RE: Beaten by the mob

["Carey Jennifer (Cry)" <jennifer -dot- carey -at- cdi -dot- cerberus -dot- ch>]

You know, that puts me in mind of a similar experience. I was brought in as
a sub-contractor under another consultant who was the project lead. He was
was a major pain in everyone's behind, blaming everyone else for anything
that went wrong. It was a nightmare. He was downright abusive, very
personal, and many people left the project because of him. I never let him
get away with it with me. He tried it once and I fired right back (not below
the belt). I was the only one he left alone. 

Another case - I had a different kind of project doing a video newsletter
for a company and was under the head of HR.  He actually took me to Hooters
for my welcome on-board lunch (the wings were tasty). Anyway, he was a big
bully and I witnesed more than one member of his all-female staff leave his
office in tears. But again, I held my ground with him. The irony with him
was that the 'tougher' I was and the more I demanded (pay, support, etc.)
the more respect he gave me. Again, I was the only one he treated well. 

On the other hand, when it came to the grizzled and crusty developers at
another company I worked for (they were notorious for being difficult to
work with), I was very gentle and patient. I showed a lot of respect and
tried to be as humble as possible. They turned out to be wonderful to work
with and went out of their way more than once to make things easier for  me.

Moral? People are complex creatures and applying an absolute rule about how
to behave with anyone is virtually impossible. Sure, you have your general
rules, but they don't always work. You have to read the situation and try to
figure out as best you can why people may be behaving the way they do and
make your best guess from there. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> From: Nora Merhar [mailto:nora -at- helloworld -dot- sh]

> This is so true! At my previous job (which I miss, but it was 
> telecommunications,
> and I was worried that they would finally figure out that they didn't 
> need me full
> time) one of the engineers started yelling at me for seemingly no 
> reason. I yelled back. He later brought me an Oberweiss 
> chocolate shake and an apology, and we've been buddies ever since.

I can totally relate to this---in a previous career in the early 1980s
at a defense manufacturer I was in a regular meeting with a project
manager (ex-Navy officer) who continually interrupted people, questioned
them on every little thing they said, and generally made everyone
miserable. Engineers would cringe and retreat into stuttering in this
meeting. He did it to me, too, when I tried to report on my little
portion of the project (plus, as the only female in the group, he'd
always tell me to get the coffee, which aggravated me no end). One
meeting I finally got angry and, at the umteenth interruption, said,
"Well, if you'd just shut up and let me finish a sentence, you'll get
your answers!" He stared at me and then mumbled, "oh, sorry, go ahead."
And he never, ever interrupted me again, and didn't ask me to get the
coffee, either. <G> Outside the meetings he treated me very well in a
very civil manner. It seemed that he respected people who could stand up
for themselves and resisted being run over.

So in this case it worked. 

Nancy Kaminski
nancy -dot- kaminski -at- spanlink -dot- com



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