Pressure

Another team is meant to be joining us from the main office. That team’s manager is the person in the office I seem to have a bit of a mixed relationship with. I think she gets stressed quite easily and, certainly when I started, she was quite off with me several times, which I think was because she wasn’t coping very well with all the things she had to do.

She came over yesterday to see the desks, which was interesting. Her team had already been over the previous day and they were in the process of choosing their desks, but she said to me “I told them they needed to stop because I needed to go over and see the desks so I could pick mine and they would then all fit in around me”. I just looked at her and said “ok”, but I wasn’t very impressed by that. There are times when managers have to be in the lead, but I really don’t think this was one of them. When my team had to pick their desks, I told them to decide amongst themselves and I would then take what was left. I knew this would mean I ended up sitting on my own, but it really isn’t an issue and it was more important that the rest of the team got to sit together.

She then told me she had to rush off because she had so much work to do. She is going to be on leave as of the end of this week, so I just said that if I didn’t see her before she went that I hoped she had a good holiday. Apparently earlier in the day she had also said that unless the office took on more staff to form another team that she couldn’t see there would be any point in me staying on at the end of my secondment, which I didn’t think was a very helpful thing to say and I don’t suppose she would have appreciated it if I was broadcasting my opinions on whether I thought she should continue to be employed by the office. She’s a nice person, I think she just doesn’t cope well with change or pressure.