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

[dina-james.livejournal.com]

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.

This is just me, and I know it doesn't work for everyone or every situation, because sometimes it's just easier to deal/cope in order to avoid the work that comes from "not dealing", but I would seriously let her fall flat on her face and learn from the experience.

You said it yourself. You're not her mother. Unless you NOT "saving her bacon" daily is going to generate more angst than it's worth/more work for you than is worth going to, I would totally let her hang herself. But I'm mean and evil.

The reason she's "come this far" is because people have ALWAYS "saved her bacon" for her, and now she thinks that's not only how the world works, but that she's somehow entitled to someone else doing for her.

Of course, I don't know her, so I could be totally wrong, but that's generally how it works in my experience, and NOTHING enrages me like a totally unjustified sense of entitlement. (Smart women are notorious for this; "smarter than you" is worse than "holier than thou" in my opinion!)

And if she's such a smart girl, she should be able to figure all of that out on her own. Not that she *will*, but she should be able to.

Oh, and I'm one of those people who successfully "doesn't take it personally". I learned a lot time ago not to take things personally unless something was very specifically my fault and I knew it. I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt that said "people can only make you feel the way you let them", or something to that effect, and it's entirely true. They don't know they've hurt you if you never see you cry, etc. I'm not about to let someone else's bad day affect me or my day - they don't have the right to make me feel like crap because they have issues. If something is my fault? Yeah, totally, I'll own up first thing. If someone is blaming me for something that is completely their fault because it's more convenient to blame me than it is to own up themselves and possibly look like a complete dork, oh HELL no. So yes, I *am* one of those people who "don't take it personally", unless it's something I know I'm responsible for. We do exist, and though we're usually seen as "difficult" for that (because people want you to react in the way *they* think you should, and when you don't...yeah.).

I like to say I'm an "equal opportunity offender" - I piss everyone off, and it's usually for that reason. If I can help make someone's bad day better, sure, I'll help, but I refuse to let them dump their bad day or blame their issues on me.

I grew up in a household with a man who had anger management issues. It took me a long time, growing up, to realize that he was never mad *at* anything, or anyone. He was just mad because he couldn't help being so (he did get some help when I got older, and that made things better). I finally realized/accepted that his emotional state wasn't my responsibility, and nothing I did or didn't do could change it, and I stopped letting myself take responsibility for it.

Don't take responsibility for Smart Political Hairdo. She's not your responsibility. She's a grown-up, and if she's not, she'll have to learn to be, and quick. Boot Camp starts today, and she's in the Army now. She has to put on her Big Girl Panties and cope. She's not a manager/supervisor, she's a dictator, and don't let her rule you. The best way you can cope with her is to let/make/force her to cope. She supposedly worked her way to where she is, well, now she can deal. This might mean a more difficult adjustment period than usual, but it's also the perfect situation to "train" her. Show her that things work a little differently when you're the one actually in charge. Put the responsibility back where it belongs...on her.

Just my thoughts and opinions. Hope they help!

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I would totally let her hang herself.

See? Under normal circumstances, so would I, except she's shown herself so adept at making her failures my fault. If I'm going to be fired with prejudice, then I might as well quit with honor and avoid all the headaches. And neither one of those preserves the health insurance.

Sigh. If I make a mistake, I admit it. Granted, it's not always easy. I mean, there was the time when I was working for the newspaper that I Utterly Fracked Up the local news page. I couldn't've gotten it more wrong if I'd studied on it for a month.

So the next day, night crew ambles into the managing editor's office for the recap and he roars out, "Who is the Complete Moron who was in charge of the local page last night?"

I wanted to sink under the table, but... tell the truth and shame the Devil.

"I was," I whispered.

"You! Whatta you got to say for yourself?"

"I screwed up," I said -- and the whole crew, including the managing editor, howled.

[otaku-tetsuko.livejournal.com]

I think the quote you're looking for is "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent," something I hold onto daily. Eleanor was one feisty lady, and thank you for reminding me.

I have my own problem manager, and no recourse that I can think of except chewing more holes in my tongue not pointing out her hypocrisy, but there, I gave up Confrontation a long time ago.