Kids with Guns

By Aych

Over the last 2 and a half years, the office in which I work has been challenged by the presence of an annoying woman whose behavior and complaints have periodically pushed our department to the edge of dysfunctionality.

I should state a ritual declaration here that I am aware “not all women are like that.” But I’m not going to interpret that as meaning that I should therefore keep my mouth shut about the woman in my life who IS like that.

I’ll try to make the background short: I work in an office which used to have 5 people, one of whom was a (female) supervisor. Two of the lower-ranking people decided to quit at roughly the same time, leaving myself, a male co-worker and the supervisor to manage things. The supervisor canvassed-around to hire a new person while increasing the workload on us remaining underlings. (At the same time, she inexplicably reduced her own workload, fearless leader that she was.)

This new hire joined us (I’ll call her ‘J’ from now on) and within weeks of entering our team, personality clashes started with the supervisor. Both sides were at fault in these conflicts: the supervisor was pretty lousy and J took petty slights as major insults while complaining about the supervisor to anyone who would listen. The results were unpleasant. A psychological Cold War of sorts soon fell-across the office. The room started feeling a bit like that living in the Korean demilitarized zone.

I remember, on one occasion, I stepped-out of the office for coffee. When I came back, I stepped right into the middle of a shouting match. It was like watching two overgrown, red-faced children going at it with Nerf bats. (I injected myself between them and managed to calm things down. Afterwards, both of them privately thanked me for my professionalism in helping matters.)

A few weeks later, things finally came to a head: our supervisor held a routine meeting and J walked-out in a huff without a word after getting annoyed by the supervisor’s tone of voice. The supervisor blew-up and ran yelling after J, they almost came to blows. My supervisor was deemed responsible (she’d been the more aggressive of the two) and was fired soon after. We never really thought highly of her anyway, so my male co-worker and I, as we saw it, wound-up sharing an office with the lesser of the two problems.

So he and I began haplessly working alongside this annoying woman who, every time she has some minor difficulty, always tries to manipulate the men around her into fixing it. Plus, she feels perpetually un-appreciated and deprived of the praise that she thinks she deserves. On the other hand, quite objectively, she’s the least-productive person in the room so she doesn’t really deserve much praise. Her antics began to get old pretty quickly.

6 months ago, we got a new supervisor who I rather like. What I found incredibly gratifying was that the new supervisor picked-up on J’s game within weeks; he began having difficulties with her as well. The office is still a cold, uncomfortable place when she’s around. When she leaves, it’s like a weight gets lifted-away from everybody’s shoulders.

It’s not as if I haven’t tried to put things to her straight. Once, I casually slipped-in to a conversation that after what happened with the former supervisor, she’s positioned herself as looking like a victim to the new supervisor. I said that it would not be a good position for her to be in. So, yes, I’ve said it. She’s heard it. She apparently doesn’t care.

I have my own way of dealing with the situation: I AM ALWAYS PROFESSIONAL around J. It’s strictly business-only between she and I. I am cold and to the point. Curt, almost. I don’t go above and beyond the call of duty to help her. No casual conversation. She is exactly the kind of person to take an innocent-sounding comment the wrong way. Maybe she thinks I’m a grouch? Well, tough tit. I’m working.

I’ve come to see her as a none-too-bright kid who is holding a gun. And she’ll shoot me if I say what I really think of her.

I keep it business-only with her. No off-topic chit-chat. Nothing about personal stuff. No jokes. I put-on my best poker face and do my best to outwardly pretend that she’s a grown-up. I’m all: “Just the facts, ma’am.” Like what Joe Friday would say. But through my eyes, all I see is a little kid waving a gun around.

She got a negative performance review a few months back. J came to me, all rattled and disturbed. I guess she expected me to pat her on the head and say “Aww, you poor darling! Don’t let the bad man hurt your poor lil’ feelings” or something like that. I simply let her rant and then I said to her: “If you think that he’s wrong about you, then you should use every opportunity to prove it from now on.” And I left it at that.

Maybe you think I’m treating her too leniently or that I need to stand-up to her or that I’m engaging in some variant of White Knighting or whatever. Well, I don’t care what you think about what I’m doing. You’re not the one who’s interacting with a 9-year-old brandishing a Glock.

So what’s the result of my stance? The upshot is that the new supervisor considers me to be the most reliable, most professional person in the room. He sees how I treat this troublemaker and he thinks I’m a positive influence on her. There is no way she is ever going to pin any bullshit complaints on me EVER. He WILL defend me in a future conflict because I’ve built-up a good record.

The downside is that my job is a lot less pleasant than it could be.

I’ve worked in a few organizations over the past 15 or so years. So far, I’ve picked-up an impression about how men and women regard in the workplace. (I know this generalizes and I know ‘not all women are like that.’ So sue me.)

When a man enters an organization he cares enough about to pursue his career in, he tends to ask questions like: ‘How can I make myself valuable to this organization?’ and ‘What can I do to fit-in here?’ In the process, perhaps he makes himself into something like a tool. There are downsides to that, sure.

But when a woman enters an organization, I tend to think she asks herself questions like: ‘What can this organization do for me?’ and ‘What should change here so I can feel comfortable?’ She tends to regard the organization as something that serves HER rather than the other way around. And there are downsides to that, as well.

Society certainly talks a good game about getting women into the workforce and the importance of women developing their careers. But at the same time, it does something which works at cross-purposes: Society lies to women about what it means to work in business organizations. Society encourages women to think that their on-the-job performance should not matter nearly as much as their feelings and their happiness. And one result is that nearly every company has got at least one kid with a gun wandering around its halls who does a great job of making everyone else miserable.

Although there is a tiny number of dream-jobs out there, the reality is that most work will NEVER be about employee satisfaction. Performance matters. Productivity matters. Skills and competence matter. And, yes, kissing the right butt can matter too. But whether you’re feeling happy or satisfied are irrelevant. If you want to be happy and satisfied on the job? Nobody else cares what you want. Best of luck to you.

There seems to be a very stupid figment which floats-around out there: the idea that men typically go to work to find personal fulfillment. That work is just something they want to do, that they put their feet-up on the desk and watch money grow from the potted plant nearby. Maybe that’s WHY that article in The Atlantic “Women Still Can’t Have it all” by Louise Slaughter seemed to have kicked-up such a fuss: what she was saying was completely obvious to most men (it was no great epiphany that she had), but the truth seemed to be a hard-fought realization for her nonetheless. Slaughter is certainly not a foolish woman, so how could she have gotten suckered? The Lie must be very powerful indeed.

Largely, working a job is not about ‘personal fulfillment.’ It’s not about ‘gaining power.’ It’s not about ‘having it all.’ Should it be? I think it should be. It would certainly be nice. It would also be nice to sit on a pink cloud and have tea with a magic unicorn, but I don’t exactly plan my whole life around the concept.

The sooner society stops feeding women sweet-sounding, ego-stroking nonsense, the better-off everyone will be.