(no subject)
Today Jennifer got promoted to a position at work that I was rejected for late last year. I wanted to apply again, but was discouraged by my supervisor. Things have been weird at work for me lately. This is a really long entry, so I have divided each topic I wanted to include into separate LJ cuts.
A few weeks ago, I had a "coaching" with my new supervisor to discuss inappropriate behaviors I had displayed in customer account memo's and letters. The majority of the examples she showed me were from over a month ago. She proceeded to tell me it was something she noticed even longer ago than that, but didn't feel it was proper to address it as I wasn't reporting to her at the time. These behaviors she pointed out were primarily me being too non-objective in my choice of language; e.g. using the word "saddened" instead of "regret" in response to customer complaints, verbalizing my opinions on how I reached my decisions in account memo's or my opinions of how such matters could be avoided in the future, emails to leadership notifying them of trends I was seeing within the department with suggestions on how to correct them (apparently I should only be notifying them of the trend and not offering suggestions).
In some cases I agreed with some of the things she said, but for the majority of it I felt she was overreacting. The final thing we discussed was completely mind boggling, I still can't get my head around it. She stated in essence my vocabulary was too advanced and often times came across as condescending. Her case in point was an email sent to my previous supervisor (provided to her by my previous supervisor) in which I quoted an internal complaint I received about one of our reps. This is standard practice, as all complaints both internal and external are followed up. The problem with this email was the phrase, and I quote "While I don't necessarily agree with his vehemence, I can understand his frustration." I then asked if there were any thoughts on altering the process which brought about his complaint. Her problem was twofold, the word "vehemence" was apparently too big and thus condescending, and my understanding towards his frustration was too emotional as well as unnecessary.
Alright, I can agree it was unnecessary. But to tell me I must alter the manner in which I write because it's too ... collegiate I guess? My job is to write letters which represent T-Mobile as a company, it is part of our public face and should be done with the utmost professionalism, in my opinion. Aside from that, I just enjoy writing! I always have, and I think that's clear not just by the length of my LJ posts, but by the fact that I've maintained one for so long. I go to lengths to ensure my letters don't sound "canned" and are personalized to the customer's reason for writing us in the first place. I can't tell you guys how many times I've finished a letter, re-read it to check for errors and then beamed a bit to myself because of how good it sounded. I would love to get one of my letters from a corporation as large as T-Mobile.
So, it was for these reasons and some really vague discussion about "perception" and how others see me that lead to me being discouraged from applying for the job. I wasn't happy with it, but I could live with it. I wasn't happy with the idea of Jenn applying for it either, because it was certain she would get it. I knew it would be difficult to be happy for my sister, knowing she would be getting not only the job I had wanted, but also a pretty significant raise along with it. She told Stephanie and I first, at the urging of her supervisor, and then an email was sent out to the department for a quick meeting in a few minutes. I thought I had mentally and emotionally prepared myself for the time the announcement would come, and it turned out I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was.
I felt the tears welling up, but thought I could just breath and swallow the lump in my throat and carry on; the harder I tried, the more difficult it became. I decided before things got obvious I would go make a cup of coffee, that didn't prove to be enough time, so I next headed to the lady's room. Thankfully it was empty, so I locked myself in a stall, rested my forehead on the wall and had a good cry, being sure to keep it quiet when I heard people entering. I'm not sure how long I stayed in there, but it was quite some time. Once the room was empty again, I washed my face and tried to head back to my desk. On the way there, I saw a lady who is a good friend of mine and often chatted with me about how great it must be to work with both my sisters; I took some pretty drastic steps to avoid her seeing me. When she had passed, I decided I clearly wasn't ready to go to my desk, and instead went to a room which is called the "Serenity Room." It's a room where the lights are kept very dim, has two leather couches, two massage chairs, and a fountain in one corner. The number one rule of the Serenity Room is absolutely no talking. I stayed there reading my book until I finally felt okay with returning to work.
Even at my desk, I had flashes of more tears to come, so I put my headphones in, decided to listen to Electric Six and put the volume up much louder than I normally do. That helped immensely as they are not only edgy but funny and whimsical; a very strange combination perfect for an unsettling mood. I put all my status indicators as do-not-disturb and proceeded to work in nearly complete isolation the remainder of the day. I think some folks may have noticed my "outburst" and I'm concerned it's been completely misinterpreted precisely because they don't know the real story. They will think I'm simply jealous, and they really have no reason to think otherwise.
I am not jealous, I am outraged. Not even that I was discouraged from applying, on some level I'm glad I didn't because preparation for a job interview was more stress than I really needed right now. I'm outraged because I can foresee what is to come: Mom being so proud and thrilled, Steph going on about how much Jenn is going to be a better senior than the rest of them, congratulations, celebratory dinners I'll be expected to attend if anyone can be bothered to pick me up, ad nauseum. And I can't be happy for her because she stole five thousand dollars from me, and my family has decided they will pretend it didn't happen; pretend it wasn't the catalyst for my current predicament; treat me like I should have made better decisions to avoid this result.
I used to convince myself she only stole that money from me because of the alcohol, but the longer it goes on without any kind of remorse or apology from her, I have to question if she actually is the kind of person who would do something like that. I have come to a point where I don't think I can do it much longer. I can't keep up appearances with them anymore. I also can't ever seem to talk to them about anything of such seriousness without losing my temper, or them losing theirs. The dam is going to break, I just hope when it does I'm able to say what needs to be said in it's entirety.
I've thought about writing it down, and just standing up and reading it to them, then leaving and letting them mull it over. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if I try to do it unrehearsed they will distract me and I'll lose my cool and nothing good will come of it except more resentment toward me. I was going to try to write what I would say long with this journal entry, but I'm too tired now. I'm sure I'll post it later.
A few weeks ago, I had a "coaching" with my new supervisor to discuss inappropriate behaviors I had displayed in customer account memo's and letters. The majority of the examples she showed me were from over a month ago. She proceeded to tell me it was something she noticed even longer ago than that, but didn't feel it was proper to address it as I wasn't reporting to her at the time. These behaviors she pointed out were primarily me being too non-objective in my choice of language; e.g. using the word "saddened" instead of "regret" in response to customer complaints, verbalizing my opinions on how I reached my decisions in account memo's or my opinions of how such matters could be avoided in the future, emails to leadership notifying them of trends I was seeing within the department with suggestions on how to correct them (apparently I should only be notifying them of the trend and not offering suggestions).
In some cases I agreed with some of the things she said, but for the majority of it I felt she was overreacting. The final thing we discussed was completely mind boggling, I still can't get my head around it. She stated in essence my vocabulary was too advanced and often times came across as condescending. Her case in point was an email sent to my previous supervisor (provided to her by my previous supervisor) in which I quoted an internal complaint I received about one of our reps. This is standard practice, as all complaints both internal and external are followed up. The problem with this email was the phrase, and I quote "While I don't necessarily agree with his vehemence, I can understand his frustration." I then asked if there were any thoughts on altering the process which brought about his complaint. Her problem was twofold, the word "vehemence" was apparently too big and thus condescending, and my understanding towards his frustration was too emotional as well as unnecessary.
Alright, I can agree it was unnecessary. But to tell me I must alter the manner in which I write because it's too ... collegiate I guess? My job is to write letters which represent T-Mobile as a company, it is part of our public face and should be done with the utmost professionalism, in my opinion. Aside from that, I just enjoy writing! I always have, and I think that's clear not just by the length of my LJ posts, but by the fact that I've maintained one for so long. I go to lengths to ensure my letters don't sound "canned" and are personalized to the customer's reason for writing us in the first place. I can't tell you guys how many times I've finished a letter, re-read it to check for errors and then beamed a bit to myself because of how good it sounded. I would love to get one of my letters from a corporation as large as T-Mobile.
So, it was for these reasons and some really vague discussion about "perception" and how others see me that lead to me being discouraged from applying for the job. I wasn't happy with it, but I could live with it. I wasn't happy with the idea of Jenn applying for it either, because it was certain she would get it. I knew it would be difficult to be happy for my sister, knowing she would be getting not only the job I had wanted, but also a pretty significant raise along with it. She told Stephanie and I first, at the urging of her supervisor, and then an email was sent out to the department for a quick meeting in a few minutes. I thought I had mentally and emotionally prepared myself for the time the announcement would come, and it turned out I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was.
I felt the tears welling up, but thought I could just breath and swallow the lump in my throat and carry on; the harder I tried, the more difficult it became. I decided before things got obvious I would go make a cup of coffee, that didn't prove to be enough time, so I next headed to the lady's room. Thankfully it was empty, so I locked myself in a stall, rested my forehead on the wall and had a good cry, being sure to keep it quiet when I heard people entering. I'm not sure how long I stayed in there, but it was quite some time. Once the room was empty again, I washed my face and tried to head back to my desk. On the way there, I saw a lady who is a good friend of mine and often chatted with me about how great it must be to work with both my sisters; I took some pretty drastic steps to avoid her seeing me. When she had passed, I decided I clearly wasn't ready to go to my desk, and instead went to a room which is called the "Serenity Room." It's a room where the lights are kept very dim, has two leather couches, two massage chairs, and a fountain in one corner. The number one rule of the Serenity Room is absolutely no talking. I stayed there reading my book until I finally felt okay with returning to work.
Even at my desk, I had flashes of more tears to come, so I put my headphones in, decided to listen to Electric Six and put the volume up much louder than I normally do. That helped immensely as they are not only edgy but funny and whimsical; a very strange combination perfect for an unsettling mood. I put all my status indicators as do-not-disturb and proceeded to work in nearly complete isolation the remainder of the day. I think some folks may have noticed my "outburst" and I'm concerned it's been completely misinterpreted precisely because they don't know the real story. They will think I'm simply jealous, and they really have no reason to think otherwise.
I am not jealous, I am outraged. Not even that I was discouraged from applying, on some level I'm glad I didn't because preparation for a job interview was more stress than I really needed right now. I'm outraged because I can foresee what is to come: Mom being so proud and thrilled, Steph going on about how much Jenn is going to be a better senior than the rest of them, congratulations, celebratory dinners I'll be expected to attend if anyone can be bothered to pick me up, ad nauseum. And I can't be happy for her because she stole five thousand dollars from me, and my family has decided they will pretend it didn't happen; pretend it wasn't the catalyst for my current predicament; treat me like I should have made better decisions to avoid this result.
I used to convince myself she only stole that money from me because of the alcohol, but the longer it goes on without any kind of remorse or apology from her, I have to question if she actually is the kind of person who would do something like that. I have come to a point where I don't think I can do it much longer. I can't keep up appearances with them anymore. I also can't ever seem to talk to them about anything of such seriousness without losing my temper, or them losing theirs. The dam is going to break, I just hope when it does I'm able to say what needs to be said in it's entirety.
I've thought about writing it down, and just standing up and reading it to them, then leaving and letting them mull it over. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if I try to do it unrehearsed they will distract me and I'll lose my cool and nothing good will come of it except more resentment toward me. I was going to try to write what I would say long with this journal entry, but I'm too tired now. I'm sure I'll post it later.