Category Archives: Dirty Secrets

Malleable Inflexibility

Posted on by

There’s been something going on over the last two, three weeks that has had a major effect on my mood. As a contractor I’m used to having to adapt to different systems, work environments, people, politics, flexable work spaces etc. Most of the time when I start on a new assignment it takes a couple of weeks to get to know people, the system, and everything else I have to work with. It takes time to adjust. So far I’ve been on an assignment by myself mostly, meaning that the contracting company (let’s call it company A) that I work for outsources me as a skilled individual to one of their clients (company B) for a certain period of time. Most of the time I’ll join a team of people but in other cases I have also worked just by myself.

I’ve been doing this for nearly six years now and never ran into problems as I was easily adjusting to new situations and people of company B. At times direct colleagues (from company A) would work for other departments of company B, but I wouldn’t have to work with them. Until about three years ago when I was asked to become part of a scrum team by company A which was placed at one of the ministries. It was the first time I was part of a team of direct colleagues, about 14 of them, divided into two teams. I was the only designer that was hired, so I had to design for both teams. This assignment lasted for a year and half before it all went pear-shaped because of the behaviour of certain team members.

I won’t go into details but let’s say my strong work ethic was way different from theirs and particularly from the scrum master. If there is any chance I would have to work with him again in the future I will refuse it, my manager knows my reasons and agrees with me. There was a clash in the end because apparently I was not allowed to vent my opinion about situations where this scrum master would abuse certain privileges given by the client, which he did almost daily. Because I had said something about it, I was no longer his ‘friend’, I was now his foe, thus he turned the teams of ‘young, malleable, first-time-job graduates’ against me. Who -of course- would follow him like sheep. Talking about professionalism ;)

I was happy to leave this toxic environment. Four months into another government assignment I’m running into something similar. I’m currently dealing with a naysayers scrum team (different client, different scrum team but people from my contracting company) showing similar traits. So far it’s manageable but the main issue is, that another direct colleague from company A has been hired at the current place as an engineer. The product owner that I worked for has left since a couple of weeks and has not been replaced yet. So this colleague is now also temporary product owner and ever since he is feeling his ‘power’ it’s gotten to his head in a negative way, displaying an extremely dominant ‘attitude.

He keeps trying to undermine my position within the department, while I don’t need to answer to him but to another co-worker. And recently he’s been trying to undermine her position as well, telling me that I don’t need her approval on my designs, that he can do that as well. Which is absolutely not true. What he doesn’t understand is that she has certain knowledge and responsibilites that are related to her job and the reason why she is hired. He is basically saying that he has the same professional skills as she does. It would be like me saying that I could easily replace him as an engineer, which I can not because I didn’t study engineering *duh*. He can’t seem to get it through his thick skull tho.

I have no clue what it is that is causing people to act like this. My attitude is and has always been one of trying to solve issues and make sure a client is contented with my designs and solutions. Trying to undermine my position in this as a co-worker is not going to make things easier as I’m not willing to just give up and bow down. I’m not the one causing the friction and you will definitely meet the Capricorn side of me. There’s more but I think it will be best to focus on how to deal with it without getting angry about it. I’m sure there will be a ‘to be continued’… hopefully in a more positive way. If not I might have to draw my conclusion and find another assignment. ‘Solo’ this time…

The Investigator

Posted on by

At times I find myself lost on the digital high way going from one place to another seamlessly for hours in a row. I’ve written in my planner that I should stop doing this because what it comes down to is that I get caught up in lots of different searches thus basically ending up wasting my time. Back in the days when I did an attempt to study (seems ages ago) the professor warned the group about this. You were only allowed to search for half an hour at the most which isn’t that much even for a ‘pro’ like myself ;) Those 30 minutes are gone in a blink.

Most of the time I’m not even searching, I’d like to call it ‘investigating’ because I’ll become curious about stuff from the past and I’ll end up looking for certain people who were once part of my life. It’s a trap and I really should stop doing this because it is pointless. What’s the use of trying to find out what happened to these people? I mean they are no longer part of my life for a very good reason so why the curiosity? I have no clue what it is that drives me to do this as it isn’t even rewarding and right after I feel guilty for wasting my precious time doing this.

The other day I ended up doing this on Farcebook when I noticed a person on another person’s list of friends and from there it went downhill. I used to work in the advertising business for quite a while, most of the people I know from that period are connections on LinkedIn but not on FB. I wouldn’t want them to be connected on FB, only those who are still friends from that period are part of my FB. But it seems to be common in this country to have everyone listed on FB inlcuding your (ex) colleagues and they all pretend to be so close-knit as well.

Am I an exception? It seems that way… Anyway, I ended up looking at a profile of this attention seeker from the advertising period. She was the kind who would go only after married men or men that were spoken for. So years later whilst looking at her profile I could only come to the same conclusion: nothing had changed. She was still the same pathetic person, a very lonely attention seeking person. Sad… No one seem to be responding to her posts from the hundreds of people only three or four left a reaction each time she posted something ‘interesting’.

In this particular case I didn’t feel guilty, I felt like my gut had been right all along. I hold no grudge against her for trying it on with my partner back then, he was on to her from the start and ignored her sad advances towards him. She went from an extremely well earning production manager to a teacher at the graphic art school. The exact same school which I attended when I moved to Amsterdam to study, ages ago. So reading this made me grin actually and far from feeling guilty. That was one case, although there were a few more that made me laugh.

But overall it still feels like I’m wasting my time on investigating don’t-need-to-know-facts… And it makes me wonder why I fall in the same monkey trap over and over again. Is it a way to procrastinate from what I really should be doing? Is it curiosity? Do I need confirmation? I have yet to find the answer but I’m sure it has to do with ‘letting go’. Perhaps I’m letting go of past hurt by visiting the ones who caused it, realising they are no longer on that pedestal where I’d left them in my mind back then. They aren’t as fantastic as they want(ed) everyone to believe.

Secretly and secretively I’m smirking and I feel good about decisions I’ve made in the past and how it all turned out, how some really seem to have gotten what they’ve deserved by their actions. I’m glad I’m not part of the huge FB family they like to pretend to have. They were colleagues, I don’t feel the need to share my inner thoughts with any of them except the ones that have become close friends. They were pretending back then, keeping up appearances, so what would be different these days? Nothing, nothing has changed as far as I can see.

Perhaps I’m just getting older and I start to see things for what they really are/were. I have a lifetime of experience, a sixth sense and an extremely good gut telling me often what I should make of things. I guess I need to investigate every now and then to chuckle intensely for a few, let go of these ghosts and move on again. I don’t feel any competition anymore nor the need to prove myself to anyone like I felt I had to back then. It is what it is and it’s good. So perhaps investigating is merely about getting a confirmation of what I’ve known all along.