My day was so so, how was yours?

I feel awful….not sick awful, but guilty really. I made someone at work cry. Let me tell you how..

Several months ago we had a re-organization at work, after several key executives and senior staff  left…most took the early retirement, some went elsewhere to work. The people who ascended to fill their positions were all the brightest bulbs in the pack.

 

My manager, who used to manage only the web application and customization unit, was made manager over my unit as well; nice, since prior to the re-org, it was suggested I was going to go from de facto manager (I had been filling that role for 2 years) to manager.

He is very unfamiliar (and uncomfortable) with running our unit as well, and so a couple of weeks ago came to me and asked if I would take over managing the procurement side of our new unit. Part of that effort is trying to train a staff member who is new to procurement, and oddly enough was designated the IT procurement person. So all these projects we are running are delayed because of incomplete IT purchases, so I and the other two staffer located with me (we are in a different building from the rest of our unit, who are all in headquarters) are trying to help this new woman, who is a third location, where the procurement and accounting staff are since she is…a procurement person.

 

Only she isn’t- she was a software licensing person, who used to manage a system that tracked the software we use corporate wide, and ensure the license for using everything are current.

 

So she comes to my office today, and shows me the whole complete spreadsheet she has made and starts telling me why all the procurements are going to have to wait until she figures out how to organize the forms, which recently she decided need to be kept in paper and on SharePoint.

 

I sort of lost it…I told her I understand her stress, and the need to be organized, but there is a broader background to see than just her little part of this. I emphasized how  the key procurements  I pointed out to her over a week ago are still no where near being completed, and with out those the projects stay stuck in nothing happening, and our clients get mad, and then in two weeks I am going to meet with the CIO and the IT Steering Committee, and I NEED to be able to define what progress we have made in moving these friggin things along…

 

She stood there a minute, and then started to cry. I told her to take a minute, sit down, get collected. We are in this together, and as a team can move forward, and I was sorry I made you cry…She stopped crying and said “you get to leave this place [referring to the fact that it has become widely known I accepted a position with another company], I never wanted to be the procurement analyst, and now you are leaving, and I am stuck here, and no one at accounting will help me”

 

I instantly felt bad.

Not only because I made her cry, but because I have not lived up to my reputation of being really supportive of my staff….I should have gone over my manager to his boss and complained about her not getting the support she needs. Oh wait, I did do that… and got nothing from it.

 

 

No wonder I decided to leave.