Where Mikey tears up in an empty lunchroom

The changes at my work are intensifying. We recently had a planning meeting with the boss+ where it became quickly clear boss+ places no value in what I do. boss+ is an occasionally difficult person to deal with and I've been unashamedly sucking up to boss+ since the beginning. boss+'s management style is abrasive and boss+ can be quite dismissive.

So in this meeting, even after I gave the living history of why I do what I do and why matters, my points where dismissed out of hand. And I tried to have right of reply theBoss moved things along.

After boss+ claimed I was being "too passionate", boss+ has an awesome ability to keep cool (1), I got all hot and hurt. The dark purr of 'I've just been utterly fucked on and I have no support' welling up to then though my neck and out my face. 

I quietened and let the meeting move on. I looked down at my stack of hard copy reports we've released in the past few years and I realise now that I must have brought them along as subconscious proof of my worth; a physical demonstration that what I did had an actual output. 

As the meeting ended boss+ asked theBoss to stay back and talk for a while and, being the prima donna that I am, presumed boss+ was going to tear me a new one via theBoss. I went back to our pod and grabbed our '70s era percolator—we put it on each morning and dole out about 10 cups to interested parties—and decided to go down a floor, to the communal lunch room where most people go to clean it and the mugs. It was mid-afternoon so no one was around. I was pretty mad and I flecked coffee grounds across the sink and surrounds as I dashed the innards of the pot to the sink. In went the mugs and I furiously scrubbed, muttering invective as I cleaned. I left them to drain and retreated to the cool dim of the around-the-corner—out of sight of the main door. I leaned there, face clouded with tearful rage as I realised my lack of worth in their eyes. 

As theBoss came out of Director's cut of the meeting I gauged her demeanour to see if she if the tidings she brought were ill. They weren't but she could see I was angry and stressed. She told me to chill and breezed about as if nothing were wrong. It took me a while to return to my more usual happy demeanour. Where our work is spiced with light banter and occasional deep talk. 

It dawned on me today as I texted S1, my former much-missed über competent colleague, as I sadly rode SoTPC, that my complicated work relationship with theBoss was further complicated by the fact she agreed with boss+. That my current contribution was considered a dinosaur. 

When I was told that I needed a hip replacement that for quality of life I should get it done as soon as possible. September, I think, they recommended. I held off until December because one of the big reports was due. I wanted to see it through and not drop the burden on theBoss. Especially as it was combined with a horror move and hot desking, with a chunk of the org in flux. Damaged people were sadly leaving. It was not a good time.

So I ground on day after day, having delayed the op two months. Literally walking bone on bone to minimise disruption on my workplace and not to drop a steaming turd on others. 

At the time I told her she asked why I was waiting. She blithely told me she'd cope but I knew that she couldn't possibly cope so I stayed. 

Now I realise why she said she would cope. 

She would have killed the reports; ripped away the very fabric of my core role. I would have returned to a new way of things, presented as a fait accompli.

So boss+ sees no value in what I do because theBoss sees no value. It's not personal—we have a good working relationship. And she knows I've covered her arse on a broad swathe of things, as well as taken administrative tasks from her to ease her burden. It's just that she deems my core role superseded. 

I was asked to write a brief about the future of what we do, otensibly because of concerns of boss+ and boss++. I wrote a detailed history and a series of reputation risk considerations. theBoss thanked me for my work and said it was good background. She praised it royally as she said she would use it as a base for her two page memo; a death memo I realise now.

I've only worked in five core positions in my time the the public service. I only ever went for roles I'd be interested in acually doing. Sure, money was a consideration but I wanted to do something that would hold interest and that it would matter. theWife is the same way. Fuck, most public servants are that way. I've worked with people who've held the mad, stricken with grief at the death of a loved one. I've worked with people who have endured the most horrid of conditions in the name of helping the Australian public. Tremendous, valuable, awesome, dedicated people. People who give a flying fuck about what they do because what they do matters. Because community is everything and people are everything and that a smart government is the best way the poor and the inopportune can rise from their lot.

So it's always a kick to the guts, a breathe stealing blow to realise that while you may feel passion about what you do—and how you do it—those around you do not. And because they're above you in your chain then their opinion, not yours, is the deciding one.

I've been so sick of late and the stress makes my horror worse. Some days I can barely function but I still try and I try. So I forecast the fact early on, and I've repeated the notes weekly, that this year may be a short one for me. That I may have to go and be gone for a while to allow my body to heal. I offered to theBoss, though this was pre the shed-based epiphany, to go on long service. To allow her to make whatever changes were needed; a knock-down rebuild she called it. 

Now with this realisation that my role is done. That what I've done may have had value, once, in some people's eyes, but no longer. I will sit with her and just talk it out. Find her true motivation, her true desire. Then go and let her do it and whatever form it is in when I return—if I return—I will accept it. 

I was listening to an NPR report on the drive to work. They were talking to Fred Kaplan of Slate about his new book on the Iraq war. Kaplan noted counter insurgency wunderkind David Kilcullen said the greatest determinant on success of counter insurgency is the justness of the government of the day. If the government was corrupt and broken then anything you did was doomed to fail. As was the case in Vietnam, especially after the coup. As was the case in so many other wars and warlets. 

I know it's most Zaphod to compare me to that but it's true enough for me that without support of those above me then what I do, no matter how much I value it and I perceive its worth, then I am doomed to fail.

So it's strength's-based time in other words. I'll be like the Riggle and look to what I can do instead of what's happened (2). I know I'm institutionalised—I'd fear survival in the private sector—but I don't have to suffer. I do have options. I just have to explore them.

There, I feel much better. This, and the 45 minute kvetch I had with theWife, whose wise and learned counsel is both learned and wise, has been cathartic. A think through piece, in other words. 

Now I'm going to have some tea and a jolly nice sit.  

UPDATED: I just forged a powerful way head transition management statement. I truly am the master of the public service. 

(1) boss+ is also an incredibly resilient, determined person who had some early knocks in life but has risen far from sheer grit. 
(2) Rob Riggle's podcast with Marc Maron was a most awesome one. Not only is Rob Riggle an interesting man given his military background but he was a joy to listen to. He described what it was like to be the only cast member of SNL to be let go at the end of a season—he had just the one—but after he allowed himself a moment to grieve went straight into 'what's next'. Project after project fired up; movie project, script project, this project, that project. Because to sit still and sob was to lose. Go the Riggle.