Angela - Day 1

Today started with a series of e-mail messages from my boss that caused me to feel very defensive and powerless. I found myself wanting to reply with a shameful note justifying my behavior (I really DIDN'T do anything wrong, BTW), but instead I stuck to the facts and a simple "I'll let you know when I know something else." A good day to begin The Honesty Experiment. 

This is something I've wanted to do for a while (taking the leap to be radically honest -- can't say I really wanted to BLOG about it). I've been trying in little ways for over a year to tell the truth at work, which is the hardest place for me to do so because lots of things go wrong and there are lots of expectations and a good bit of my work is in tech support. You can't REALLY be honest 100% of the time and work in tech support. "Well, ma'm I don't know what in the hell is wrong with your computer, and I sure can't fix it over the phone." 

Truth #1 -- Borrowed from Friday because I am proud of this moment.

Friday was a good day. A client of ours called, after having talking with her supervisor and getting an answer she didn't like, to ask if I could set something up for her. I said "Well, Debbie, I feel like you are putting me in the middle of something here. I could set that up for you, but Brenda made the decision not to go in that direction, so that's what I need to stick with." I just didn't want to be in a "Mom said no, so ask Dad" situation.

Truth #2 -- Matt's feeling sick and he's been on the computer all afternoon. It is a usual practice of mine to ask "What are you doing?" several times a day just because I am nosy and because I want to make sure that he is doing something that I deem productive when I am working (I work from home).  So today I asked "What are you doing?" and he told me he was cleaning up files on the computer, blah blah blah and that it upsets him when I ask him what he's doing because he feels like I am trying to be in control of what he's doing, "like he's 12 or something." Touche. So, instead of responding with my usual "No, I'm just wondering..." line, I told him that I wanted to know because really was wondering what he was doing (i.e. because I am nosy) but also because it makes me mad when he's reading or playing on the Web or whatever while I'm working (i.e. because I am controlling) because I want him to do something productive. Duly noted.