Tact

I suck at tact. I’ve never been able to accomplish the tact needed to deal with the people that I really want to club on the head. And, there are some people in the world that just have this knack for speaking in such a way that someone wants to club them in the head. And, you usually work with them.

So, here I am having to email, and then verbally follow up, with the one person who will cause me to just want to be a butt hole (and enjoy it).Of course, it’s a work issue, aren’t they always. One of the big things I was criticized (and no it wasn’t constructive) for this year in my yearly review was my lack of tact. So now, I make a “special effort” to be tactful. And, it’s terribly obvious that I’m trying like hell to be tactful. It’s really quite comical, or so I’ve been told.

Seriously, what’s with people who take it personally if you don’t smile and kiss their butt when you talk to them? With me, what you see is what you get. If it comes in my brain, it comes out my mouth. Now, I promise you I’d never say something like “Your code sucks and you can’t do anything right”. Now that’s just above and beyond un-cool. With that said, I do tell it like it is and I don’t pull punches. I use articulate language and words larger than one syllable. And, I’ll be supportive and try to come up with ideas as to how to improve the problem and get results.

On a similar thread, I did not really talk about my yearly review, where it was expressed that I needed to work on my tact and handle software developers with “kid gloves”. Needless to say, it was horrible. It was expressed with the attitude of a disgruntled teenager and was incredibly un-tactful, un-constructive & un-professional. I have considered placing it in a location where y’all could read it, minus the names of the people and the company, etc. What it boils down to, though, is that it’s just too appalling for me to show to anyone but my bestest girl friend. She read it and was appalled herself. Frankly, it was demoralizing and it just wouldn’t end. I had several meetings, several goals to “improve” and email and email and on and on. I do believe that it will go down in my memory as the worst review I’ll ever have.

So… that’s possibly why I’ve been a little cranky lately. I’ve been trying hard to just suck it up and tough it out. Talking about it isn’t going to make it better or even make it go away. I also believe this was done with the intention of stopping me from getting a raise (i.e. adjusting my pay scale), demoralizing me and showing me “who’s in charge”. Taken in that light, I can now move on an not let it bother me so much. Though at the time I was a mess.

Be well my friends, I’m off to work my magic on the software.

Fizz

© ‘Fizz’ 2009