Off Switch, Please

Who knows how to turn off the chatter that happens in their head? Sometimes, there is absolutely nothing I can do to turn it off. It's mildly obsessive, this line of thinking, and I hate that it has me awake tonight.

It is an office move that has me frustrated. I initiated this move, one staff person is unhappy about it. My boss has approved it. As I work out the details of it with another staff person today, it seems as though it is all humming along. And then I get an email from said 'another staff person' with my boss as the only other recipient on it that we have to discuss this potential move, the impact on those involved, and blah, blah, blah at a management team meeting.

I don't mind discussing at a management team meeting except that these meetings are generally the place where things go to die. AND this "Team" has NEVER made such decisions in the past. My boss doesn't even know what the "Team" does.

I hate my job. Not my work. Not the people, per se. But I hate it THERE (in truth I've hated it there since day one)! My boss can't make a decision and stick with it to save her life. Nobody talks honestly about anything, everybody talks behind each others' back, and decisions aren't decisions - they are reactions.

These are all qualities I earnestly work to avoid as they are short sided, poorly constructed decisions that serve only individuals in the short term. So, I find myself infuriated on a regular basis by the behavior. It can't be changed, can't be cajoled, can't be persuaded by logic. Say yes then think.

What has me awake and thinking is that this "Team Meeting" will be the forum that I'm told this can't be done after all. This is how my boss gets away with not really saying no, even though the decision has been broadcast to the entire staff as something that will be happening. She'll couch it in finances, disruption, or some other bullshit. And again, I'll have been undermined and made further ineffectual in my capacity as "Program Director". 

I'm already angry - I can't be sure exactly how this will play out but this is just another iteration of the process (that isn't really a process) there. What I'm really struggling with is how to let it go and not let it bother me. The decision, the change, the new decision. The bullshit.

My boss told me a few months back that I was being rude, disrespectful, and an obstructionist; we were discussing a similar issue of how to get enough people the places, tools and spaces they need to do the work. I didn't want to drop the issue and pressed her to answer the question of how I was to do what she asks of me without the people I ask to do the work having the tools they need to do the job. Apparently, since we don't have the money to make such changes, we shouldn't even talk about how we might address them. Total. Waste. Of. Time.

Hey, I heard her loud and clear when she dropped this on me, having never ever mentioned it before. She was probably right, though. I am angry that people don't see it my way, that I don't play the manipulation game better, that I thrive in a structured environments where expectations and boundaries are clear. I have to be a lemming to make it there and a lemming I am not. I am close to completely giving up because I am not able to shine. In this place I must... Think not. Ask not. Care not. Except when it's my boss's idea.

Now I need to figure out how to turn off the chatter in my head because it is impossible. Become one with that reality. Learn to seem like a lemming. Make a plan and respectfully, honorably move on.