Cheese with that whine?

Ironically, it was almost a year ago that I posted this . I had the pleasure of close to a repeat performance at work yesterday. I was ambushed by human resources again. I have enjoyed some really good support in the form of leadership development and in return, I agreed to take on a project within the department that I wasn't that keen on doing. But I took it on, squandering a placement opportunity that I had been provided by a program that I was involved with, and against all advice from the career coach who was working with me. I was being advised to get out of my home department to complete this placement but I chose to remain there because I was applying for the jobs that I reference in that linked post.

If you've read the linked post, you know that I was told I wouldn't even be interviewed for the positions, but was asked to continue on with the work of this project. I had been reporting to an awesome project manager who was responsible for linking the work of my project into the ongoing work of the program area to which it belonged ... until she received a promotion and moved on. I found myself operating solo, reporting to the most senior person in the department, and trying to link my work into the program area on my own. None of which went well.

To put this in perspective (because I realized yesterday that I have minimized this entire event and that sane, normal people who don't work where I do are aghast at what has been happening), I was asked to carry out a piece of work that was part of a program and policy renewal initiative in our department. There are two components to this particular program area, and when the renewal project was initially announced, there was a team of four full time staff assigned to work on it. They quickly decided that it was too large in scope, and that they could only work on one of the two components. Two years later, I was asked to carry out the work related to the second component.

Just so we all understand:

Piece A - four staff and a project manager assigned full time for two years. Piece B determined to be too large to be in scope.

Piece B - One Sandy, no project manager or other staff resources (in fact, no office to work from for quite a while) assigned with 50% of her time being required to lead another initiative at the same time (for which there were also no staff, but which has received acclaim across the province and is being treated as a flagship program for government now...but remember, I suck at what I do).

I'm struggling with not sounding like a victim here but seriously....how would you feel? Since my project manager left, I have been attempting to bring this phase of the project to a close. We had created a project document with time lines and deliverables that broke the project into phases. We were careful to define what was in scope and not in scope for each phase. As everyone knows, the ability to deliver on deadlines is only as good as your ability to get sign off from decision makers. This project involved a large sector of service providers who have been treated like dirt by our department for a lot of years. One of the biggest pieces of work I had to do was in the area of relationship repair with this group. They were a really good group to work with, and turned themselves upside down to help me meet my deadlines. But internal to my own department ... the very group that asked for the work to be done? Different story.

I would schedule meetings with people that would be cancelled, rescheduled or for which people would simply not show. When I could finally get the key players at the table, the assumptions, rules and scope of the work was challenged. I ask for support in the area of research, only to be told there are no resources available to me. A new director is hired for the project area to which this piece of work belongs, and a decision is made to have the renewal initiative managed by the program area now, and that the staff working on the initiative will be assigned to that Director. I'm fine with that ... in fact am looking forward to working with this person who I know I will learn a lot from ... when I realize that there is a major miscommunication taking place.

The Director is under the impression that I will be assigned on a full time, permanent basis to her program area. When she brings this up at a meeting, I quickly said "with all due respect, that is not what I am aspiring to nor why I'm involved in this project". And that really got our relationship off to a good start.

The position that she thinks I'm assigned to permanently is two positions below where I am currently on the organizational chart, and pays about $20,000 per annum less. I have just completed a three year term acting in a position that is at the same level as hers. It just doesn't make sense to be involved in a career development placement that will put you back two levels and see you lose money, does it? Or is that just me being silly?

To be fair, she is new to government, and doesn't know me or my history. So we talked about it at one of our regularly scheduled meetings, and I gave her the history. I also apologized for my lack of tact in responding the way I did, and where I did it, but told her that I had a history of being screwed in this department and took career self management pretty seriously these days.

So last week I receive this appointment from human resources titled "career planning", inviting my new Director, the manager of HR, and myself to a meeting with our deputy minister (who is the senior person that I have been reporting to thus far) for first thing in the morning yesterday. I called HR to inquire about the purpose of the meeting, and was told not to worry. That is was simply a formal passing over of my supervision from the deputy to this new director, and that they wanted to review the terms of my educational agreement (the department is providing me with 75% of the financial support required to acquire this master's degree I'm working on).

Silly me. I almost took her at her word and didn't worry.

Until I got up yesterday morning early to get to work early, and said to HB "think of me at 8 a.m. will you? I have a hinky feeling". Ever the optimist, HB says "why do you always think the worst is going to happen?".

Because history is a great teacher, HB!

I arrive in the deputy's office at 7:55 a.m., and her secretary says "I'll tell them that you're here". I panic, assuming that I'm late. The secretary says "in fact, you're early. They were having a pre-meeting. You know how 'these things' go". To which I say, "these things? ummm no ... should I be concerned?" and she says some general stuff about "you'll be fine; reviewing talent pool; blah blah blah".

I am ushered into the meeting room, to be greeted by the deputy and the HR manager sitting on one side of the table, and no new director anywhere in site.

And then it began. This is not a passing of the supervision. This is a performance review. And not a good one.

By the time I limped out of there, I had been told:

- that I am good at making presentations and have good interpersonal skills;

- that I have taken far too long to achieve the outcomes of this project;

- that I have disappointed her because I didn't deliver on several items (that we had previously agreed were not in scope for this phase but that has been forgotten and I chose not to dispute because, you know, it's the deputy!);

- that I will need to move from my cubicle with a window and in an area where I have some clerical support to a small, middle of the floor with no window cubicle located in the program area and will have no clerical support (remember, I gave up an office with actual walls and a door to take this project on, and have been moved four times now since the start of the project);

- that effective the end of July I will lose the 10% bonus pay I've been receiving since November 2002 because they can no longer justify it;

- that I had to accept I was not going to be the director's equal but that I was going to be reporting to her;

- that there had been a comment that I was taking too much time off to participate in the master's program (I've taken 1.5 days off to study since January 2006); and finally

- that I could continue to lead the employee recognition program until the end of October.

I managed to limp out of there without crying in front of them .... but just barely. I left a tightly controlled voice mail for my former project manager, who has remained a good friend and mentor and is now part of the department's executive team, but she was in meetings all day. I didn't realize how badly I must have sounded until she called me back at home last night in complete panic - she said she thought my other dawg was sick or something, that's how bad I sounded!

I had a regularly scheduled meeting with the new Director for 10:00 a.m. She took one look at me and asked me how it went that morning. I told her I was surprised to see she hadn't been there, and immediately dissolved in tears.

Now I would rather march nekkid down the middle of the street than cry in front of people I don't know. But she was incredible.

She came around her desk, sat down beside me and went into full counselling mode. She explained that she had basically been "uninvited" to the meeting. She led me through a debrief of what had taken place and just listened. She told me that they would begin to make arrangements to have me move into the program area, and I reiterated again how much I'm looking forward to working with and for her, and to learning from her for the rest of this assignment. I didn't get into the fact that I still see this as being a short term assignment and that my plan is to finish the work up and then either find something else (ideally out of the department) or to go back to my old job. I was just too grateful that someone was being kind to me to screw it up at that point, plus I really didn't want to be making statements from a place of anger. Who knows? Maybe I'll get there and decide I love it.

Then she told me to go home for the rest of the day - and that we'd talk about how I could make up that time later. Hmmm. No one ever talked to me about making up time before. No one ever offered to compensate me for all the nights I am there until 8 p.m. either. Whatever. I just said I'd take a half vacation day. I'm beyond caring.

But I did keep my lunch appointment, which ironically was with a classmate who has quickly become a friend, and who just happens to be the senior consultant for executive recruitment for the provincial civil service. While we were eating lunch, the deputy minister for the public service commission came over to say hello, and to congratulate me on the role I had played last week in designing and delivering a corporate recognition training program for 90 staff from across all government departments for his department. The irony just never ceases to amuse me.

So here it is, 5:15 a.m. the next day. My mind was racing so much that I couldn't sleep. I've been up since 4 a.m. drinking coffee and creating this entry - both of which have helped immensely. I am becoming clearer and stronger in knowing what I have to do.

I need to finish this project, and stop worrying about impressing the deputy minister in my department. I just need to worry about doing a good job on the project, and I can learn a lot from this new Director.

I need to have the executive recruiter review my cv as she has offered to do several times now.

I need to keep my eyes open for other opportunities and apply. I need to forget about the return of service agreement I have with my department, accept that I am valued enough by other departments and deputies that they will be willing to honour my agreement if they want me in their department badly enough.

I need to pave the way for a return to my home position if needed, and not feel guilty about the fact that this will displace some other staff. I have to stop worrying about the impact on other people.

I need to remember that if I had ever had to go off on maternity leave, we'd be learning to live on a hell of a lot less than this pay cut is going to be. And I need to remember that we always survive - that it just means a slight adjustment in some spending patterns.

And I need to find my backbone somewhere. Apparently I misplaced it yesterday.

And finally, there is good news. Although I used to enjoy a good smoke after a royal screwing such as this, it never once crossed my mind to go have one yesterday. I guess I am truly a non smoker now.