Mercenary weeble wobble in cleopatra wig and yellow wolf contact lenses demands my respect.

September 13, 2010 8:41 PM

What should I say to my supervisor at work to get beyond a powerplay I unintentionally activated? I started a new job about 3 months ago. At first, my supervisor (I won't call her a boss because I'm placed there for a year through a grant) was affirming about everything I did. She was often telling me that I was doing an excellent job. But then I had a difficult situation with the receptionist (who is irrational; I made the mistake of trying to reason with her. I was chastised for this -- everyone knows you're supposed to treat her like a dangerous lunatic -- do whatever she says and don't question it. Now I know). Since the experience with the receptionist, my supervisor has been easily angered, aggressive and sometimes kind of insulting.

It's a very small public interest law office. I'm an attorney but am not working as one. I'm working as a project manager of sorts, setting up a pro se program. I'm also acting as a legal assistant. So I don't have the status of an attorney, though everyone knows I'm admitted. I feel this shame every 15 minutes or so of every work day. I also have not been the cheeriest employee, in part due to recently having been dumped and in part because I'm a lawyer who is not working as a lawyer (but my little pro se project is pretty cool; though the legal assistant stuff doesn't leave as much time for it as I would like).

Recently I was introduced to some people in a nearby city who run a program similar to the one I'm setting up. I emailed with them and they invited me to come meet with them to discuss their program. I'm excited -- never hurts to hear from someone who has already successfully done something you're trying to do. I emailed my supervisor and her supervisor (I've been asked to always CC my sv's sv -- suggests controlling behavior/micromanaging up the hierarchy) to ask if it would be ok for me to go to the nearby city to meet these folks. They said no. Not just, no, but an agitated, why on earth are you networking with others and no you may not go etc. etc. It was awful. I felt crushed and confused. There is no reason for them to deny me except that they see it as an opportunity to assert power and control.

I did not fight when they said no -- I can see that there is no point in doing that. I must somehow suture the massive gash that I unintentionally gouged into my relationship with my supervisor(s) so that the next nine months are not miserable. I need this position to lead to something better (like a job at a different public interest law org in the community). How do I do this? Especially now that find them kind of repugnant?

posted by turtlewithoutashell to Human Relations (17 answers total)

Can you clarify what, exactly, the power play is? I cannot tell if your concern is an agitated supervisor after the receptionist incident, or an agitated supervisor after the email about meeting with the other group, or both, and it's not clear which order they happened in.
posted by davejay at 8:59 PM on September 13, 2010

Response by poster: Ok. The thing with the receptionist happened a couple of weeks ago, the thing with going to a nearby town to talk about their project happened last week (though if I can convince them to let me go it will be in two weeks) and now the supervisors are aggressive and borderline insulting. That's the status quo.
posted by turtlewithoutashell at 9:06 PM on September 13, 2010

Response by poster: And the powerplay, well, how to define it? I want to network and think about this project and be kind of free to do things like meet with the other organization, and the supervisors are trying to inhibit that in spite of it seemingly being in their best interest as well, so it feels like a power struggle.
posted by turtlewithoutashell at 9:14 PM on September 13, 2010

I started a new job about 3 months ago. At first, my supervisor (I won't call her a boss because I'm placed there for a year through a grant)

This might be part of your problem.
posted by yoyo_nyc at 9:41 PM on September 13, 2010

1. "I feel this shame every 15 minutes or so of every work day."

Get over it. You're not only working, but part of your job is a project that interests you.

2. "I also have not been the cheeriest employee, in part due to recently having been dumped"

No one cares. A couple days of slight grumpiness, ok. More than that is annoying.

3. "There is no reason for them to deny me except that they see it as an opportunity to assert power and control."

You don't know that. Did you sit down and ask for some additional guidelines on the project, since there seems to be some confusion? I see you didn't attempt to plead your case, which is interesting since you're a lawyer.

4. "I want to network and think about this project and be kind of free to do things like meet with the other organization, and the supervisors are trying to inhibit that in spite of it seemingly being in their best interest as well"

If you think it's in the company's best interest that you take a jaunt to this nearby city, you need to put together a proposal that will convince your supervisors of this. You're not "free to do things" - if you were, you wouldn't be employed.

Listen, I know you're in a tough place right now. New city, still getting over the breakup, trying to figure out this new position. What I can tell you is that what may have worked in your former life as an artist is not going to fly in the legal field, and I think you just got smacked in the face with a good example of why.

Now go out there, grit your teeth, and make nice with the crazy receptionist. Then have a sitdown wth your supervisor and ask for some feedback on ways to improve. Buffalo is a pretty small town, so if you want to use this position as a springboard to a better job in the same area, don't burn it out from underneath yourself.
posted by HopperFan at 9:43 PM on September 13, 2010 [5 favorites]

Here's a theory to consider: The receptionist thing is a red herring, your supervisor was going to take out his/her frustration on the micromanaging thing on you sooner or later. It's really, really, really frustrating to be the person who reports to the micromanaging, paranoid boss, it forces you to be a micromanaging, paranoid boss to survive with your sanity intact. It's typical to get a little Stockholm Syndrome about it gradually, and not know how badly your worldview has been warped until you leave the situation and work with a new set of people.

Uh, yeah, I just got out of a situation where the "agitated, why on earth are you networking with others and no you may not go etc." thing was normal.

So, you've already lost the battle over this particular networking event; drop it. Start laying groundwork for a future opportunity. You need strategy and competitive intelligence.

First, don't tank this connection. Contact your connection and take the highest-high road you can take, do NOT roll your eyes or trash-talk even a tiny bit. Explain that it won't be possible for you meet with them at this point (blame authorization of expense/time away), but that you'd love to stay in touch. Possible follow up with a phone call (no paper trail!) where you somewhat-formally explain that you put the cart a bit ahead of the horse and that your leadership is a bit cautious about employees forging connections like this because they [plausible-sounding cautious excuse example ahead] are still working on formalized guidelines regarding relationships that could be seen as competitive/conflict-of-interest/complicated/whatever fits your boss's paranoia. It's okay, your connection will read between the lines, but you need to be seen as professional. Remember that everything you say could possibly get back to your boss. Perhaps they have some sort of documentation that would be insightful, a "best practices" or white paper or report or the like? Something published would be ideal, you can cite it without noting the connection with the Denied Event Permission.

Next: Who's your competition and what do they do? Make your bosses feel superior (I know, really just neck-in-neck) to their competition by letting you do the same thing that their competition does.

Also: What pushes your boss's buttons? Spin a future opportunity with these folks so that it does not do that. Like, if they are super-weird about anyone "speaking for the company," spin it as a seminar where you're the student and they're the teacher and make it clear that you are not "in charge" of anything.
posted by desuetude at 9:43 PM on September 13, 2010 [7 favorites]

If you think it's in the company's best interest that you take a jaunt to this nearby city, you need to put together a proposal that will convince your supervisors of this. You're not "free to do things" - if you were, you wouldn't be employed.

Oh, this too. Everything, everything that you do should be framed in terms of how it will benefit your company.
posted by desuetude at 9:46 PM on September 13, 2010

If you can spend the next nine months learning how to get better at reading people than you seem to be now, you will have done yourself a big favor whether or not your project ever gets off the ground.

Consider that from their point of view you are describing your stumbling into their office, virtually insulting everyone top to bottom, aggrandizing yourself and treating your real value (legal assistant) as an annoyance and showing how disrespected and ill-used you feel every fifteen minutes. If you are able to view your experiences from what it quite possibly their perspective, you might be able to make the transition to the level of perception required to deal with supporters, advisors, clients and adversaries successfully in the practice of law.

Sorry, but you were given a good welcome, with a supportive and encouraging supervisor from what you write, and somewhere in there you blew it. What's wrong with thinking of your supervisor as your boss? It might have saved you from appearing hostile if you had been more concerned about how they were seeing you than with how you were seeing them. Again, attempt to see this from their point of view.

I think you might be young and the market is tough for new attorneys so every additional skill (such as charm and consideration) is going to help you out.
posted by Anitanola at 9:55 PM on September 13, 2010 [3 favorites]

I would take a step back and think about why you're there. You're not a permanent employee. You're not an attorney at the firm, and any slight sign from you that you feel that you deserve to be an attorney at that firm, or treated like one, regardless of your JD status, is likely to be looked at unfavorably by your supervisors and the others with whom you work. Even if you never say a word, it seems clear from your tone and language in this post that you are seething about having to do this sub-attorney work ("legal assistant stuff"), even if what you're doing here is just venting. That attitude must show through in some way in your day-to-day interactions at work.

It's not clear to me from your description and your clarification what exactly you want an answer to. If you're concerned about your relationship with the receptionist affecting your standing with your supervisors, maybe you need not to be referring to her (even in your mind, let alone here) as a "mercenary weeble wobble in cleopatra wig and yellow wolf contact lenses" and maybe think about why she engenders such an obviously hostile reaction in you. Clearly the firm values her work for whatever reason (irrational or not) and it's best to work with her respectfully and not come to her with sneering contempt. Maybe it's your own feeling about her that's irrational, possibly?

If you're concerned about your idea for a trip to get information about the other program, you need to present it to the supervisor(s) in a way that will let them see the value of that project, not just as a means of getting something you want ("I want to network"). What's in it for them?

Most of all, if you don't adjust to your role as a project manager/paralegal and stop thinking about how miserable it is that you're not an attorney there or treated with the same respect/status as an attorney, you will be miserable for 9 more months or perhaps less than that if the job continues to makes you feel repugnance toward your co-workers. You are there for what you are there for. Accept that, be fine with it, do well at what you are supposed to do. If that doesn't work, you need to re-evaluate whether this job is for you.
posted by blucevalo at 10:05 PM on September 13, 2010 [2 favorites]

Mod note: A couple comments removed.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:07 PM on September 13, 2010

A bit of a pile-on here, although I can see why. So here's a different example, to help you see what they're saying if you're having trouble because of the pile-on.

So I work in a group, and we hire a guy. A good guy, a nice guy, an experienced guy. Still kind of young, but nothing's wrong with that, and enthusiastic. But it didn't work out.

It didn't work out because of him. Period. He had this amazing ability to raise hackels; it was outstanding. He'd come in and have grand visions for cool things, and he'd push hard to do things the "right" way, ways that we wanted to do too, and he'd arrange these meetings with other teams to make terrific things happen, and he got noticed, and he got visible.

What he didn't get done was his job. He would commit to a schedule, but when asked how it was going, he'd admit he was behind. Never mind that, five minutes before, he was talking about this great meeting he'd had with another team about something that wasn't his work, or this help he gave another team working on something that wasn't his work. He was so focused on accomplishing what he thought was important to his job, that he never did his job.

As for raising hackles, he wanted the same cool stuff we did. Thing was, we knew why we couldn't always do it, we knew the practical considerations and the time restrictions, and the political hot potatoes that had to be dealt with. He chose to disregard all of that, insist we weren't doing the cool stuff because we "didn't understand how important it [was]", and so simple five minute conversations about how we'd solve a small technical problem became hour long discussions that inevitably ended with us telling him repeatedly "look, we're done talking about this, we want to do it too, but we can't, we've told you why, and you have to stop beating this dead horse" -- which he kept right on beating, over and over, every few days.

To make matters worse, every time he dropped the ball on his deliverables and our boss told him (privately or publicly) he needed to stop committing time to tangential things and focus on his job, he apologized, then went right on doing what he had been doing. It was an epic amount of disrespect. To hear him talk, though, he never seemed to understand just how badly he was rubbing people, in his day-to-day attitude and consistent failure to meet expectations that he himself had set.

Is this the situation you find yourself in, where you're trying to do cool things (like that off-site) and fix problems (like the receptionist), but ignoring your fundamental responsibilities (like getting your day-to-day work done and being a pleasant person who doesn't bring break-up grumpiness into the office?) If so, you'll want to look into that, and if not, I'm glad.
posted by davejay at 10:17 PM on September 13, 2010

To answer your question simply, and this is not snark but something learned by experience: the way to get beyond an assertion of power by your boss/supervisor is to internally admit that they have power over you and to try to find a way to do your job that makes them happy. (If this proves impossible or utterly degrading, then quit of course.)

But it sounds more like you're trying to see yourself as an outside consultant with equal status who doesn't really need to ask permission because your funding is from outside. This is not the way I'd look at it. A halfway point would be to consider them a client (that'd mean you'd have negotiated a scope of work that you are now delivering beyond their expectations). A next step would be to act like a pure employee since you'd like to be hired.

Getting in an argument with the admin... and now writing off the experience in such a snarky, sarcastic way... That is trouble. Man. Keep the peace and work within their systems.
posted by salvia at 11:44 PM on September 13, 2010 [4 favorites]

You have an interesting view of this situation. I find it very unlikely that your supervisors would describe the situation with the same language. I would ponder how your supervisors would describe you if they were writing an AskMe question on how to deal with a troublesome employee. Then address whatever it is that makes you troublesome.
posted by grouse at 11:53 PM on September 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

People can only give you useful advice if you give them an accurate and objective characterization of all the relevant facts. And I say this as someone who is very sympathetic to you position: I hate doing work that is personally meaningless to me, and that's precisely why I don't have a 9-5 office job and why I earn very little money. So I understand your frustration at not having enough latitude to do what you find personally fulfilling. However, your description here is unhelpful. For example:

"everyone knows you're supposed to treat her like a dangerous lunatic" -- obviously not true. If they're still employing her, then they're not treating her like a dangerous lunatic. That's not how dangerous lunatics get treated.

"There is no reason for them to deny me except that they see it as an opportunity to assert power and control." If you were planning to go on your own time and your own dollar, you wouldn't need their permission. If you were asking to go on company time and on the company dollar, that's a far more plausible reason why they wouldn't let you go.

You aren't helping yourself at all when you insist on mischaracterizing the situation. The first way to repair the gash is to reconcile yourself with reality. You are a legal assistant trying to get a better position by doing the work that your bosses want you to do and by doing it well. If you act accordingly, all should go well.
posted by creasy boy at 3:46 AM on September 14, 2010

It's difficult to know what to think about the receptionist incident without understanding what actually happened, but as far as the meeting with the other group, the reaction from your supervisor doesn't seem strange at all to me, because from their point of view, you are in no way in any position to be representing/speaking for the firm. In the situation you described, you would be discussing the goals and challenges of your office, and no matter how seemingly innocuous any of that information might appear to be, the fact remains that you are a new hire and still relatively unknown quantity in a junior position, so it would be very unwise for them to allow you to represent the firm on a networking level.

Likewise, CCing up the line doesn't seem to me to necessarily indicate unreasonable micromanaging at this point in your employment there — most especially for a law firm, which is going to be a much more buttoned down and extra careful environment than many other work situations.

It's possible that your supervisor feels that maybe her earlier encouragement has led you to overestimate the latitude of your position, so now she's reining you in and making a point about the line of authority. But life will be better and easier for both of you if she has no need to do that (and her earlier approach seems to suggest to me that she'd rather not operate on an adversarial/authoritarian basis). So the best thing will be to keep your head down a bit now while concentrating on doing the best possible work within the unambiguous parameters of your job, while observing carefully and making an effort to get a better sense of how the whole operation and the personalities within it interact — and be very, very careful not to overstep your authority in terms of demands/asking for changes in office procedure, or whatever.
posted by taz at 4:43 AM on September 14, 2010

I don't know how difficult or crazy your receptionist really is, but your question reminds me of my own experience as a receptionist in a law office. It can be a draining job, because most people you talk to on a daily basis think they're better than you. Fact is, most of them aren't - they just have advanced degrees and get paid more. And although I'm generally eager to please people, if I've been in a job for months or years and someone comes in assuming they know better than me because they're in a higher position, I'm not gonna take kindly to that.

I mean, shit, you're ashamed you're not employed as an attorney yet? How do you think the receptionist should feel about her position? Should she be ashamed because she may never be an attorney? Should she be proud because she can't get any better?

One day you'll be able to pick a work environment that's better for you and scram, but until then, you're in the same boat with all these people, however difficult, and not just your supervisors. Maybe everyone's having as rough a time as you, in which case you'll go farther if you acknowledge that and try to make their time a a little easier.
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:06 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

Listen to what The World Famous says. I'd also add that a couple years out into the world of law, and probably the #1 lesson I've learned is that it's a subordinate's job to roll with whatever happens -- if your superior freaks out, it's your job to stay cool and figure out what needs to still be done. If people treat you unfairly, it's your job to smile and keep accomplishing the tasks that are set out for you.

So I don't have the status of an attorney, though everyone knows I'm admitted. I feel this shame every 15 minutes or so of every work day

There is no shame in this. Ignore whatever people tell you or suggest or imply. So many pissed-off, miserable law firm associates who hate being an attorney and who wake up with a knot in their stomach only wish they could spend a year (i) not being an attorney, and (ii) working on a cool pro bono project at a (iii) public interest law firm in a (iv) shiny new city (v) for a boss who, at any time, gave any verbal reinforcement whatsoever, even if it subsequently disappeared. I personally know a number of double-Ivy undergrad/law school grads in shiny, prestigious BigLaw who would cut throats and veins to be able to do what you're doing.
posted by joyceanmachine at 5:38 AM on September 14, 2010 [1 favorite]