RE: Beaten by the mob

[Jason Willebeek-LeMair <jlemair -at- cisco -dot- com>]

There are obvious dangers, as Andrew pointed out, of going off on bullies. 

At a previous employer, there was a marketing person who was rather, shall
we say, brusque.  Shortly after starting there, I was assigned to one of his
projects.  He was 
loud.  He yelled.  He cut people off.  He asked people to fetch him coffee.
I had the pity of my department, all of whom had dealing with him in the
past.

One day, after a long night of tending a colicky newborn, I spoke without
thinking.  I happen to be one of those people whose normal genial nature
turns towards the "possessed by satan" side when deprived of sleep.  I was
standing with him and a few of his cohorts in the hallway when he asked me
to do something that sparked my inner demon--I don't recall exactly what it
was, it may have been to get him some coffee or to write down the pearls of
wisdom that were dripping from his tongue at the moment.  Without thought I
blurted out "Get your own damn coffee (or whatever it was).  What am I?
Your personal secretary?  Next thing you know, you are going to ask me to
sit on your lap and take dictation."

Dead silence followed.  One of the other marketeers chuckled.  Then I was
dismissed by by the simple act of his turning his back on me and ignoring
me.  I went back to my personal work habitat, and was called into the
director's office not thirty minutes later.  Not my manager, but the
director.  

"Close the door."  Now, that is not something you really want to hear from a
director after spouting off.

"I don't know what you said to [name deleted],"  yep, time to pack up, "but
he just called me and has requested that you work on all of his projects.
He has never done that before."

Yep. Shooting my mouth off got me stuck with the marketer from hell for the
rest of my career there.  It turned out to be not so bad, he was obnoxious
because he was good--he tended to take on more than he could handle and the
first thing that suffered was his social interaction abilities.

But the moral is, I was lucky.  He went for the macho "punch each other in
the nose and then become best friends" plotline.  I could easily have been
fired on the spot.

Diplomacy first. Make sure you are a good judge of character before pushing
back.  Be prepared to pay the price if your assessment of character happened
to be wrong.

Jason
P.S. I think that I have now become the cranky person that people fear to
deal with. I need to get more sleep--or an exorcism.



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