The Grump

Remember how you watched the oldest person in your office when you were first starting out in the workforce and thought to yourself, "I'll never be like them?"  

I mean, there was always someone, right?  Someone who worked diligently enough (and/or knew where the bodies were buried) and been with the same company for eons but never rose up past a certain point not because they didn't know their job but because their lack of people skills kept them down, and now was sort of disillusioned with life, sometimes the company, but generally the people they work with in the company, and definitely all of us young dumb ones with our fresh enthusiasm gunning for the corner office.

One gentleman that springs to mind was a career doorman at the first high rise I worked at.  He was older than I think anyone else on staff, including our manager, and been there for a long time.  He was fastidious at his job and took it oh-so-seriously.  He once was engaged in a heated argument with the manager, an attractive blonde female (think Rebecca from Ted Lasso if she had a Texas accent and you'll be close) at the lobby elevator as she was waiting for it.  He got on with her, argued with her all the way up to the top floor and back down.  She got off and retreated to her office to tell me about it, having never gotten to where she was originally going.  I don't remember what they were arguing about, but he was intractable when he wanted to be, and he wanted to be a lot. We saw him as and reacted to him as a total PIA.

When did I become that person?

Let me illustrate how I know I am.

I base it on many times I throw anywhere from a Level Five to Level Ten fit over something. It used to be measured in how many times in a week, but lately it seems it's the number of times a day, and when I stopped to consider that, that's when I knew. Yep I'm him.

Me reading a group email

What gets my goat?  What doesn't.  Group replies to group emails for starters.  A group email has its place, although its overused in my opinion, but when an email is sent to everyone and their dog and everyone but the dog, who doesn't have opposable thumbs and therefore can't type, starts replying to all of us my atomic rays begin pulsing because I have to deal with all of those replies that are irrelevant to me. I really don't need to know that you acknowledge to the boss that you read the email and are wishing him a good evening.  He might need to know that...but not me. 

I monitor three different email boxes for my job. Friday a very sweet individual whom I don't know emailed them all to ask for my help.  That irritated me more than one might think, but part of our software capabilities collates communications for reporting purposes, so you don't just close an email, you have to attribute it, notate it and then dispatch it.  It's a time suck, and the older I get the more irritated I get with my time being wasted.

Or interrupted.  I spent decades under the delusion that work-life balance was for pussies.  I sacrificed my family at that altar.  I'm determined to spend the rest of my time on earth differently.  Some of it's selfish, some of it is to be more available to the family I have left.  So text me at night, particularly on a hockey night, with a work question, and be prepared: you likely will feel the atomic blast I was building up from reading those reply all emails earlier.

And that's just email/text related. Do I tend to overly judge young workers because they don't have the depth of knowledge that I do? Do I blame them for not acknowledging that what they have is based on a foundation myself and my generation built for them? Do I just get irritated because? Have I lost sight of the fact that I was once in their very shoes: eager, wanting to prove I could work hard, and a little arrogant? Guilty on all counts.

But you know what it really is?  It's fear. It's the fear that after having spent a lifetime doing something and giving it your all but now you're becoming irrelevant.  Younger co-workers do and think differently than I do. They speak a different language. They deal with different challenges.  My ideas and etiquettes seem old fashioned and out of touch. And no one remembers who I once was within the organization, and honestly once I came to face that fact, I suddenly understood that long ago doorman: it's a fear of being forgotten.  And far worse still, being forgotten while we're still standing right there.

I really wish I could go back to those long ago days and deal with our problematic doorman differently. I have a lot more compassion for him now than I was capable of at 21.  And had we all been more solicitous of him, who knows, he probably had some things to teach us that would have made us better.

Would that have kept him from being a PIA?  We'll never know, but...