Why

I was looking at my work email Sunday morning, just a glance, and an email that had come in set me off.  I am mentioning this because it's a prime example as to what I have struggle with over the years.  Before I get into this, I need to mention that I pride myself in going above and beyond, ever single day.  We're going to touch on this at a later time, but I need to mention that. 

I saw an email from my EVP so I opened it.  The email was the EVP singing the praises of a product manager for doing documentation for a new product.  He did not praise him for doing excellent documentation, he praised the product manager for simple doing the documentation.  

That sent me off my nut when I read that.  I have struggled for years to raise my own visibility, going above and beyond, and here comes a product manager doing, well, what he is supposed to be doing.  I started churning and burning over this but managed to pull myself back from spoiling my entire Sunday.  I have a long history of my reactions not being appreciated by those with whom I work and report to.  

In this blog, we are going to go deep on issues like this which come up.  We are also going deep on the self-destructive tendencies I have had over the years.  I have anger issues.  I have issues with authority.  I have a keen sense of justice and fairness.  I believe that the best ideas should win.  The biggest thing that has fed my self-destructive behavior has been my bosses.  Notice I said fed.  Rarely has my boss been the only problem.  We are going to spend a LOT of time on bosses and the other issues I have been dealing with. 
My reason for doing this blog is two-fold.  First, it is allowing me to actually work through a number of these things in real time with honesty.  Second, if I can keep one person from having to wait as long as I did to change, that would be awesome. 
I have been puttering around for these first two postings.  Going forward, this will be more structured.  The next post is called Monday.  I'm really excited to share it with you.  See you soon.

Work Zebra?

Challenge #1...  Find a title for my blog.  I tried pairing all kinds of words with the word "work."  After a couple dozen attempts, Work Zebra popped into my head.  So here we are.  

I have thought about starting this blog for a long time.  Going forward, this blog will outline my experiences and challenges at work as well as what I did and what I should have done.  I am 47 and have made a LOT of mistakes at work over the years.  I had a boss who labeled me a "loose cannon," which is not good.  The only he kept me on was because I did a really good job.  

My objective is to get down my experiences so that, should anyone else stumble onto this blog, well, maybe they won't end up in the career ditch like I did.  

See, I do not have a mentor.  I have read countless articles and listened to hundreds of podcast episodes on leadership.  I did some sniffing around online and there were not a whole lot of resources out there for regular worker bees.  The vast majority of workplace blogs and podcasts focus on management and leaders.  Those which do focus on "normal" people like you and me, are curated by Ivy League scholars or HR professionals.  I'm neither.  I'm just a guy who slogs through the day looking for meaning and trying to figure out how to get through the day.  As I said, I do not have a mentor.  I find them difficult to come by.  So, I want to share my experiences and maybe provide some virtual mentorship.

The title of the blog is growing on me the more that I think about it.  I tend to view the world in black and white, though I like to think that I can drop color when I want and needed. On the other hand, it's very rare that anything at work is black and white, it's all shades of gray.  We'll look at this ridiculous title somewhere down the line.  Whether I like it or not, I'm stuck with it.  👍  

If you have questions, let me know and I will try to address them in a future post.  

Let's do this.  

Adam