Disappointment…

This post is sponsored by Pro-Rant…. making your day crappy, one minute at a time….

Ok, so a few posts ago I mentioned to you guys that I had a possible opportunity to make a difference in one of our teams at work. Although I had only about a week to begin some transition, the opportunity was fantastic to innitiate those changes.

Well, at the end of my week, I pulled the 3 guys on the team, and gave them a pep talk (of sorts). They seemed to agree positively, and acknowledged the changes which I thought they had to think about in the near future. I asked them about why they approached things the way they did; and they couldn’t really give an answer. Essentially I was trying to get them to understand where we were going as a company (expanding rapidly), and as smart as they are – the only way that they were going to move forward within the company was to collectively raise their game and get more focused in their work, but not necessarily over night.

Another thing which I mentioned to them was that when they did not understand things; they couldn’t second guess the problem anymore, and that they should ask others for advice on how they should approach a problem when they were stuck. I also took the initiative to put myself forward as the person they could come to at any time, when they had any issue which they did not understand, and I would more than happily advise or direct them on what they need to do. I don’t think I was giving them any bad or wrong advice, and all I was trying to do was encourage them and raise their confidence a little more.

So that was 2.5 weeks ago….. and this is what happened today….

One of the guys sends me an email saying that they are sending a client issue to me because they are not sure how to deal with it, and did not quite understand the issue. Now, this person didn’t come and speak to me (or anyone else for that matter) about understanding the issue and how they should take it forward. I replied back to the person telling them that firstly – they should have spoken to me about the issue before pretty much slinging it at me. Eitherways, as I had promised a few days earlier, I advised them on how to deal with the issue, gave them the points to look for and essentially break the issue down logically and identify what the client wants to know (I spent half an hour typing an email to this person with regards to what they should do – I’d rather they have a checklist to follow than a mental note which they could forget). I would have happily sat down with this person and walked them through the issue, but the mentality which we are trying to instill in this team is for them to take the initiative and think outside the box a little more (it’s the nature of the work that they do). Also, since this person also consistently asks me about knowledge on the area of the issue, I told the person that this is a good opportunity to try and learn something about a topic which interests them.

So this is what the person does – replies back to my email saying that they sent that issue to me because they couldn’t understand the issue and that they had other things to look at, so they thought that I would be the best person to look at that issue. hmm….

What bothers me is that after making an effort from my side (without anyone asking or telling me to help them), I put myself forward to help these guys from a knowledge perspective.While I was on their team for a week, I was the first one in and last one out – making sure throughout the day that they were on top of things, and them not holding back on any questions or understanding (lack of). After all that, the last thing that I expected was this sort of response from possibly the more sensible of the 3.

Oh, and more importantly, it’s not even my job to look at the issue which this person was dealing with!

I feel a touch disappointed that I am putting a fair bit of effort to try and help these guys, trying to push them more because I know that atleast 2 out of the 3 have potential to move up further in the company. The only thing which is stopping them is their attitude. I don’t think that they are performing to the best of their capabilities, and can surely do more.

This kind of stuff really irritates me…. sometimes I really wish that people would just “listen”.

Tagged as: Area, Company, Emotional Health and Wellbeing, Health, Kids and Teens, Knowledge, Mental Health, Thinking outside the box, Typing