2005-02-15
Inappropriate Questions
Well, I talked to my THERAPIST best friend and followed her advice almost to the letter.
I wrote a letter stating why this review was a problem in my eyes and I cited the fact that since none of the enormously good things that I've done were on the table, then the negative things on the table really need to be concrete examples of my poor performance. Of the two examples used, one of them was citing a project that was incomplete.
Oh, well if you don't finish your work, you haven't done a good job, right?
I was waiting for more information from my manager, information that was crucial to completing the project.
It wasn't done and I was being spoken to like a non-contributory amoeba based on an example that COULD NOT BE FINISHED BECAUSE SHE DIDN'T GIVE ME THE INFO NEEDED TO COMPLETE THE PROJECT.
For the record, that project was scrapped.
So I write this letter and if there's something that I know I can do, it's write a letter. I write the letter and I am told that my response is inappropriate. I worte a letter that expressed my concerns, that cited examples of the great work that was left out of my review, and closed by asking for her help to be a better employee.
And it's inappropriate.
I think it is way more appropriate to write a concise summary of why you don't understand a situation than it is to pull examples of poor performance from projects that were abandonned.
I think it's inappropriate that you treat me like plasma, and not the TV kind.
I think it's inappropriate that I had to bring HR into this, as a reality check, and I think it's inappropriate that when I ask for help, you shut me down.
If I'm asking for help, I'm trying to get better at something.
I am learning some very crappy lessons right now and I don't think I need to share them out loud.
I suppose that would be considered inappropriate.
At least my examples are hard-core and uncensored, in writing, date-stamped, and signed, yo?
But I wasn't allowed to show those to you, was I? You have been convinced, since day 1 (or at least have acted like it), that I am a worthless hunk of space. I am over here trying to figure out what it is that you want from me and try to give it to you but when I think I have figured it out, I am wrong.
When I ask questions about how to figure it out, I have done so inappropriately.
When I try to talk to you about what is going on over here at my desk, I am full of it.
You know what?
I'm not going to apologize for being the only single woman here. I'm not going to apologize for dating Namoli.
And then for dating Terry.
I'm not going to apologize for not birthing any children, for not voting Republican, for not driving a truck, for being Jewish, for having a first-class education, for being confident, for asking questions, for trying to be better, for trying to fit in, for anything becaue you have not shown me what the problem is.
It feels very personal.
I can't lift a finger without pissing someone off due to the fact that if I take initiative, I've done so incorrectly. If I ask questions, I have an attitude problem, and if I don;t do the work, I am not doing the work.
You tell me what to do because I have been asking and not getting answers for too damn long.
YOU
TELL
ME.
arizonasarah at 3:37 p.m.