In dealing with my current issues I have had to turn to my social support system, the friends and family who love me and care about me. I can barely get out of bed in the morning let alone schedule doctor's appointments and job interviews and get myself to therapy. I've been really encouraged, though, by the people who have reached out, and I want to turn a sad story into a success story.
As I think I this support system what stands out is how much I have isolated myself over the past several years. It certainly is no coincidence that this corresponds to the Covid pandemic and working from home. However, I think it began even earlier when I moved into a management role. I feel like the manager role can intrinsically be a lonely one if measures are not taken. As I said in an earlier post, I believe the measures are there in work I have already done in therapy and in DBT, but they can be easily forgotten if not regularly practiced. I intend to write more here about those DBT skills and how they relate to work in order to do my own practice of them and maybe to help some others out there.
I was thinking on how I have not made new friends in several years. When I was out drinking and carousing with my engineering peers, it was easier to get past my own social anxiety, have fun, and make friends. Some of those friendships even stuck. When I moved into a management role, though, I certainly was not going to do any carousing, and I really limited how much drinking I would do, already knowing my propensity to overindulge at times. I did not want anyone I supported to see me inebriated. It became even more difficult when I gave up drinking as I could not get past the social anxiety enough to open up to people.
Now I know all other managers out there are not depressive alcoholics with severe social anxiety, but I do believe that in that manager role you have fewer work peers and those peers you do have are incredibly busy. I think back on the halcyon days of playing foosball or ping-pong at work! Now, no one has that kind of time anymore even when we were still all in the office. I regret now not reaching out to my manager peers at Nordstrom socially more.
I will also say, it was nice, especially in an environment where I was getting no feedback back from my boss, to hear from someone I was supporting as a manager, "Hey, I know it can be a rough job, but I think you're doing a great job." My team and those people I worked with every day - those are the people who knew what kind of job I did and that feedback was very motivating, inspiring.
So, today's lesson is if your manager is doing a good job, let them know it. It can otherwise be a very thankless job at times. Despite the provocative title, your manager is probably really okay but will appreciate it nonetheless.
1 comment:
In our time together, I hope I communicated to you how much you helped me though my time at Nordstrom Credit as a Senior Engineer and Technical Leader.
The environment started more than 2 years ago as healthy, encouraging and supportive. Over the last few years, that environment turned sour. In that time, when my opinions and attitudes degraded in response to the toxicity I was finding in my work-life, you did not contribute to it. On the contrary, you took strides to help.
I do feel that the effort you put out to help me, shield me, support me, also put you at odds with the environment that we found ourselves in. That was hard for you, and I will admit that to anyone who asks. You, in the most literal sense, put me and my positive attitude above your own personal satisfaction. And while that helped me, I hold the opinion it did not help you.
So thank you, and stop that. I would not have lasted through that environment as long as I did without your explicit support. I'm am truly sorry to hear the difficulties you have experienced especially realizing my part in it. And remember ... we engineers often have crippling anxiety too! while two drops of oil do not become water, sometimes they can support each other anyway.
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