Who You Know
I spent the last three days at work in a LEAN Six Sigma session to realign assignments in the environmental group for our plant. My boss set it up just a week after I came back from my trip to corporate to meet my mentor for the first time & follow up with the current VP of ESH & the corporate director of environmental (aka, my sponsor). She had the newly annointed plant LEAN coordinator (a former supervisor & one of the in crowd women at the plant) lead the session under the guise of right-aligning our group's assignments and responsibilities.
At first I was a little skeptical. Given that my boss, my boss's boss, & the plant manager had all reluctantly allowed me to take the trip to corporate, and that I'd gotten less than positive hearsay feedback about my motives for the trip, I wasn't sure if this was a way to punish me by marginalizing my role in the group even more. It hadn't helped that each time in the last year that I'd gone to my boss about the lack of meaty assignments on my plate, she'd blown me off and pretty much condoned my co-workers' behavior. Let's just say I went into the session thinking more about going back to school than sticking with the company any longer than I had to.
About halfway through the second day, I started to see that the session was going to end in my favor. I could see that I was going to end up with more of the assignments I needed, support (whether they liked it or not) from my reluctant co-workers, and opportunities to get the training I've been begging for since I arrived last year. It wasn't until this afternoon when the roles were completely defined and names were assigned that I could breathe a sigh of relief and think to myself, "Finally!" Nothing was better though, than when my brother Scott lost out to me on an upcoming technical training session and two high profile areas to support. He actually said out loud, "I don't know how that just happened!" It was a beautiful moment, but I fought the strong desire to smile and say what I was thinking.
"Basically, I just pulled strings to intimidate the plant manager, my boss's boss, and my boss into checking each of you white men I work with who've been trying to dump b.s. assignments on me while you advance your own careers. I just flipped the script on all of you! I'm beating you at the same game white men have been playing for years, using a play most people wouldn't have realized was in the back of the book. It's not what you know but who you know, and apparently I know people who know your kind, and they've decided to go to bat for me."
In the words of a not so old southern hip hop song (Who Ya Wit?!), I've pulled a few strings to get back on track with my career. My brother Scott thought his southern charm coupled with his God given Y chromasome and white skin would be enough to out maneuver me. If he only knew who I know he'd have realized months ago that he should've spent more time working than in my office bitching about Buffy which lead to me needing to take the vacation to Scotland where my external mentor recommended me to my high powered internal mentor who (just by my having met her less than two weeks ago and my boss being aware of it) got me the assignments Scott wanted.
At first I was a little skeptical. Given that my boss, my boss's boss, & the plant manager had all reluctantly allowed me to take the trip to corporate, and that I'd gotten less than positive hearsay feedback about my motives for the trip, I wasn't sure if this was a way to punish me by marginalizing my role in the group even more. It hadn't helped that each time in the last year that I'd gone to my boss about the lack of meaty assignments on my plate, she'd blown me off and pretty much condoned my co-workers' behavior. Let's just say I went into the session thinking more about going back to school than sticking with the company any longer than I had to.
About halfway through the second day, I started to see that the session was going to end in my favor. I could see that I was going to end up with more of the assignments I needed, support (whether they liked it or not) from my reluctant co-workers, and opportunities to get the training I've been begging for since I arrived last year. It wasn't until this afternoon when the roles were completely defined and names were assigned that I could breathe a sigh of relief and think to myself, "Finally!" Nothing was better though, than when my brother Scott lost out to me on an upcoming technical training session and two high profile areas to support. He actually said out loud, "I don't know how that just happened!" It was a beautiful moment, but I fought the strong desire to smile and say what I was thinking.
"Basically, I just pulled strings to intimidate the plant manager, my boss's boss, and my boss into checking each of you white men I work with who've been trying to dump b.s. assignments on me while you advance your own careers. I just flipped the script on all of you! I'm beating you at the same game white men have been playing for years, using a play most people wouldn't have realized was in the back of the book. It's not what you know but who you know, and apparently I know people who know your kind, and they've decided to go to bat for me."
In the words of a not so old southern hip hop song (Who Ya Wit?!), I've pulled a few strings to get back on track with my career. My brother Scott thought his southern charm coupled with his God given Y chromasome and white skin would be enough to out maneuver me. If he only knew who I know he'd have realized months ago that he should've spent more time working than in my office bitching about Buffy which lead to me needing to take the vacation to Scotland where my external mentor recommended me to my high powered internal mentor who (just by my having met her less than two weeks ago and my boss being aware of it) got me the assignments Scott wanted.
posted by N'j at 10:48 PM
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