Blow Back

I recently posted about The Most Incredible Day I had at work last week. You may recall as the day drew to a close I felt good about our response to the days events and thought we had handled ourselves in a professional manner in the face of a chaotic situation. Turns out not everyone saw it that way.

Late in the afternoon the following day, I went down to our shop to get some parts. As I came around the corner I found one of the Physical Plant managers standing by the shop door waiting for me. He didn't look very happy and said he wanted to "talk" to me. Anticipating what he had to say, I recounted an abbreviated version of what had transpired the day before, suspecting he didn't know some key facts about what all happened. I got the impression he didn't hear a word I said. He very intent on delivering his message, that we are prohibited from having any contact with "his" equipment under any circumstances. He proceeded to give examples of the damage I could have done by putting the domestic water pumps into hand and further pointed out it took longer for his staff to " ... undo what you did than to fix the problem they came to fix in the first place". Which I took as a not so subtle hint that I'm ignorant when to comes to how their equipment functions. He also asked if the two departments I work for willing to pay for all the costs related to any damage these potential mistakes could have caused. This all took me so by surprise I didn't mount much of a defense for myself or our departments need to get the equipment online as quickly as possible that day. I also didn't mention the significant delays on the part of his staff which directly resulted in out equipment shutting down. This on purpose, as I didn't want to get into a finger pointing exercise, as I'm confident the various trades arrived as quickly as they could.

I see us as having acted as first responders, or mechanical paramedics if you will, and thought we performed that role very capably. Their response to our efforts, as delivered by him that afternoon, while having elements of merit, seemed to me wildly exaggerated and counterproductive. In effect, destroying a partnership we've aimed to nurture for the past several years. It also deeply hurtful to me, implying I don't know what I'm doing, with constant references to me "playing" and "tinkering" with their equipment.

After he left I felt furious inside and wanted to quit. Knowing this a rash thing to do I kept the conversation to myself and went straight home after work. I tried listening to my favorite news shows, but it a useless exercise as the conversation and various iterations of "what I should have said" rolled through my mind over and over. Eventually I put on some Jonny Quest episodes and calmed down enough to go to bed. The next couple days I asked 3 or 4 friends inside and outside the University for advice and ultimately decided to talk to my boss's boss about what happened.

To my surprise, she more or less agreed with the Physical Plant's view, that the departments didn't want to incur liability for any mistakes that could potentially occur. After more discussion, she agreed to make a call to the man who spoke to me to see if we could work out a less restrictive arrangement, as the current arrangement completely ties out hands if any Physical Plant equipment goes down for any reason, even under emergency situations. I'm hoping calmer heads will prevail and we can come to a consensus which allows us to have a first responder role, while still allowing the Physical Plant folks to feel they have full control over their equipment.

So "What's the point?" you may ask, other than sharing my frustrating experience with the world. Well, now that I've had a chance to reflect on all this some more I'm excited to see how much better I've handled this situation than I would have in the past. I believe this primarily the fruits of the counseling I've gone to for the past several years, starting to gain the ability to make friendships and most importantly, making a conscious effort to allow the Holy Spirit to work inside of me. Not that I claim to have mastered the art of listening to the Spirit in all situations, but it's so exciting to look back and realize, "That thought didn't come from me, that was a Holy Spirit thing!".

In the past, I would have acted on my first impulse to quit. In the immediate aftermath of our "conversation", some verses in Proverbs crossed my mind reminding me it never pays to act so rashly. Also, through various experiences over the past 10 years or so I've learned to feel anger inside of me when it's first welling up, rather than having it come out in a rage as it did in my youth. Part of this process realizing that Jesus and other biblical figures got angry on multiple occasions, so the anger in and of itself not necessarily a bad thing. It's our response to it and the underlying beliefs inside of us that lead us to feel the anger in the first place that really count. In this instance, I also took the time to seek counsel, and limited the number of people I shared this incident with in detail. Although in retrospect, I did on a couple of occasions slip into what Noel talked about a while back, "sharing" to make me look good rather than to truly seek advice or better the situation.

I've also considered whether I should try to write the man who came to "talk" with me a thoughtful e-mail outlining my concerns over the long term ramifications of this edict he handed down and the way he treated me that day. This seems a biblical way to go, although I do feel a bit tied down in that this isn't strictly a personal issue between him and myself, but also involves many other people. As a result, I'm not so sure if writing an e-mail on my own such a good idea, perhaps better to leave this to my boss's boss.