When you’ve mastered every psychological trick on the planet, it’s almost humorous to see them aimed at you.
Until you’re powerless to them, of course.
I have this one employee. When she makes a boo-boo and you point it out, she gets flustered and makes a hundred more.
I’m starting to become like her. One mistake becomes 30. And there is no digging out from under it at that point.
I’m also like another of my people, who simply refuses to get ruffled. Tomorrow’s a new day, life is short, people will come to their senses, all anyone needs is a satisfying lay and the world will be well again. I completely subscribe to that theory.
And I’m just like another, who really doesn’t get that you have to “show the math” sometimes. To not give pat answers because we can’t be bothered with small talk. We are “cut to the chase” people, and anyone asking us to elaborate would probably fall asleep under the weight of what was really behind the executive summary.
Not many are like me. I want people to shine. I want to do what I can to make them shine. I don’t need credit — I need them to shine, damn it.
I don’t mean to do this at my own expense. But it would really kill me if everyone else had a job and something that I let slide that was on my plate (and my plate alone) would cost me mine.
Especially something downright meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
I don’t mean to be “cavalier,” as I was once called. But is it that nobody else “gets” it … or is the joke really on me?