How to deal with difficult people

[rolanni]

Asyouknowbob, I have a day-job. By and large, it's a pretty good day-job; certainly, I've had worse. It's occasionally hard-to-very-hard on the hands, Absolutely Brutal on any Planned Writing Schedule, and sometimes the Scholarly Angst is to drown in, on account of there are more scholars angsting than there are departmental secretaries available to absorb it. Still -- a steady paycheck and health insurance, mostly grown-ups to work for... In this economy, and the one that's lumbering down the street, the day-job is not to be lightly discarded.

Working as I do in a college means that every year or three I get a new chair for one or all of the department/programs that I support. The beginning of this school year saw a changing of the departmental chair and next year there will be a change in a program chair.

The outgoing chair is senior faculty, an intelligent and savvy woman I'm going to miss very much. The incoming chair is...junior faculty, smart as new paint -- and certainly smarter than you -- perky, and extremely political. She spends a lot of time on her hair and on planning what to do with her hair. My experience of her as a faculty member is...not positive.

Now, before we go further -- I am myself a difficult person. I'm opinionated, sarcastic, and, um, old. I have no use for perkiness or for girl-games. Let us, indeed, make it plain that I am actively hostile to girl-games, having bypassed the whole girl thing in order to do the work of surviving childhood as a more-or-less intact human being. I am not a nice old lady who likes to take adorable young faculty members under her wing and mother them. Just. No.

So, the new chair is not inheriting a picnic.

On the plus side, I'm a smart, fast, experienced, good worker, with a lively sense of the ridiculous (OK, maybe not a plus, there)-- and I try to keep the lines of communication with my chairs wide open.

Keeping communication open, of course, means that the person on the other end of the line actually listens, which has not been my experience of the incoming chair. She seems -- and this is subjective, of course, but it's all I've got -- to believe that support staff exist only for the brief moment she needs to issue orders. She has no idea of the work attached to accomplishing her orders -- and doesn't care, which, to a point, she shouldn't, though she should have some realization of the fact that she is not the only fish in my supervisory sea.

Now, the challenge awaiting me is having to deal with an inexperienced chair who will insist that she knows everything, who does not have good listening skills, whose bacon I will have to save on a daily basis, and who will blame me utterly for every failure or misstep. I will need to do this and have enough emotional stamina to go home every night and write, because we have books under contract, and I don't intend to quit writing and Devote Myself to being a secretary.

Coping strategies, please? "Not taking it personally" doesn't appear to be an option, though I'd love to hear from anyone who actually manages that.

Comments

[shelens.livejournal.com]

I wish I had some decent advice to offer; it's virtually impossible to develop a skin thick enough to repel barbs delivered with venom by not-quite-adult persons when they (unfortunately) are in positions of authority. As a fellow "old" person with even more years accrued than you can take credit for, you have my sympathy. I work with a number of bright, very young girls who engage in political maneuvering and girl stuff, most of which I believe can be attributed to hormone fluctuations. Fortunately most of them have NO power over me, and I have learned to "work around" the only one who can order me about, mostly by pretending she didn't say what I just heard. My only real suggestion is to follow up every single verbal assault (or order) with a written email confirmation, as in "this is to confirm what you just said regarding....." and hope that she will eventually learn, sooner rather than later, that you do your work competently and in a timely fashion. By the way, it sounds as if you ought to also solicit support from some of your current chairs/program heads! I don't know if this is helpful AT ALL - if I had my selfish druthers you would spend all your time writing the books I eagerly wait for instead of needing the 'day-job' thing. Maybe the new order will come up with reasonable health insurance and you can do what you do so very well ALL the time.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

My only real suggestion is to follow up every single verbal assault (or order) with a written email confirmation, as in "this is to confirm what you just said regarding....." and hope that she will eventually learn, sooner rather than later, that you do your work competently and in a timely fashion. By the way, it sounds as if you ought to also solicit support from some of your current chairs/program heads!

Both very helpful suggestions, thank you.