When Push Comes To Shove, How Do You React?

Our lives are busy. Whether we have work to deal with or family, sometimes it feels like nothing is ever at a standstill. When we have something going on at home, it seems like something blows up at work. The same is true when things get really busy at work, kids or other family seem to be making that much more chaos at home. So how do you deal with it? How are you going to react when things are happening beyond your control which seem to over burden you one way or another?

I have had some experiences over the years with different work/life balance issues. They seem to happen in the most in-opportune moments of our lives? For me anyways, they always tend to come after new management/leadership takes the stage in employers. More family issues tend to sprout of this timing as well (I wonder if they are related). I don’t know that I have reacted the correct way in each scenario, but hopefully these examples will provide some thinking or talking points if you ever have to go through them.

The Young Manager

Fairly early on in my career, there was a situation where my manager who was well into his years of being a great leader suddenly left. It was then the brilliant plan to have a co-worker be promoted as our team manager. They were just a few years older than me, and we had worked well together for the prior few years. They were quite smart in the field, however, they lacked the interpersonal skills needed to be a good manager. This meant they shifted from being a friendlier person to now more of a totalitarian. Needless to say, there were a lot of misgivings I had about the situation, and they all came to head one fateful morning. They had no sooner walked into the office, and pulled me into a conference room to verbally berate me for a good 15 minutes. How did I react as they were yelling at me and talking down to me? I calmly tried to diffuse the anger, and offered to talk things through. We did, sort of, but it was too much. I made sure their manager knew what had happened, but I never went to HR. I left about a month later. Looking back, I should have made a formal complaint to HR. However, I was young, and didn’t fully grasp the empowerment I had as what happened to me was clear harassment. 

The People User

A little later in my career I was working under a manager who I thought was super down to earth, and understood what it meant to be a good manager. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until later I found out they used me as a scape goat anytime they messed up. On the flip side, they were using my work as their own to better present themselves to the executives. They eventually got a new boss, didn’t like them, and left. This meant I now reported to that person (which I got along great with). It wasn’t until my new manager and I talked through the “hand-offs” that they needed me to do, that we both learned the truth. All of my work was being delivered as theirs. I never pushed the topic for a promotion too much. My manager’s job was just my hard work. So in theory, I should have been at that level. Again, I should have spoken up. I should have made it known what I wanted and not have been afraid of the possible response.

The Lack Of Touch With Reality And Humanity

This one has actually happened multiple times now, but each is the same modus operandi. There is the manager who will come in new to a company with a high level of power. They feel like the have something to prove to other parts of the business, and they feel their power can make it happen. Most of the time, these are folks who are empty nesters, no family at all, or their family lives in another state. Thus, all they do is work! Unfortunately, this means they have no sense of their employee’s lives and families. You work, there is nothing else. I remember taking multiple conference calls while I was sitting in the hospital before and after my daughter was born. There was also a week where I pulled over 70 hours in the span of 5 days, and my daughter refused to go to sleep because she had only seen me for maybe 5 hours (30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night). This and many more have all been due to having no sense of reality with other people. Also having no sense of humanity to work people to their breaking point for the sake of simply “wanting it”. Some of these earlier one’s I just did it, with very little rebuttal. However, being a father and now have early 20’s kids now working for me, I had to make a change. I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore, and decided to make a change for me and for them. I am not silent. I push back to those in power if their requests are unreasonable. Guess what? Although they don’t like the push back, there is a need to set healthy boundaries within the workplace. You will feel better.