When It's Not Too Late to Change Your Stripes

The other day, I got this private email from a woman who works in our sister group at another site:

Please know that after just one week working with you I want to relay that I appreciate your style and support....and focus on the right stuff !! I had heard good things about you prior to getting involved and it's all true.

Awwwww, pshaw.....I'm blushing! And really, like a giddy little school girl I've held onto the note and want to savor it a bit longer before I delete it (too much mail in my INBOX!)

This woman just recently, apparently, rejoined the project after a long absence. This project got started at the beginning of the year and I joined it in April. Thus, I'd never heard of this woman until 2 weeks ago. I'd gotten the feeling that our sister group preferred to deal with me because I was the "adult" in our group and didn't get all huffy when they said they couldn't possibly deliver something we needed. The others in my group kinda start raising their voice and crossing their arms and frowning when they don't get what they want from our sister group.

And I've seen a change on their side as well. First, both sides were just bumping into each other uncoordinated. Then, I joined in April and actually made my group prioritize and order their list of requests. That impressed our sister group. But then it became apparent, even to them in private emails to me, that their side was now the disorganized side. And when this woman came back from an extended leave (or vacation or sabbatical), suddenly the whip started getting cracked (the way I like it!) on their end. Conference calls have been going like this:

Johnny: So, we really need to have the database tweaked and the system updated for us to use.

Slacker: Uhhh, yeah sure we can do that.

Returning Project Manager: Okay, and when will that be done?

Slacker: Ummm, uhhhh....soon?

Returning Project Manager: And what day is soon?

Slacker: By.....

Returning Project Manager: By end of business tomorrow?

Slacker: Yeah, yeah I guess so.

Johnny: Great!

So she's sitting in a conference room with Slacker, halfway around the country cracking the whip and getting him in line.

First, this email had me thinking about these people I work with purely on the phone that I almost will never meet in person. We have internal electronic databases that show our contact information. All these goody-two-shoes folks in our sister site have people in business attire obviously sitting on a stool with a light blue background taken on the day where you could go in and have your contact picture taken. Goody-two-shoes!

Our site directory pictures for people have people holding a big bass in front of them or a picture that their spouse snapped of them on a hiking trail. And you know me. My picture that identifies me in our internal contact database is:

So seriously, did you know I wasn't white? Heh. Not like being Asian affects your work or anything. Heh.

Second, what the nice email from Returning Project Manager reminded me was how people who have never worked with me before (by virtue of being halfway across the country) have a first-impression of me based purely on phone and emails, whereas it's a different set of circumstances here at my site.

You see, I have a "reputation" here.

I write well, but sometimes I can write too well. When I first started at the Mega-lo-corp I knew I was getting into "the Borg" of a corporation. And how does one express individuality or anger or disgust at people in situations they encounter in the Borg cube? Why they write witty and B-I-T-I-N-G and truthfully painful emails and distribute them!

Talk about sandbagging my own career.

People would come up to me privately and say, "Wow, that last email you sent out. Wow! That was brilliant. I don't think I would have had the guts to write that!"

But if my name ever came up for a job opportunity, this same person would say, "Oh no! No, no, no, no no! Not Johnny. He's a loose cannon."

And yes, it did take a few years for me to get my "ya-ya's" out. But by that time, the damage was done. At one time, there was a job where I interviewed for the position. I was PERFECT for it, but I was turned down by the manager (who about 10 years later we worked together on a long project and became good friends). Basically I was told that they didn't think I would be a good influence on the department.

I was pretty despondent about it and thought of leaving the Mega-lo-corp. After all, if you've poisoned the well for yourself, what's the point of sticking around and getting turned down for future jobs? I screwed up and I had to leave.

I then asked for a lunch with a very, very high ranking manager who I had become friends with. I told him about my latest job rejection. Immediately, he asked if I wanted him to "have a talk" with the manager who rejected me. I said no. I didn't want to come into a job based on the fact that someone overrode the wishes of a manager. I would start a new job in a deeper hole than I was already in.

But during lunch, he told me how he had started out. He said he grew up in the mid-West where there were not that many minorities. And, there were not that many women in engineering school where he got his degree. Thus, when he started off at the Mega-lo-corp, he seriously believed that non-white and female engineers were inferior to him.

Wow, I was blown away. This was one of the most charismatic managers I'd ever been around. People would run through brick walls for this man.

He then went on to tell me that he was turned down for management jobs because he had a reputation of being a bit racist, a bit sexist, and a bit arrogant.

And to fix that, he had to transfer to a new site halfway across the country and start anew. There, he had to reform himself and he taught himself to change the way he viewed minorities and women. And then 5 years later, he had rehabilitated his reputation enough where he got a manager job back at his old site.

That was a pretty heavy confession he made to this lowly programmer. I'll never ever forget how he opened up to me. And it made me resolve that I had to change myself - that it wasn't the world that "didn't get my emails", it was me that had to change the emails themselves.

Over the next few years, I had a succession of 4 female managers. Three of them tried very hard to re-shape me. I told them that I had a bad reputation and I would take any of their advice they would give. They did try and over time, I did slowly change the way I approached people and problems (mostly people).

As one of the female managers said to me, and the words still ring in my years to this day,

Johnny, everyone thinks you're an ASSHOLE until they work with you and get to know you.

Yeah, pretty much.