Overcoming Frustration 6

[KENAT]

I had my yearly review at work today and one area I was marked down in was teamwork. The justification was that I sometimes show my frustration in team meetings. (He nearly marked me down in ‘communications’ for the same reason but decided my record on keeping meeting/program minutes made up for it.)

This is frankly true. I do sometimes get frustrated, mostly for what I think are justifiable reasons though perhaps occasionally excessively, and sometimes I struggle to hide this.

Now I have some ideas for addressing my frustrations or at least working with my manager on them however I suspect I’ll still sometimes get frustrated.

So my question is, when you get really frustrated, especially in team meetings, how do you deal with it?

How do you stop from showing it or do you have some cunning technique for turning it around to be productive?

 

[kbits]

Since my one-way commute is 40 miles through a heavily urbanized metropolis, living closer to work would reduce my stress and susceptibility for needless explosions of frustration, despite the inanity of some of what goes on at my workplace. The traffic alone is mind boggling. While the company is supposed to be moving within a year its engineering department much closer to where I live with my family, I am encouraged by my boss to find a way to remain calm during small meetings or one-on-one's. He leveled with me and said to calm down.

What usually sets me off is that I have built up a tremendous amount of steam and momentum making progress on a particular project or task, reaching upwards of 100%, when the boss comes in and tells me to put the brakes on, turn around and head in practically the opposite direction. Releasing the steam and building it up again from scratch is frustrating. Even frequent progress checks with the boss cannot prevent this. Alas, such a change, on one level or another, I am learning, is just an aspect of the job, no matter where I have worked.

 

[RAH1234]

Changing jobs is usually a short-term solution. The only time you won't have to endure frustrating meetings is when you don't really know what's going on. Once your role within the group is defined and you attain ownership over certain aspects of the job, frustration will re-appear.

The way I look at, meetings are just another part of the job. If a meeting drifts in a direction I'm disinterested in, it's probably because other people in the group need to discuss those things. I'm there because my organization wants me there, not for my own enjoyment.

One thing I always keep in mind: Unless in direct response to a specific question, people do not want to listen to someone (especially an engineer) discuss technical details. You'll lose your audience every time- then you'll end up frustrated that nobody will listen to you.

 

[JMirisola]

Perception is everything. At my last company, I was perceived as a troublemaker and not a team player as I would get frustrated with people "beating a dead horse". At my present company, I'm seen as a leader for keeping things on track, yet my attitude hasn't changed...c'est le vie!

Jeff Mirisola, CSWP
CAD Administrator
SW '07 SP2.0, Dell M90, Intel 2 Duo Core, 2GB RAM, nVidia 2500M

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/jeffs_blog

 

[GrimesFrank]

I shutdown personally. Start thinking about the grocery list or laundry, etc. Getting up to leave doesn't work here either.

I'll put my two cents in, when you choose to snub it, you don't get another nickel out of me. Most who know me, know what that sign means (time to wrap up) and for those who don't, they don't pay no nevermind to me anyway so I'm not seen as a troublemaker.

As the previous have said, I'm not the general, just the guy who gets to step on the landmines. :smile:

Frank "Grimey" Grimes
Rule 25. of Swanson's "Unwritten Rules of Management"
Have fun at what you do. It will reflect in your work. No one likes a grump except another grump.

 

[michfan]

Grimey,
Where can I find the rest of the "Unwritten Rules of Management"???

 

[KENAT]

Frank, as for your sign off, given how many people seem to have similar issues to me I believe as long as I stay in engineering I'll not be short of friends!

Part of the problem is in the meetings I’m talking about I’m a key player.

Meetings with higher ups or lots of attendees that just go on and on I pretty much just grin and bare (or is it bear?) it without too much trouble, I try to take the view that I’m paid as much to sit and listen to them waffle as I am to do something productive.

The meetings I think he’s flagging me for are ones where it’s just him, a few others from our department (‘team’) and me. The meetings are usually not about engineering issues so much as the work our department (Design Services) does on creating Design Standards, Procedures and introduction of a PDM/PLM system.

A lot of the work I do on this I do to some extent either proactively or in my own time or I juggle other things to fit it in. Also certainly for the standards and procedures most of the time I’m the person that created them, or at least did most of the work.

His perception is that some of the frustration is that since I’ve done the lions share of the work I don’t take kindly to people nit picking or word smithing it. While there is an element of truth to this; A I don’t think its unreasonable given the circumstances and B. if there is a genuine error or area that could be better I try to be very open to accepting comment, and normally I’m genuinely appreciative of the input. Also with the exception of my checker I don’t think any of them have better ‘English’ (they’re American I’m a Brit but in the US) than me so when they try and correct me, other than for Anglicism’s, its hard to take.

Another thing I find frustrating is when I forge ahead to do something based on my last direction from him. Prepare something that I think really meets the requirement he’s given me and then, when we finally have a meeting to look at it (often a week after I first gave it to him having stayed late the day before to finish it) find out I had it totally wrong or he’s changed his mind. I know you should always have your requirement defined before you start something but if I waited for that it would just double how long everything takes and nothing would get finished.

This leads neatly into my other area of frustration, a lot of the work we do in this area, especially PDM/PLM is at the direction of senior management. Unfortunately they don’t’ seem to like giving a firm requirement, or even anything much in writing. It seems as if they don’t do it so that if you do something they don’t like or that isn’t well received they can say ‘that’s not what I told you to do’, it also supports their hobby of moving the proverbial goal posts.

Don’t get me wrong my manager is a great guy and one of the best managers I’ve ever had but that doesn’t mean it’s always lollipops and moon beams!

Rant over.

Kenat out!

 

[kbits]

Kenat, your post reminded that my boss just started letting me know whenever he is "thinking out loud". Whenever we discuss a project or goal, he tells me this. He senses my frustration after he's dictated several different paths that should be taken, each going to different sides of the field. It's a habit of his, to think out loud.

So, I am developing the habit at the end of every conversation to repeat exactly what I believe I need to do. I take notes, but there is not always time to document every item of the discussion. His mind could have changed since that pencil scratch. As a bonus, I put into my own words, based on our discussion, what I believe he is supposed to do. But even then, like you said, it's not always his fault when I still have to start over from page one. His boss changes course, too.

 

[KENAT]

Yeah, I kind of tried the 'active listening' ( I believe that's the correct management speak) approach but it doesn't stop them changing their mind and denying it because you don't have it in writing.

For anything really important I try and send an email detailing what I understood from the conversation or meeting so that he can either correct me in writing or, if he doesn't respond, I can defend what I've done.

However, if I did this every time we spoke I'd be sending 20+ emails some days, he'd be even more swamped, and then he'd get even worse at responding when it was important!

 

[prohammy]

kbits\KENAT,

If your boss is one of those people with like 'to think out load' there is often a good argument to 'listen in silence'....given enough rope he'll more than likely use it.... just have your ammunition ready (written is always best) for the outcome.

Kevin Hammond

Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK

 

[KENAT]

No he's not really an out load thinker.

If he wasn't such a nice guy, trying to be the best manager he can be and actually not doing a bad job, especially given the culture of this place, I might take the rope approach.

Trouble is he gets swamped with different instructions/demands from upper management and if left to his own devices little that’s productive would get done. Hence I try and step in and get things done, not just for his benefit but for the whole departments, including me! It just gets frustrating when I'm trying to help and it either gets delayed unnecessarily or comes back to bite me.

One example where I actually ‘blew up’, we talked about away to do something just here in the office. Later in a team meeting he said something like "Ken had a really good idea on how we're going to do this" so I took this as him liking my idea and as I’d already been tasked to work on it I took the approach we’d talked about.

I give him a draft of the document in question; we eventually had a team meeting with the entire ‘team’ to review it and as soon as we get to the bit I’d written based on our conversation he and several other team members started ripping it apart and asking why on earth we’d do it like that! I did not respond well, badly enough that I later apologized to pretty much everyone present.

 

[prohammy]

KENAT,

I seem to have done your manager a slight injustice (seeing him as a load thinker), but with respect to the rest of your post, he doesn't come out smelling of roses. Your frustration is more than justifiable IMO. It would seem to me, from that example, that (even though you get along with him on a personal basis) he needs to be more focused on how he communicates his requirements to you. A very large part of being a manager (especially an Engineering Manager) is understanding the people who work for you and the dynamics of how your people interact with other departments and other people outside engineering. God bless us engineers (and I base all the next rant on ME), but we can be very bad at communicating our ideas and roles to our collegues outside our department. We tend to be very good at explaining our work in a technical manner, but very poor at helping others see the merit of our ideas. This where a good manager can be invaluable. I have been fortunate (as mentioned previously) that I have had some very good managers who have understood how I work inside the dynamics of a company and I have learned a lot from them. Equally well, I have some some idiots who have driven me to the end of my patience.

Unfortunately, I have to say that you did fall into a trap that I have seen myself in a few times before (and it has driven me crazy, coz there never seems to be a good way out). I think you jumped the gun and wandered off with your own ideas on how to proceed with the project and didn't check that what your manager wanted and what you had decided to do were compatable. Actually now that I think about it, that generally is one of the big challanges that we face when involved in a project (ignoring all the other miriad of engineering problems).

After all of that, I still plough ahead (often blindly) and hope for the best while making the same old mistakes

Cheers

Kevin Hammond

Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK

 

[KENAT]

You have a point prohammy, me too.

Design 101 (as they say in the states) is 'make sure you know your requirement', this goes for pretty much any project.

I know this but occasionally fire off prematurely none the less.

I have also been drumming into my manager about defining your requirement up front and he seems to be picking up on it (that or he's just placating me).

Trouble is defining the requirement around here is usually excessively time consuming so, charging off on my best guess is sometimes the quickest (from calendar point of view) way. It's not the least labor intensive as if I have to redo it the hours spent add up but I seem better able to control my schedule and fit stuff in than many of the people needed to define the requirement in the first place.

As my wife says, "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission". I don't completely buy into this but there's an element of truth.

The bad thing is the resulting frustration when you do get it wrong and that's what I'm trying to fix.

One of the ideas I mention in my OP that have for reducing frustrating situations is to make sure I know my requirement but thanks for reminding me prohammy.

 

[prohammy]

1. I'm not going to go for any cheap points by commenting on 'fire off prematurely'..... I'm not like that.....honest.

2. Your wife has a point....my wife usually tells me to shut complaining when I mouth off at home (after she has listened to more than enough of my ranting) and 'learn to work with people not against them'.

3. I always love the feeling of being the one who is charging off into the new frontiers of engineering, only problem is I usually need somebody there to keep my feet on the ground.

PS My wife is studdying Psycology and I provide her with more than enough case study material on a regular basis



Kevin Hammond

Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK

 

[KENAT]

1. I put that line into lighten the mood, I thought I could trust a Brit Engineer to pick up on it. I guess political correctness has finally struck at one of the last great bastions...

2. -

3. So why does it feel more like being shot down!

 

[prohammy]

1. Irish not Brit

3. I think coz it would be nice to get the recognition I think I deserve fopr doing such a wanderful job but somehow it always seems to be just out of reach or snatched from my grasp....hence frustration.

Kevin Hammond

Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK

 

[KENAT]

1. In the interests of world peace (plus the fact my favourite drinks come from the emerald isle) I'll let that one go, appologies. I got confused I know you'd spent time in Ireland from other posts of yours but from your sign off I took you as a fellow Brit, sorry. And by Brit I don't necessarily mean English, though technically I am. I'm a healthy mix of Scottish, Irish & English ancestry, fortunately no welsh;-).

 

[prohammy]

Nothing to be sorry about, to use an Irishism.. sound, no worries (try using the accents and it works). Turns out we share a common interest(Irish alcohol), that's a good basis for forgiveness. Surprisingly, I've got the English, Irish / Welsh mixture, no Scots

Kevin Hammond

Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK