Listening to: Mariah Carey
We belong together
Last week spawned a whole new chapter in humiliation, workwise.
The investigator for my two studies is a physician who is reknowned for his curtness, directness and impatience. If you have have something to say to him, you damned well better get your rationale and facts right, BEFORE you go to him with issues. Mincing around with words simply isn't his style. Let's call him baby blues, because he has one of the most penetrating looks i have seen. I've never been afraid of him, and i've even felt a little affinity with him strangely. I sense a softening in him whenever he talks to me, and he has never snapped at me, or spoken a harsh word. Thank god for small mercies in my unit, i certainly need them. He's always running around, finding him in the office is like a treasure hunt. I've even resorted to waiting outside the loo on a tip from a patient. He was surprised, yes, but a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.
In one of my routine visits to hunt him down for documentation issues, i was asked to bring with me a question pertaining to one of my subjects. To cut a long story short, he said he would get back to me on the issue. He also asked whose question it was and i told him that it was a collective decision formed by the team after discussion. When asked what i thought of the question, i shrugged and said that as this was my first study, if i received advice which was better than my own decisions i would consider them. To my flushingly great chargrin, my team leader came to me in the afternoon. B.blues had stalked to her desk after my visit to him (deigning to come into our staff office) and demanded to have a talk with her.
Apparently he guessed, correctly, that my earlier question to him had come from her. Frustrated because he thought he had been through the same issues with her, he had come to 'straighten out a few issues'. He told her off, telling her that as protocol leader i should be given more leeway in my work and not have to be a messenger for her.
To his credit, he's observant and nothing if not sharp. Managment style is overbearing, to say the least. But going behind my back and telling her this? Even if i needed a knight, i'd not find one in my work place. Torn between anger and remembering he was trying to be nice, i decided not to say anything to him just yet.
That's not the worst bit. Abovementioned team leader (TL) sent off a scathing mail to him, cc'ing it to his manager and my big boss. In it she stated that he was unreasonable to his staff among other things. My name was in it.
What the hell is wrong with these people? Are they not capable of settling grudges and talking to each other in a civil and mature manner? For fuck's sake.
i'm so bloody mortified. For the rest of the week i couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes. He probably thinks im an ungrateful bitch. Spoke to him today, i felt like he wanted to ask me what the mail was about, but sher was around, and he settled for a work conversation instead. I looked into his eyes, and there was nothing there except a tiredness and tightness around his eyes.
Screw managment. Screw emotional women bosses and screw men who think they have to have heroes!
