done to her work, no
matter how tactfully conveyed, and resented being asked to follow existing style
guidelines; she basically just wanted to do things her way.

The project manager on the team was in the process of documenting, for
personnel purposes, various incidents that had occurred, on the way toward
eventually probably firing this person, but it happens that the company
was closed and it never actually came to that point.

I won't go into all the details, but believe me, I tried *all kinds* of
tactics to try to deal with this person more effectively, to not have her
blow up at me, yet me able to still fulfill my own responsibilities to the
team and the requirements of my position. (For example, I remember waiting
to show her edits until just after lunch, as she seemed more calm at those
times - maybe a blood sugar thing or something?).

In retrospect, I think of this experience as my life experience-based MBA
in dealing with others. In order to protect my own sanity and well-being,
I had to learn to draw a boundary over how much I could feel responsible
for the dysfunction of someone who did *not* want help, or to have to change,
who very much preferred to blame others for her problems rather than to focus
on what she was responsible for within herself. These were hard lessons for
me, as I am by nature very empathic and nurturing.

When I read your post, your situation resonated with me. My experience
taught me that some problems cannot be fixed, and that the relationship is
perhaps best severed for the good of both parties. This woman very much wanted to be
the "alpha dog," but that role was not available, and in any case, contrary to
her own opinion of herself, she did *not* possess the higher levels analytical 
skills required to do so on the type of project involved. And she was unable to
learn not to take constructive, thoughtful criticism as a personal
affront.

Let me mention in closing that, although on the face of it I may be
seeming to say the opposite, I very much agree with Lisa's posting (see
extract below). In my case however, I had to draw the line in a position that protected my
own well being; I simply could not help someone who didn't want help or
see the need for it. I would have liked for the situation to have been otherwise, but
it just wasn't.

>I make this confession to bring to this list's attention that there are 
>usually
>underlying reasons for a person being difficult.  Obviously, everyone
must 
>make
>their own choice about how involved to get in a peer's or employee's
life.
>However,I didn't want this thread to continue without saying that there 
>might be
>a possibility that the difficult employee might need some help, and you
must
>determine your own personal level responsibility for the other person. 
>Hopefully
>you will make this determination with a deeper level of knowledge than 
>just the
>persons actions and the response that is easiest for you.




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