Well big news - on Thursday I was successful at a position interview process elsewhere in the company. When I go to write my occupation on a form it will no longer be 'engineer' but instead will be 'analyst'. Still deeply embedded in the STEM industry and with the need to drive with more autonomy, creativity and influence than I ever have before in my working life. It's back to more of the type of work that I was doing before I found myself in that toxic area. But at a much deeper level in a much harder job.
Such a difference in one year. Last year at this time I stayed with a friend in the country. I was trying to work on a side project for a competition for work and having problems focusing. We spent a bit of time talking about work and I realised that I was a bit of a mess. Come June last year, and the very first day of my first secondment out of there and there was just this massive sense of absolute relief. I had not realised how stressed I was in my old toxic area. That was by the end of Monday. I woke up on the Wednesday and thought, I can't go back. But you know, there are lots of nice people there in my old area and the work is very interesting. But off and on over the months I would think about how I had to go back after my secondment. And then there would be periods of massive spikes of depression thinking back over things. And then I worked out that going back and the spikes of depression were connected. So I became resolute about not going back. And then there was a second secondment away from there - and more importantly into a type of work that I had identified I had the skills for and wanted to do in the future, and that I could transition to as a junior role externally.
And now it's a year later and I can really see what a huge mess I must have been a year ago. Lots of people have commented to me how different I seem - a lot less stressed. I am more mentally healthy than I have been for a very long time.
About two years ago at one point I thought I was having a stroke. ECGs in emergency, an MRI, and a couple of appointments with a neurologist - a professor in neurology at a top teaching hospital no less, and no it's just all in my head. The neurologist was bemused that I was so relieved to be told it was just stress that was causing all these real symptoms. But seriously, why didn't I realise then what my job was doing to me and take action? How could I have kept going?
It's so strange. I guess I've had to survive for so long with my depression - CBT and just constant practice of thinking the best of things and consciously looking for good. And then applying that too my work area. Because there is a lot of good. And a lot of bullying and marginalisation behaviour is much better now. I mean, there are still outrageous examples - as per my last manager in that old toxic area prior to my secondment out. During my secondment out I was given the best possible manager back at my home base of my old area who has been amazing even though for all practical things he's not really my manager. There is just so much good in amongst the old area. But for me that door had closed. I had worked out that I could not go back. And finding that Outlook task kind of proved that again. I would constantly say to this wonderful person that it wasn't them and that they were fantastic, and that the new GM bringing in culture change is fantastic, but I am too damaged.
And I am. My lack of confidence applying for this role. Each little thing doing work, stretching out to make decisions that I would be totally responsible for, creating emails and documents, stretching out to ask questions. Being willing to be wrong. Asking for feedback - oh how precious is feedback and this time actually getting feedback. Being told I got the role and almost collapsing. Not wanting to tell anyone as it doesn't seem real. My posts on friends only social media is obscure and leaning back on a thread from days back about the 4th interview - but the friends who followed that have found it and are very happy for me. They've seen the damage over the years. It's been a long time. And they've seen me since I've been out of there.
So now to get over it. I've realised that listening to my friend in my old area saying that I have to get over it while I was there actually wasn't reasonable. The damage was done over a long long time. I was in that old area since 2000 and various incidents also prior that. That's a long, long time. To expect someone to just snap out of it is not realistic. I stayed because I was a little boiled frog. It's going to take me a while to trust again. It's going to take me a while to trust managers again - although I think I'm a naturally trusting person. Except HR. I don't think I'll ever trust HR at our company again but I don't really have to because they don't deal with us so that doesn't matter. There are little day to day incidents of respect - it almost weirds me out.
I think that how I am going to get over this is producing one piece of work at a time. One document. One workshop. One training session. One repository. They know I'm still learning the technical stuff. They know my approach and my attitude. I delight that every day I'm there I'm learning new stuff. That one of my immediate team members is amazing at this job and I have him to learn off. And all of this translates to roles I could get outside, away from the old area's type of industry.
Today two later there is a sense of relief and calm and determination. Even if I'm not up for this job I've got a chance. There is so much I can learn here. In fact I am also going to be working with an SME who is at the technology heart of some of my biggest technical dreams. I am nervous I won't be up for this but I'm going to try. See what happens I guess.
Saturday, 25 March 2017
Sunday, 19 March 2017
I don't know what they do so maybe I don't understand why they don't do it
I think... I need to talk about HR.
I try not to think about HR. I try to meet and recognise nice people in HR. The friends I have in HR who I like and respect and trust I watch really carefully trying to understand how they think.
Because mostly how the hell did what happened to me happen if HR exists? Seriously.
I should probably also mention that last Thursday week while trying to set on ways to manage the work that I'm now doing I was looking again at Outlook tasks thinking that this might be the most appropriate tool. And in amongst a similar experiment from a couple of years back, I found a few tasks from many years back, and one specific task from 2008.
It was a task where I had detailed the day to day things that had happened to me over a period of months - along with attached emails - that were about the bullying and what the section was like ... and I just read it over again as I was about to include things from it here thinking I had got my equilibrium back ... but I haven't. Finding it was like a bomb. Even talking about it makes me cry. Reading it again just then I feel the helpless, the angry (which I turn in on myself as it's safest) and uselessness of it all that made me want to do what I had starting acting on. At one point I was going to try to write a book on this. I have all my emails and books somewhere around. But I don't think I can. It is just too much.
But reading this stuff, I just think *how* did HR not step in and act? At that time there was 1 HR person for our 2500 employees in our branch nationally. I know this because when I first rang him I was my usual friendly and chatty self and he told me. But by the pinnacle of this whole debacle was a meeting with me, my manager, my manager's manager, the HR person, the HR person's manager on the phone. I had spent 1.5 hours with a friend who was an industrial relations lawyer preparing for this meeting and writing out a statement that I was going to make. When I showed another lawyer friend afterwards she said something about giving myself away. But I always fight fair and take ownership of my own issues. I don't remember the points of it but I remember her comments so I suspect whatever I did wasn't wise in the ways of the world. Ah well. When I tell people about that meeting they say that that would never happen with HR at their work and shake their head in horror.
My managers' manager retired last year. Before he did I rang him up and asked if he remembered. He implied that he remembered I had some problems and was quite unpleasant about it. People think he's a nice guy. I just don't know what to think. My manager at that time people thought and still do think he's a nice guy. I think he's a nice guy but too weak a person for the situation he was in. He had been working with HR before my stuff seriously started happening to get rid of someone (who did need to go - wasn't up to the work and was hassling female employees). HR seemed to have decided he should take the same approach with me that he had used with this other person. Which just didn't work as they were not the same issues. Anyway various things happened which when I tell people about them they're horrified and I'm still there.
I do indeed have a ripper work story to tell. When I won't fall apart telling it.
But HR. Seriously. I know that they work for the company and not for the employee. But when they don't truly bring out the company's supposed ethics and step in to do something about it is that truly working for the company?
Recently someone started a women in tech group on the corporate forum thing. So hey I joined - it was private too which is something I asked for over 2 years ago and nothing happened. Sounds like someone in the IT groups had also realised there was a need for a private women's support section.
However HR are commenting into this group's threads. I quote this particular HR person's response to another friend of mine's comments on failing to retain women:
"
Yes I agree it is an issue about retention as well as recruitment. I would encourage any female (wherever they work in the business) to raise any issues impacting their health and wellbeing with either their 1 up manager, HR or [the corporate sponsored counselling service]. Given the nature of [how our offices work] and [our policy of making all roles flexible to work in], it can sometimes be hard to provide a convenient, physical space for people to go to - which is why groups and discussion like this are so important.
"
This just sounds like paper-our-ass talk. Let's break it down practically shall we?
Talking about health issues with work is almost always a bad idea. Seriously just get real. Unless it's obvious physical something then just don't. It just becomes a handle on which they can cause you issues - they don't really want to have the hassle and you don't want to be in that position.
Impacting wellbeing - right. So the little 'microaggressions' (new pet term someone's come up with) you reckon mention those? To your 1-up? Ok... well... if you have a good relationship with your 1-up they will a)already know and have acted on them or b) you'll already be telling them. So the benefit of telling people to tell them is what actually? Obviously if you're *not* telling your 1-up manager there is a *reason*. And telling HR? Well you tell me what they actually do and I might. Ask anyone these days and the first thing they'll tell you is HR is there for the company not you. The *only* reason you tell HR is to fill out a tickbox. It's a tickbox for yourself and a tickbox for them. Process followed so that when it is all useless you can say you followed it while then solving your own issues for yourself in another way. Processes themselves are totally for the company's protection. So, telling HR sure, but it does not assist with your health or wellbeing - just with a tickbox. Choose your time and do the minimum with the minimum fuss.
And the corporate counselling service - this confuses me. Almost sounds like they care ... but it's totally toothless. As an external organisation which mostly operates confidentially you can tell them what you like but what's that going to do? Nothing. Anyone sensible already has their own network of friends, families and counsellors totally external. I've proved this too - I've used them a couple of times just for alternate points of view - when yes they acknowledged I was bullied - in fact in the 2008 task has a reference to that. Supposedly they are trained and the corporate part of them suggests they know stuff about office relations. But toothless. Gums smiling in an absent way.
The stuff about the "hard to provide a convenient, physical space for people to go" confuses me - excepting the later context of "groups ... like this". Which suggests to me that HR are *all over* this private women in tech group. Maybe they're like trying to make a mark here? Like a territorial cat?
Fortunately when it comes to HR I have no sense of smell. I kind of don't really know what they do except recruit, supposedly write policies to protect the company, and manage time-sheet data feeding into costs. They don't do anything that helps our day to day work. I guess I'll keep reading that group and posting if I think I can add to the conversation. The total cluelessness, and contextually emotional ineptness of that comment though, suggests we are going to get more HR input from time to time that might put a lot of people off.
Did I mention that during the worst times of my being bullied, I spoke to the diversity person of my company? He answered the phone and listened and said 'oh really' and sounded like he was laughing. I would email him afterwards giving points on what we discussed. I am fairly sure we talked twice in such a way. It's in those emails I will go through one day. He's head of diversity now. So with IWD etc he's posting up the corporate messages and posting the diversity report. Diversity means all types of diversity of course. But um, I see his name and his position, and well... I then read this territorial HR person's comment and it's all of the same.
In other news I danced at the wedding of some of the most beautiful people I know and he is HR. And one of my best friend's sisters is the most gorgeous person and she is HR. Not at my company. So I watch, and listen, and pay attention to what they tell me and what their values are. I do understand what they do as people because they are good people.
I try not to think about HR. I try to meet and recognise nice people in HR. The friends I have in HR who I like and respect and trust I watch really carefully trying to understand how they think.
Because mostly how the hell did what happened to me happen if HR exists? Seriously.
I should probably also mention that last Thursday week while trying to set on ways to manage the work that I'm now doing I was looking again at Outlook tasks thinking that this might be the most appropriate tool. And in amongst a similar experiment from a couple of years back, I found a few tasks from many years back, and one specific task from 2008.
It was a task where I had detailed the day to day things that had happened to me over a period of months - along with attached emails - that were about the bullying and what the section was like ... and I just read it over again as I was about to include things from it here thinking I had got my equilibrium back ... but I haven't. Finding it was like a bomb. Even talking about it makes me cry. Reading it again just then I feel the helpless, the angry (which I turn in on myself as it's safest) and uselessness of it all that made me want to do what I had starting acting on. At one point I was going to try to write a book on this. I have all my emails and books somewhere around. But I don't think I can. It is just too much.
But reading this stuff, I just think *how* did HR not step in and act? At that time there was 1 HR person for our 2500 employees in our branch nationally. I know this because when I first rang him I was my usual friendly and chatty self and he told me. But by the pinnacle of this whole debacle was a meeting with me, my manager, my manager's manager, the HR person, the HR person's manager on the phone. I had spent 1.5 hours with a friend who was an industrial relations lawyer preparing for this meeting and writing out a statement that I was going to make. When I showed another lawyer friend afterwards she said something about giving myself away. But I always fight fair and take ownership of my own issues. I don't remember the points of it but I remember her comments so I suspect whatever I did wasn't wise in the ways of the world. Ah well. When I tell people about that meeting they say that that would never happen with HR at their work and shake their head in horror.
My managers' manager retired last year. Before he did I rang him up and asked if he remembered. He implied that he remembered I had some problems and was quite unpleasant about it. People think he's a nice guy. I just don't know what to think. My manager at that time people thought and still do think he's a nice guy. I think he's a nice guy but too weak a person for the situation he was in. He had been working with HR before my stuff seriously started happening to get rid of someone (who did need to go - wasn't up to the work and was hassling female employees). HR seemed to have decided he should take the same approach with me that he had used with this other person. Which just didn't work as they were not the same issues. Anyway various things happened which when I tell people about them they're horrified and I'm still there.
I do indeed have a ripper work story to tell. When I won't fall apart telling it.
But HR. Seriously. I know that they work for the company and not for the employee. But when they don't truly bring out the company's supposed ethics and step in to do something about it is that truly working for the company?
Recently someone started a women in tech group on the corporate forum thing. So hey I joined - it was private too which is something I asked for over 2 years ago and nothing happened. Sounds like someone in the IT groups had also realised there was a need for a private women's support section.
However HR are commenting into this group's threads. I quote this particular HR person's response to another friend of mine's comments on failing to retain women:
"
Yes I agree it is an issue about retention as well as recruitment. I would encourage any female (wherever they work in the business) to raise any issues impacting their health and wellbeing with either their 1 up manager, HR or [the corporate sponsored counselling service]. Given the nature of [how our offices work] and [our policy of making all roles flexible to work in], it can sometimes be hard to provide a convenient, physical space for people to go to - which is why groups and discussion like this are so important.
"
This just sounds like paper-our-ass talk. Let's break it down practically shall we?
Talking about health issues with work is almost always a bad idea. Seriously just get real. Unless it's obvious physical something then just don't. It just becomes a handle on which they can cause you issues - they don't really want to have the hassle and you don't want to be in that position.
Impacting wellbeing - right. So the little 'microaggressions' (new pet term someone's come up with) you reckon mention those? To your 1-up? Ok... well... if you have a good relationship with your 1-up they will a)already know and have acted on them or b) you'll already be telling them. So the benefit of telling people to tell them is what actually? Obviously if you're *not* telling your 1-up manager there is a *reason*. And telling HR? Well you tell me what they actually do and I might. Ask anyone these days and the first thing they'll tell you is HR is there for the company not you. The *only* reason you tell HR is to fill out a tickbox. It's a tickbox for yourself and a tickbox for them. Process followed so that when it is all useless you can say you followed it while then solving your own issues for yourself in another way. Processes themselves are totally for the company's protection. So, telling HR sure, but it does not assist with your health or wellbeing - just with a tickbox. Choose your time and do the minimum with the minimum fuss.
And the corporate counselling service - this confuses me. Almost sounds like they care ... but it's totally toothless. As an external organisation which mostly operates confidentially you can tell them what you like but what's that going to do? Nothing. Anyone sensible already has their own network of friends, families and counsellors totally external. I've proved this too - I've used them a couple of times just for alternate points of view - when yes they acknowledged I was bullied - in fact in the 2008 task has a reference to that. Supposedly they are trained and the corporate part of them suggests they know stuff about office relations. But toothless. Gums smiling in an absent way.
The stuff about the "hard to provide a convenient, physical space for people to go" confuses me - excepting the later context of "groups ... like this". Which suggests to me that HR are *all over* this private women in tech group. Maybe they're like trying to make a mark here? Like a territorial cat?
Fortunately when it comes to HR I have no sense of smell. I kind of don't really know what they do except recruit, supposedly write policies to protect the company, and manage time-sheet data feeding into costs. They don't do anything that helps our day to day work. I guess I'll keep reading that group and posting if I think I can add to the conversation. The total cluelessness, and contextually emotional ineptness of that comment though, suggests we are going to get more HR input from time to time that might put a lot of people off.
Did I mention that during the worst times of my being bullied, I spoke to the diversity person of my company? He answered the phone and listened and said 'oh really' and sounded like he was laughing. I would email him afterwards giving points on what we discussed. I am fairly sure we talked twice in such a way. It's in those emails I will go through one day. He's head of diversity now. So with IWD etc he's posting up the corporate messages and posting the diversity report. Diversity means all types of diversity of course. But um, I see his name and his position, and well... I then read this territorial HR person's comment and it's all of the same.
In other news I danced at the wedding of some of the most beautiful people I know and he is HR. And one of my best friend's sisters is the most gorgeous person and she is HR. Not at my company. So I watch, and listen, and pay attention to what they tell me and what their values are. I do understand what they do as people because they are good people.
Thursday, 9 March 2017
Moving On
It's international.
Edit: I didn't post this and I don't edit things (which is why spelling mistakes, bad grammar what have you) but I got distracted and missed this so I'll stick something here now.
Somewhat ambivalent about IWD day this year. Maybe I'll try next year. I would really like for it *not* to matter. But it does. And the reason why it does sucks.
In other news, I asked for, and got, my secondment extended - by the very sensible new GM of my old toxic area. In fact he said 'approved' before I finished my sentence.
This year I'm learning about 'trust'. It's the word I chose for the year... and I am surprised how much my new experiences at work (since leaving old toxic area) I'm having to learn trust again. Hmmm. Big topic. Another time.
Edit: I didn't post this and I don't edit things (which is why spelling mistakes, bad grammar what have you) but I got distracted and missed this so I'll stick something here now.
Somewhat ambivalent about IWD day this year. Maybe I'll try next year. I would really like for it *not* to matter. But it does. And the reason why it does sucks.
In other news, I asked for, and got, my secondment extended - by the very sensible new GM of my old toxic area. In fact he said 'approved' before I finished my sentence.
This year I'm learning about 'trust'. It's the word I chose for the year... and I am surprised how much my new experiences at work (since leaving old toxic area) I'm having to learn trust again. Hmmm. Big topic. Another time.
Shoving women both ends of the pipe doesn't work
Day after IWD.
I am still amazed at how many articles (including a big one that just came out from my work) go on and on and on about more female graduates, more STEM to make more female graduates, more mentoring or whatever for women potentially up the top in management.
So happy to see a book released with a title 'Stop Fixing Women'. Haven't read it but I imagine it says pretty much what a lot of management groups have been saying since 2012 : it's not about fixing stuff for women, it's about fixing poor leadership. Poor diversity is the *result* of poor leadership throughout a company that in turn also obviously relates to poorer financial results. I mean, der. Poor diversity (and not just women - anyone who is really different) is the *symptom* of poor leadership.
Good leadership means inclusion. It's so simple.
You got poor diversity mate, then it's telling you that somewhere somehow you haven't good as good as leadership as you could have.
The 'leadership' topic is huge. Go forth and conquer. Seriously there are so many tools to fix stuff.
So... why is diversity so horrendously bad?
What about we suggest... you haven't tried? That you don't care? That you don't understand because you haven't tried and you don't care?
Tying it to "financial returns" is the first thing that has FINALLY got your attention. I mean, we're all kind of amused while you muddle around being pompous about it. We'll just like hang 10 here polishing our nails while we wait, trying not to smile. Well smile maybe not as we still have to put up with the bullshit leadership style from the last decade. I mean, decades. Millennia really.
I heard they are getting rid of ranking systems at work so we are no longer going to be ranked against one another in our 'teams'. That's good. I don't like competing with my team members. I really want to collaborate. That's like, inclusion, yo?
I am still amazed at how many articles (including a big one that just came out from my work) go on and on and on about more female graduates, more STEM to make more female graduates, more mentoring or whatever for women potentially up the top in management.
So happy to see a book released with a title 'Stop Fixing Women'. Haven't read it but I imagine it says pretty much what a lot of management groups have been saying since 2012 : it's not about fixing stuff for women, it's about fixing poor leadership. Poor diversity is the *result* of poor leadership throughout a company that in turn also obviously relates to poorer financial results. I mean, der. Poor diversity (and not just women - anyone who is really different) is the *symptom* of poor leadership.
Good leadership means inclusion. It's so simple.
You got poor diversity mate, then it's telling you that somewhere somehow you haven't good as good as leadership as you could have.
The 'leadership' topic is huge. Go forth and conquer. Seriously there are so many tools to fix stuff.
So... why is diversity so horrendously bad?
What about we suggest... you haven't tried? That you don't care? That you don't understand because you haven't tried and you don't care?
Tying it to "financial returns" is the first thing that has FINALLY got your attention. I mean, we're all kind of amused while you muddle around being pompous about it. We'll just like hang 10 here polishing our nails while we wait, trying not to smile. Well smile maybe not as we still have to put up with the bullshit leadership style from the last decade. I mean, decades. Millennia really.
I heard they are getting rid of ranking systems at work so we are no longer going to be ranked against one another in our 'teams'. That's good. I don't like competing with my team members. I really want to collaborate. That's like, inclusion, yo?
Monday, 20 February 2017
Crossroads
I have been fortunate enough to secure 2 secondments over the last several months out of my old area. The first starting from June last year was in a tiny software group making tools that my old area used (userbase about 450 people). The second starting late November in an area where I could do business analysis type work.
I worked out that I wanted to do business analysis type work talking to friends of mine who are BAs and listening to what other friends have done. I realised that some of the synthesising, coming up with solutions and communicating (including documentation) work I have a passion for over the years could be classified as this type of work. I've started doing training courses and the choice to do a secondment in a software development area was so that I would have a feel for how developers would operate so I could in turn be a better BA (although it was also great being told I had a natural bent for some of the programming concepts - I did enjoy that and can see the need to pick that up again on the side). The current secondment has been fantastic for learning the skills I need to move onto a BA position. Even better doing Solutions Analysis work - something I had not thought of doing and getting further into the technical side of things is where I naturally go. And recently I've done very well in a national competition at work for process fixing ideas where I could showcase all of these skills.
Although I've realise that the best thing that that competition has done has proved to *myself* I can do this. I can reach out to others and in a friendly way gather the information and actions I need to complete a project. I can inspire others with my ideas. I can explain clearly. I can present professionally. I seek out and incorporate good feedback. I can understand and take what I need from technical information. I can work out the leads to follow up later and focus on the information that I need in the immediate. I can do this. What is more I have received a lot of very positive feedback about both my idea, my persistence and my ability to communicate it from some very senior people.
And then last night I was chatting to a friend who is an industrial relations lawyer. I told her of my plans not to return to my old area but instead to take a mixture of annual and long service leave while looking for an internal (or external) position. I'm doing this because the thought of returning to my old area makes me "very" depressed.
I realised even before the end of the first day in that first secondment how much pressure I had been under in my old area that I hadn't even realised. I woke up early two days after that and realised I couldn't go back. Off and on over the few months I would get massive, scary depressive spikes. I eventually worked out what was triggering them was the thought of going back. And that has drawn a line in the sand. I hadn't realised until I was out that I was operating in constant fight or flight mode in my old area. Just stunning. It literally made me stupid and supposedly would have sapped my creativity - this is neurologically a genuine thing. Check the studies. I have recently been chatting to a friend saying I realise that I am more mentally healthy right now than I've been for years and she profoundly agreed. Another reason not to go back.
The sad bit is there is a new GM who I earnestly believe is for the first time doing it right. And the recent reorganisation has put me with the *only* team leader who, like the GM, actually gets it - genuinely understands how to lead people. But the state manager? A known micromanager. And the other team leaders? Well one of them is the one who bullied me years ago and known to have issues leading others. Another is known for gossiping and back stabbing, and not being all that nice to staff - and was a manager I had started a complaint for discrimination early last year but then decided not to proceed. I kinda laughed in a disbelief that wasn't disbelief. No one was surprised when these people were selected. Even if I go back to that team with the one good team leader we would be operating in a greater environment that is a product of the old culture - years and years, and generations and generations of a certain way of treating people.
So yeah I have a positive thing I'm working towards, and a thing I clearly should not go back to as it is bad for my mental health. And now my industrial relations lawyer friend is telling me it is not fair that I think I should take leave while finding another position. She thinks I should tell a doctor about the depressive spikes and take sick leave instead. And then they either find me another position or they might make me redundant. Problem with them making me redundant if it's not a genuine redundancy is that the taxation office would cause me additional problems - and that's not fair on me either.
Do I have the energy to do this? I really don't know if I could be bothered.
There is a currently a position in the area I am now seconding in. I've applied but the competition is stiff. So I'm not going to take action just now. I would just rather focus on the good and technically interesting things right now. I might ask for an extension of my secondment if I am not successful.
I worked out that I wanted to do business analysis type work talking to friends of mine who are BAs and listening to what other friends have done. I realised that some of the synthesising, coming up with solutions and communicating (including documentation) work I have a passion for over the years could be classified as this type of work. I've started doing training courses and the choice to do a secondment in a software development area was so that I would have a feel for how developers would operate so I could in turn be a better BA (although it was also great being told I had a natural bent for some of the programming concepts - I did enjoy that and can see the need to pick that up again on the side). The current secondment has been fantastic for learning the skills I need to move onto a BA position. Even better doing Solutions Analysis work - something I had not thought of doing and getting further into the technical side of things is where I naturally go. And recently I've done very well in a national competition at work for process fixing ideas where I could showcase all of these skills.
Although I've realise that the best thing that that competition has done has proved to *myself* I can do this. I can reach out to others and in a friendly way gather the information and actions I need to complete a project. I can inspire others with my ideas. I can explain clearly. I can present professionally. I seek out and incorporate good feedback. I can understand and take what I need from technical information. I can work out the leads to follow up later and focus on the information that I need in the immediate. I can do this. What is more I have received a lot of very positive feedback about both my idea, my persistence and my ability to communicate it from some very senior people.
And then last night I was chatting to a friend who is an industrial relations lawyer. I told her of my plans not to return to my old area but instead to take a mixture of annual and long service leave while looking for an internal (or external) position. I'm doing this because the thought of returning to my old area makes me "very" depressed.
I realised even before the end of the first day in that first secondment how much pressure I had been under in my old area that I hadn't even realised. I woke up early two days after that and realised I couldn't go back. Off and on over the few months I would get massive, scary depressive spikes. I eventually worked out what was triggering them was the thought of going back. And that has drawn a line in the sand. I hadn't realised until I was out that I was operating in constant fight or flight mode in my old area. Just stunning. It literally made me stupid and supposedly would have sapped my creativity - this is neurologically a genuine thing. Check the studies. I have recently been chatting to a friend saying I realise that I am more mentally healthy right now than I've been for years and she profoundly agreed. Another reason not to go back.
The sad bit is there is a new GM who I earnestly believe is for the first time doing it right. And the recent reorganisation has put me with the *only* team leader who, like the GM, actually gets it - genuinely understands how to lead people. But the state manager? A known micromanager. And the other team leaders? Well one of them is the one who bullied me years ago and known to have issues leading others. Another is known for gossiping and back stabbing, and not being all that nice to staff - and was a manager I had started a complaint for discrimination early last year but then decided not to proceed. I kinda laughed in a disbelief that wasn't disbelief. No one was surprised when these people were selected. Even if I go back to that team with the one good team leader we would be operating in a greater environment that is a product of the old culture - years and years, and generations and generations of a certain way of treating people.
So yeah I have a positive thing I'm working towards, and a thing I clearly should not go back to as it is bad for my mental health. And now my industrial relations lawyer friend is telling me it is not fair that I think I should take leave while finding another position. She thinks I should tell a doctor about the depressive spikes and take sick leave instead. And then they either find me another position or they might make me redundant. Problem with them making me redundant if it's not a genuine redundancy is that the taxation office would cause me additional problems - and that's not fair on me either.
Do I have the energy to do this? I really don't know if I could be bothered.
There is a currently a position in the area I am now seconding in. I've applied but the competition is stiff. So I'm not going to take action just now. I would just rather focus on the good and technically interesting things right now. I might ask for an extension of my secondment if I am not successful.
Friday, 14 October 2016
My leadership story
This was my recent icebreaker speech I gave at the Toastmasters I just joined (again after many years). Following on from my previous posts, my thoughts about how to deal with this STEM minority issue stuff have gone new and interesting directions which the below encapsulates. When I stand back and look at this, I'm really surprised it's ended up here. But there you go. There are odd connections to life everywhere.
Some details changed to preserve anonymity. I also no longer care if people know I've dealt with depression in the past. Frankly I think if you've dealt with something like that and come out of it, it makes you a better person. Also in 2015 I got yet another new manger who went back to the bad old ways but haven't bothered with those details here. Fortunately I have received a 6 month secondment into a very different section which has been excellent distance to clarify perspective.
Delivered on 11th October, 2016.
The leadership of the large corporate I work for have recently taken to doing their personal 'leadership stories' on video posting them in the corporate forums. Today I would like to do my own personal leadership story. However as I don't actually manage any people, it's more how the study of leadership has served as a palliative to the marginalisation and isolation I have felt during a certain time over my many years at working at this large corporate. And how going forward I've realised how valuable personal leadership can be for all of us.
So what is a personal leadership story? Well your personal story is what has happened to you, and why it has made you what you are today. For a leadership story, well first let's define a leader and I'll use Nancy Ortbery's, a leadership consultant , definition of "A leader creates a way for people to contribute in order to make something extraordinary happen".
So my personal story is that I started out as a graduate engineer at this corporate and had a great time in various sections and various projects, all while managing clinical depression.
Clinical depression is just 'a thing' like any old 'thing' for those who have to manage it. Although of course I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy's pet dog. It started when I was 12, I was diagnosed when I was 23. The usual medication, counselling, exercise, practising thought techniques like CBT. I was what is known as "high functioning". So picture my friend and I sitting in hospital emergency, in business suits, while a surprised resident psychiatrist gives me details for the local emergency mental health team. It's been so routine for me to deal with depression that I find it hard to believe that everyone doesn't have to deal with this. I am unsurprised by the comment that depression is the common cold of mental illness.
So how does depression connect to leadership? Well let me go a bit further in my story. In 2004, after spending some of the happiest months of my time in this large corporate in a technical team that I had been supposedly relegated to, I was called up to an interview, with someone who is now a director, and asked one of those questions where the only answer is 'yes'. So I found myself back in the mobiles networks engineering section I had come from starting the following week.
Within 2 days while handing over work to the previous section, I had been hauled into an office with the then acting manager and told I wasn't wanted, wasn't' needed, and if I didn't want to be there they could make that happen. Oh how I wish I had taken them up on that offer. Thus began my descent into what, had I been healthier, would have caused me to leave this large corporate.
I was handed an area to look after with no training, no mentoring in work I had never done before. After doing everything I could while asking for help, that area was removed from me and I was given another area. I observed members of the what was regularly referred to as "the boys club" personally go to help their friends if they made an error while I would receive an email with a CC to my boss being told of my mistake. Work well done was ignored. Praise and opportunities unevenly given. So it got to the point in 2007 when I didn't want to take leave as my work would not get done and I would get into trouble when I came back. My depression got very, very bad. Very very very very bad.
At this point I'm going to skip over a few details. By 2009 me, my manager, my managers manger, the HR person and the HR person's manager has reached a kind of polite truce and backing off. I had been given an area in the middle of nowhere with little responsibility. And when I commented about this, this was halved.
But I was still there as by this stage I believed myself totally unemployable and was financially dependant.
I disengaged.
Come 2014 I had a new manager who had the guts to take a chance on me. And gave me the feedback and support I had asked for.
I re-engaged.
But now I started to realise what had happened to me wasn't right. I started post processing it. Was what had happened to me because I was female? Was what had happened to me because I didn't fit in with the 'cool' crowd? At one point I had mentioned to my manager's manager that only hip white males had been employed in the last 3 years. I read a bit of feminism. The language and concepts there helped give me the words and a framework to work out what had happened to me.
The moment you start looking at gender equality you must look at the other types of equality: race, disability, sexuality, or just anyone who is different really. In fact at the 2015 COO roadshow I pointed out during question time that despite this large corporate making plans to go into Asia, the stage only had white males on it. Incidentally they all were dressed in similar clothes - and all had the same haircut.
It gets a bit down just pointing out what is wrong though. My engineering brain went into 'fix it' mode. So how do you fix inequality? The key word is 'inclusion'.
And this is where I circle back to leadership, and personal leadership. It's pretty ordinary when people are excluded for whatever reason in a workplace, whether malicious or just careless thoughtlessness. It takes a tiny bit of personal effort to make sure that a person is heard in that meeting, that person is given credit, that that person is included. And everyone then benefits when you do this. That's the extra ordinary. That's what good leaders do. A leader creates ways for people to contribute so that something extra ordinary happens.
There has been a recent rush of articles suggesting that if you just sprinkle a few women into top management positions up the top there, and shove in more female graduates in the bottom there, that you'll get diversity and therefore magically get better economic performance.
That's rubbish. Poor diversity is the outcome of poor leadership all the way through a company.
It's not my plan today to work out why good diversity gives better economic performance. I'm just focusing in on how you actually get that diversity: It's clear from my experience that it is through small moments of inclusion that happen in the everyday. And inclusion happens with good leadership.
So that's my leadership story. I continue to work on what a good leader is and how to become one. And who knows I may even manage people one day.
Some details changed to preserve anonymity. I also no longer care if people know I've dealt with depression in the past. Frankly I think if you've dealt with something like that and come out of it, it makes you a better person. Also in 2015 I got yet another new manger who went back to the bad old ways but haven't bothered with those details here. Fortunately I have received a 6 month secondment into a very different section which has been excellent distance to clarify perspective.
Delivered on 11th October, 2016.
The leadership of the large corporate I work for have recently taken to doing their personal 'leadership stories' on video posting them in the corporate forums. Today I would like to do my own personal leadership story. However as I don't actually manage any people, it's more how the study of leadership has served as a palliative to the marginalisation and isolation I have felt during a certain time over my many years at working at this large corporate. And how going forward I've realised how valuable personal leadership can be for all of us.
So what is a personal leadership story? Well your personal story is what has happened to you, and why it has made you what you are today. For a leadership story, well first let's define a leader and I'll use Nancy Ortbery's, a leadership consultant , definition of "A leader creates a way for people to contribute in order to make something extraordinary happen".
So my personal story is that I started out as a graduate engineer at this corporate and had a great time in various sections and various projects, all while managing clinical depression.
Clinical depression is just 'a thing' like any old 'thing' for those who have to manage it. Although of course I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy's pet dog. It started when I was 12, I was diagnosed when I was 23. The usual medication, counselling, exercise, practising thought techniques like CBT. I was what is known as "high functioning". So picture my friend and I sitting in hospital emergency, in business suits, while a surprised resident psychiatrist gives me details for the local emergency mental health team. It's been so routine for me to deal with depression that I find it hard to believe that everyone doesn't have to deal with this. I am unsurprised by the comment that depression is the common cold of mental illness.
So how does depression connect to leadership? Well let me go a bit further in my story. In 2004, after spending some of the happiest months of my time in this large corporate in a technical team that I had been supposedly relegated to, I was called up to an interview, with someone who is now a director, and asked one of those questions where the only answer is 'yes'. So I found myself back in the mobiles networks engineering section I had come from starting the following week.
Within 2 days while handing over work to the previous section, I had been hauled into an office with the then acting manager and told I wasn't wanted, wasn't' needed, and if I didn't want to be there they could make that happen. Oh how I wish I had taken them up on that offer. Thus began my descent into what, had I been healthier, would have caused me to leave this large corporate.
I was handed an area to look after with no training, no mentoring in work I had never done before. After doing everything I could while asking for help, that area was removed from me and I was given another area. I observed members of the what was regularly referred to as "the boys club" personally go to help their friends if they made an error while I would receive an email with a CC to my boss being told of my mistake. Work well done was ignored. Praise and opportunities unevenly given. So it got to the point in 2007 when I didn't want to take leave as my work would not get done and I would get into trouble when I came back. My depression got very, very bad. Very very very very bad.
At this point I'm going to skip over a few details. By 2009 me, my manager, my managers manger, the HR person and the HR person's manager has reached a kind of polite truce and backing off. I had been given an area in the middle of nowhere with little responsibility. And when I commented about this, this was halved.
But I was still there as by this stage I believed myself totally unemployable and was financially dependant.
I disengaged.
Come 2014 I had a new manager who had the guts to take a chance on me. And gave me the feedback and support I had asked for.
I re-engaged.
But now I started to realise what had happened to me wasn't right. I started post processing it. Was what had happened to me because I was female? Was what had happened to me because I didn't fit in with the 'cool' crowd? At one point I had mentioned to my manager's manager that only hip white males had been employed in the last 3 years. I read a bit of feminism. The language and concepts there helped give me the words and a framework to work out what had happened to me.
The moment you start looking at gender equality you must look at the other types of equality: race, disability, sexuality, or just anyone who is different really. In fact at the 2015 COO roadshow I pointed out during question time that despite this large corporate making plans to go into Asia, the stage only had white males on it. Incidentally they all were dressed in similar clothes - and all had the same haircut.
It gets a bit down just pointing out what is wrong though. My engineering brain went into 'fix it' mode. So how do you fix inequality? The key word is 'inclusion'.
And this is where I circle back to leadership, and personal leadership. It's pretty ordinary when people are excluded for whatever reason in a workplace, whether malicious or just careless thoughtlessness. It takes a tiny bit of personal effort to make sure that a person is heard in that meeting, that person is given credit, that that person is included. And everyone then benefits when you do this. That's the extra ordinary. That's what good leaders do. A leader creates ways for people to contribute so that something extra ordinary happens.
There has been a recent rush of articles suggesting that if you just sprinkle a few women into top management positions up the top there, and shove in more female graduates in the bottom there, that you'll get diversity and therefore magically get better economic performance.
That's rubbish. Poor diversity is the outcome of poor leadership all the way through a company.
It's not my plan today to work out why good diversity gives better economic performance. I'm just focusing in on how you actually get that diversity: It's clear from my experience that it is through small moments of inclusion that happen in the everyday. And inclusion happens with good leadership.
So that's my leadership story. I continue to work on what a good leader is and how to become one. And who knows I may even manage people one day.
Dis-solution
I never actually did post my final solution did I? Guess I will post it now although originally I was coming here to post something else so I'll do that next.
My solution to the answer "Would you encourage my daughter to go into STEM?" is yes definitely but she also needs to be trained to recognise bullying, discrimination, marginalisation, victimisation and be given smart social skills with what to do about them. That could be as easy as reading a few story books where the main characters have fully adult social skills in how to deal. Or practising a few scenarios - maybe even in a computer game? There's an idea.
Everyone is different (obvious statement). Everyone has different things that they care about, that makes them 'alive inside' (obvious statement). And you're like that from a tiny child (obvious statement).
So if an approach to this big, wide world that you start to make your way in involves an 'alive inside' that is from a direction of science and engineering, why should *anyone* take that away from you?
Screw that. Screw them.
It's part of you. Why should you deny and suppress that part of yourself? Be only half alive?
Even if I'm not "THE BEST" at it, it's a part of me. One of the ways I've been undermined that has really hurt is when I make mistakes they have pounced on these to try to show me I shouldn't be there. Or I haven't been immediately good at something. But mistakes and learning is a part of life that never stops. Despite the haters I have to keep trying.
I think it's ridiculous and cruel that girls are being shoved into STEM without being taught skills to cope with the toxic BS that they will bump into.
My solution to the answer "Would you encourage my daughter to go into STEM?" is yes definitely but she also needs to be trained to recognise bullying, discrimination, marginalisation, victimisation and be given smart social skills with what to do about them. That could be as easy as reading a few story books where the main characters have fully adult social skills in how to deal. Or practising a few scenarios - maybe even in a computer game? There's an idea.
Everyone is different (obvious statement). Everyone has different things that they care about, that makes them 'alive inside' (obvious statement). And you're like that from a tiny child (obvious statement).
So if an approach to this big, wide world that you start to make your way in involves an 'alive inside' that is from a direction of science and engineering, why should *anyone* take that away from you?
Screw that. Screw them.
It's part of you. Why should you deny and suppress that part of yourself? Be only half alive?
Even if I'm not "THE BEST" at it, it's a part of me. One of the ways I've been undermined that has really hurt is when I make mistakes they have pounced on these to try to show me I shouldn't be there. Or I haven't been immediately good at something. But mistakes and learning is a part of life that never stops. Despite the haters I have to keep trying.
I think it's ridiculous and cruel that girls are being shoved into STEM without being taught skills to cope with the toxic BS that they will bump into.
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