2000-04-12
Work's picking up a little. More to do, greater variety. I'm going to be doing some training and it'll probably require some travel to the Bay Area where the other part of our company is. I'm a little nervous but mostly excited and looking forward to this. Maybe this job isn't so awful after all.
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I made a realization the other day. Not for the first time, more of a reminder. It's that I can apologize. For someone like me who is historically afflicted by an obsessive need to be right, it really is a breakthrough to learn this.
What happened was simple enough: my boss's boss made what I interpreted as an amusing typo in an email to our group. In a follow-up email to the group, I pointed it out. She then pointed out that it was not, in fact, an error and explained why.
Her tone felt clipped and I felt like a flippant smartass. For a while I just wallowed, mortified, in my foot-in-mouth tendencies. Then I wrote an email (just to her) apologizing. Her response was very friendly, very Hey, no ill intent assumed, don't worry about it.
I don't know whether she'd taken offense at my remark or not, but I know that I've been on the receiving end of the kind of apology I gave her. The kind that says, I'm not sure if I said the wrong thing, but if I did, I'm sorry. Often I have no recollection of what the person is talking about, and assure them of that. But sometimes I do know what they refer to, and I had indeed taken some mild offense. In those cases, I respond the same way, with a smile, a Hey, no ill intent assumed, don't worry about it. But something sinks in, and I appreciate the gesture.
This might sound like the most obvious thing in the world, but for me it really hasn't been very obvious. I grew up in a house full of people who need to be right. Any time I become aware that I've erred in any way, my impulse is to conceal, to hope it goes unnoticed. The last thing that occurs to me is to do anything about it. It causes some anxiety, as you can imagine. I've been figuring this out in my personal life, and now I'm applying it to my work life. Remediation is a wonderful thing.
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We're going to a (minor league) baseball game tonight! Opening game of the season. A guy at work who I'm friendly with, who hit it off with B at our company's holiday dinner, suggested it. The ballpark is walking distance from our house; on the nights they have fireworks we can see them from our backyard (and can count on having both dogs sleep in our bed with us.) I hope it doesn't rain.
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