I found out today that one of my co-workers reported me as being, “incompetent and having lazy work habits.”
4 years ago, that would have devastated me. Now, it makes me chuckle a bit, but ultimately feel bad for that person. Over my career working for this school district (a bit over 7 years now), I’ve seen all kinds of folks. The ones that blame others for things tend to be the least happy. In fact, it’s rare to find someone that has any real joy in their work anymore, at least in the school. There are a few, but they’re definitely the minority.
Also, it turns out I am competent, and I have a great work ethic. I do have poor organizational skills, but that’s why we recently hired an assistant for me that is great with organization. I think administration folks like myself tend to be the focus of anger quite often. It’s easier to be mad at someone else than to admit responsibility yourself.
Anyway, I hope you all are doing well. It turns out I have walking pneumonia, and will be able to return to work on Friday. Yay!
Shawn, I Disagree! There are plenty of happy people at school and work but those are not the people you hear from. In administration you tend to be bombarded by 5% of the people complaining which takes up 30% of your time. It is difficult but we all need to focus on the 70% of our time that is spent dealing with positive, caring, and creative people. Happy!
I just call ’em like I see ’em. And even those people that may be normally happy, usually when I see them — they’re not happy at all.
Part of it is that my job is usually to fix things that break and make people mad. Watching people in their worst does show some interesting aspects of their personalities. Yes, perhaps an unfair, lopsided view, but a real glimpse nonetheless. I’ll agree with you to the point that my view is a cynical one, based on interaction with angry people that tend to point their anger at me personally.
My job is a pretty depressing one, in that I rarely see good things happen. 🙂