Meeting

My meeting today went surprisingly well. I was honestly shaking ten minutes before time to go. Mid-meeting though I was floored. All in all, Michele, a woman I’ve had tons of issues with was polite. She seemed really at ease and really happy.

I can see through “fake nice” and “fake polite” like I can see through clear glass. Today she was really at ease and honest. She seemed genuine. I think she’s more confident about her place in the company now.

From what I can tell, my past with her, and seeing her now, I think at first she was really concerned with things and wanted everything done yesterday because she was a new employee. Of course someone that’s new is going to try hard to meet expectations no matter who they had to break to get what they need. Now she’s got a bit of job security and she’s more at ease. She’s even started tell her boss “No, you can’t have this now”. A year ago she would have been all over me to get something done immediatly but today she floored me by saying she told her boss September 1st on some changes I’m receiving from one of her co-workers tomorrow.

She even told me to pretty much ignore the pushings of Marlene, the woman I’m going to talk to about the project tomorrow. and to come to her if I have problems. We brainstormed some ideas and I’m supposed to present them to Marlene tomorrow. If I have problems with Marlene I’ll take them to Michele because overall this is Michele’s project and she has the final say.

The meeting went very well overall. So well, in fact, that I was considering sending a thank-you note. I feel much better about this whole thing. I’m hoping this wasn’t a mask Michele wore for today and that she really has calmed down and realized that I can’t have everything done yesterday. She claimed to be satisfied with what I’m doing and happy. She understands that the mistakes being made in the directory are made because I’m not receiving good information, not because I’m incompetant. She seems to understand everything I’ve been trying to get across and we’re all on the same page. If, in fact, this is true and we are on the same page and she really is happy then my job satisfaction will improve, greatly. It really didn’t start going downhill until Michele came on and starting pushing me really hard to do what I can’t do. According to her the pushing is because her boss is impatient and wants everything yesterday.

We’ll see. But for now I think it’s time to start over, try to be friends, or at least friendly with Michele. Take a deep breath, and keep the faith. 🙂