Honesty vs Pretense

My husband, Brian, and I are completely opposite people. This really works in our favor most of the time because we can provide each other with a completely different perspective on pretty much anything. Whenever I am about to do something totally impulsive and harsh, I ask him for feedback and he helps me soften my blows. And I love him for that.

Too bad I can’t take him with me on business trips…

There’s this woman at work that if I didn’t see ever again, it would be too soon. She and I were working on a very difficult and totally physically and emotionally draining project 3 years ago. She came to me to give me advice and said that I was taking on too much work, and I should ease up and delegate. I remember being outwardly appreciative of the feedback, but thinking that she was stepping over her bounds trying to "coach" someone who is not her subordinate. But "whatever," I thought. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. The next day, she calls me and tells me that she has decided to dump all her responsibilities on me, and I would be the new leader of her area. This hit me like a pile of bricks. She was caving in under the pressure of the project, and decided (without any authority from the leaders) that she would just hand over all her work to me. That was the first time I ever said "No" to her, and it dawned on me what she meant about taking on so much work and saying "Yes" all the time. Ever since then I have wanted nothing to do with such a two-faced monster. She killed every ounce of trust I still had in her, and I began to avoid her whenever we were in the same room together from that point forward. I’d try to be cordial, but I can’t fake for long periods of time, so I’d always run the other way.

Well, God works in mysterious ways. Turns out that my new role is to take over her current projects, so we’ll have to work together in the transition. I went over to the mother ship for a couple of days and was very much looking forward to getting the transition over with in an hour.

Unfortunately for me, I can’t help my heart from showing on my sleeve, and she can’t ignore social cues that the other person (me) is giving off. So in our meeting, she asked what was wrong. I turned to her and asked her "Do you really want to have this conversation?" and she said yes. So, I let it all out. I even cried and bawled, and my eyes remained puffy for the rest of the day and into the night. Her first reaction was to laugh and make it sound like she "felt bad" for me for having held this grudge for 3 years. I called her on the laughing about this, regretted ever bringing anything up and asked her to get back to the transition presentation. She wouldn’t, for better or for worse. She stayed on the topic and apologized profusely multiple times for causing this kind of aggravation on me. Afterwards, my guard fell a bit, and I thanked her for letting me get it out in the open. I washed my face, and we decided to continue the transition on Monday.

I did honestly feel better after I let it all out, and I thought that maybe I’d feel even better about working with her on the transition the next day, but I don’t feel good. I still have no trust in her whatsoever, and I still hate her whiny high-pitched voice, and I can still see the smirk on her face when she said she "felt so bad" for me.

So what did we learn? Any political-correctness book (or my husband, or my parents, or my boss, or the Big Kahuna) would have told me that I handled it poorly, that I should have addressed it professionally, that I shouldn’t have blown up like that. But that was the most raw and real conversation I will ever have with anybody at work, and although I know I "should have" handled it better, I somehow don’t regret telling her off one bit. What’s the consequence? That I might have damaged the relationship forever? Well, it was already damaged, so it’s not like I could have made things so much worse.

I just hope to leave this behind me and just get the transition over with as quickly as possible.

ina