Tuesday, July 14, 2009

You know what bugs me??

My new boss came in yesterday, and said, "oh, by the way, several of your 'women' came over last week to complain about you. [The HR director] said she told them to 'grow up'."
Me: What did they say?
Him: "Not important. Just remember it's NOT about YOU, it's about THEM."

uh, no. If they are complaining, I WANT TO KNOW what they are saying. It IS important to me that I know. that was part of the problem before.

But anyway, the bugging part. I'd only been working at that point less than four days (short week due to 4th of July holiday) -- Why can't they bring a complaint to ME instead of running to the city/county manager? A guy has a problem, comes in 'Hey, Bill, got a minute? Something bothering me about something" and we hash it out then go out for a beer. Not women, they have to be more underhanded about it. They don't want to hurt your feelings by telling you, or risk reprising the 'war between the sexes'.

Now I don't want to generalize, but this is the SECOND place in which this has happened. And both times, the staff said "Yay! We need a man in this place, too many women", then they complain to the Manager that the 'Man' they hired does not act more like a woman, and they can't work like this. (paraphrasing, since I don't know what this group -- or how many there were -- actually said.)

Oh, come on. Why can't we all just get along? It seems my worst feelings of foreboding were not unfounded after all.

"the Director"

2 comments:

Kewl Librarian 2 said...

Not that this will help you much, but my Mom told me years ago that it's better to work with men than women (I am female) because women are too catty.

I know this has strong deja vu overtones for you, but HR appears to be siding with you (and based on the "grow-up" comment, I'm thinking they didn't put a whole lot of stock in the complaints) and your manager has let you know. Next time you see him, perhaps you could let him know that you'd appreciate knowing, at least in general terms, what the problems are as you'd like to know if it's something little and petty or something you need to work on or words to that affect. Good luck.

LibraryJim said...

I sure appreciate the support I get from my 'companions' on this site. If I haven't said it before, let me say it now:

Thank you, all, for being here!

"The Director"