Character When the Pain is Real

I can finally write this stuff. I have been unable to write for about eight days the pain of it all has been too great to write it.

I thought that I had applied for an internal promotion at work. I applied on the in-house, web-based system and uploaded my new resume. I told my supervisor that I had applied for it. I told the people around me that I had applied for it.

My goal was to be open with everyone to cut down on the gossip in the office and I also told people that I did not think that I would get it because I figured that the chosen one was going to get it, and I was not the chosen one.

About 13 days later, I called a particular person in human resources about the process. I wanted to know where things were? Well, the next day I found out the truth.

The Bomb Drops.

Two weeks after I thought I had applied, they announced the "winner." For me, my boss announced it in a department meeting the day after they had announced it. I (in a rare impulse) blurted that I did not get an interview for it.

I ran down to human resources after the meeting. I got a blank look from the clerk. She did not have me as having applied for the job.

I went home depressed. I had plans for going to the neighborhood association meeting and face all those vigilantes who soundly defeated me from being the chair. I forced myself to move.

I went into the bank after dinner and the branch manager handled my transaction. He asked me how I was doing? I told him that I probably could probably have complain about stuff but that I was okay given what I had under the circumstances.

This wowed me. He shook my hand and told me that I seemed to be someone of character. He at least had me thinking about the operative word Character.

I managed my way through the neighborhood association meeting even though vigilante #1 (on my block) walked by me in her borderline personality way without saying a word to me and avoiding eye contact with me for the whole meeting. I was able to get to sleep without the need for medication.

The day after.

My boss talked to her boss. My boss had been a cheerleader for my getting a promotion since I was open with her. Both sent me me either e-mails or copies of e-mails to human resources. My boss told me that another promotion was coming open. One human resource recruiter responded back in a cold, bureaucratic way without apology that there were only so many people who had applied for the job (he got an "F" in internal customer service from me).

The two human resources people that I had talked to were quite confused and it took a second conversation to get the point across that the *&#$ website did not work for me. I finally got an apology for the organization moving from the paper to web-based system.

The phone call with Human Resources took place in front of "Fritz" and the nurse who I have cited as being guilty of awfulizing. The nurse complimented me about how I talked to the H.R. rep. Both Fritz and the nurse gave me rare sympathy.

It also turned out that there was something of a human drama where me, my boss, and my boss's boss all made assumptions. I assumed that my application had gone through. My boss, who had interviewed two of the individuals assumed her boss was interviewing me separately. My boss's boss had assumed I had changed my mind because she had not received my application.

The Emotional Fallout

I was very mad. I felt that I was cheated. I felt stupid. I felt awkward. I was numb. I thought my boss's boss had made some serious mistakes because she had moved the hiring process at warp speed as it was only 14 days from first internal listing to actually announcing the winner.

I did not hear my boss's boss's high heals clunking in the hallway the next day. I knew she was in the office given her two e-mails, but I got the sense that she was avoidant. I thought that was good because I needed the distance. Everything she had done to that point was at warp speed.

She has identified herself as a "high performer." I have identified her as "driven" and a "bull in a china shop" because of her string of rapid decisions with subsequent recinds. Driven is really not a good state to be in because there is really no inner peace and the judgment in terms of management decisions tends to be poor.

I tried to logically tell myself that I was receiving divine redirection. To be truthful, it still did not end the pain.

I did have one conversation on the day after the announcement with my boss. My boss (being a borderline personality) was coping probably worse that I was. She was calling me again and again with some pretty weird concerns. She then called me down to her office.

She immediately started to discuss the problem about working for her since I was applying for other jobs. I told her that since I have the Ph.D. I owed it to my family to move off the line (I should have said myself included). We talked about the boffo of my not getting the inteview for the promotion. I told her openly that it was awkward, but it at least helped that finally someone from human resources apologized for the web-based system. The conversation was of marginal help.

The weekend aftermath.

In the midst of the next several days I had felt pretty dark. I was sad and but I had spurts of energy with my anger. I was mad at myself and I was mad at my boss's boss.

I had hopes for a promotion with a salary increase. I had hopes for the next promotion that I could actually have the title "manager" or "director." I found myself grieving.

So, I have been feeling stuck, like I imagine others to be feeling.

During the next few days, the news about increasing unemployment rates also made me depressed. I thought back to my days in early 1992 when I was looking for a ministerial job after I had graduated from seminary and I had received two flush letters from churches that were cold--and my hopes for being in parish ministry as an associate were dashed in the midst of a recession.

I still hurt eight days later. This kind of crap hurts. It is supposed to hurt. It is human to hurt.

We try to pose as tough, mature human beings, but no matter how tough the exterior shell or mask we put on we still hurt on the tender inside. Being tough can be a private hell if it is taken to extremes.

Accepting our tender side makes us real, and free. Being real has been one of my pursuits.

While we need interpersonal boundaries and not give too much information to people, telling trusted people that we are hurting in and of itself is healing and relieving of sorts--it is much of the basis of what helps people in individual therapy.

This last week of January 2009 has not been one of the worst in the history of the United States, but it has been painful. The joy of Barack Obama becoming the first African-American president appears to have been forgotten with all the news stories of layoffs and unemployment.

The pain will go on for awhile. Right now the news media is not exactly offering us any hope. The president is not exactly offering us any hope either. (Of course, I think that he is using the current rhetoric of pending economic depression to push his stimulus package through.)

Many of us are screaming inside. Many of us are anxious and worried if our jobs will be safe or if we will ever get another job? The current news is not helping.

I had a lot of restless energy to deal with during the days both from the national news, and my personal stuff. I wore myself out in two ways: I took a hatchet and chopped up a lot of tile on the garage floor, and I concentrated on my next journal article submission. I also baked a lot of pizza for an office pizza party.

During the chopping of the floor, I wondered if my whole chances of advancement in the organization were shot? I pondered what I needed to do to make some kind of recovery?

I asked myself "What was important?" What did I need to do? I also was grateful to the bank manager for supplying the word "character."

I sensed that there was a triangle of drama that I needed to nip in the bud like I have done in my current job. I decided that I needed to make myself indispensible. I decided that I needed to show character. I decided that I needed to press on in the pain.

I decided that this was possibly the best type of job interview where I had was going to show that I was one of the greatest employees they could promote. I also decided that this was a great test of whether or not the boss's boss was going to be someone I could work for. As quirky as those thoughts were, I made my my plans.

I decided that I needed to make every effort to show what character I had so that they were on my team the next time I applied for a promotion (should that opportunity present itself). The harder things of showing character meant making an apology. I needed to make an apology to my boss and my boss's boss for assuming that my application had gone through.

I decided that I have gained some trust or stature with the more difficult work team. They have seen me handle personal adversity with character.

Well, I did make the apologies. I made the pizza.

I did not get to serve the pizza given that there has been ice and snow in Louisville that shut down the city for the better part of the week. But since I made the apologies, I have ruminated less than I thought I would.

I also completed the draft of my journal article (where I cut 59 pages down to 36). I think that I used the adrenaline generated from the anger.

I have been jamming to angry or hard songs like Gotta Be Someboy by Nickelback and Paralyzer by Finger Eleven. My wife thinks that I am blowing out my one good ear. Maybe I am.

I think that I have been doing the best that I can do. It is all I can do in the moment.

The best that we can do is rarely ever perfect, but it is where character is shown when the pain is real. It is one thing to take solace in.

Character and values—It's happening here?

(Note--this is a very different post than what I have done--it has my interest at this moment and I will probably write more along some of the themes in future entries.)

There is a local story going on in the city where I live at the University of Louisville. The former dean of the ”School of Education” is currently under federal investigation as to how he spent grant money.

Today (24 August 2008), the Louisville Courier-Journal ran the closest thing to an editorial that is not an editorial—a personality piece starting on the front page of the first section. It was more than a personality piece . . . it was actually an expose' of the guy's history and behavior. I conclude that this is the newspaper's not-so subtle statement that the guy should be ran out of town and fast.

The guy in question is under investigation for how he has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal grants. Apparently, the grants were for the University of Louisville, and a big chunk was not spent at the University of Louisville, but the guy in question has reportedly spent them elsewhere.

I make the disclaimer that I am drawing my facts from the Courier-Journal and I am going to choose not to use names. I also am making the disclaimer that I am going in the order of the facts as they have usefulness to me in this blog (you can read the story for yourself if you want—your public library should have access to the story though its web-based database).

The former education dean was reported to have been emotionally abusive. The story said that he humiliated faculty publicly. He was also reported to have stood out in the hallway and mimicked the faculty member who had applied for his position but lost to him. (That faculty member moved on to another school). The story reported that a student got up and shut the door to the hallway. That is childish behavior if it really happened.

The story also had reports of the former dean engaging in sexual harassment at U of L and at one of his former places of tenure. Why is this surprising in light of this next piece of information?

The former education dean was married four times and is being divorced from his fourth wife. I think that secularism downplays how many times people get married. I want to say that it does matter. It takes maturity to stay in a marriage. Even if someone is not book-smart, they can be mature enough to be in a marriage and do just fine. I think that four marriages is indicative of someone's lack of maturity. (And this guy is a doctoral-level clinical psychologist?)

While I am not going to tell an abused person to stay with an abusive and tyrannical spouse, I have had numerous patients who have been married several times. In hearing their stories, I repeatedly found that they had tremendous abandonment issues and jumped from marriage to marriage impulsively without realizing that they were repeating the same mistake again and again. They needed to be good consumers of the person they were dating—and fight the negative thoughts that they were never-ever-ever-ever going to find someone again . . . and thus jump into bed and get married to the next person that said hello to them.

The more endearing part of the story is that two people I used to go to church with were quoted about how shady and hypocritical this guy was. These two people are of high character in my opinion—which had me all the more mindful.

Anyway, this guy was allowed to stay for awhile by the University. He was a “high performer.”
University administrative officials were quoted a number of times. The university president called the earlier complaints '”anonymous crap.”' The provost's comments were interesting as to how she dismissed early complaints because she took the view that faculty members were rigid in their ways and being naturally resistant to change. She also said that most organizations give '”high performers'” time to change their ways.

The term “high performer” then stuck with me. The guy had an appearance of being a high performer. He had done some good work earlier in his career. He worked fast and slashed and burned quickly. In his slashing and burning he was abusive and ruthless. He had enough success in bringing in the money, which likely bought him time and the appearance of being a high performer--but then he has had a number of short-term jobs in the process.

Money covered a multitude of character defects and sins . . . until the sins became too great to be covered by the money. The University of Louisville is striving to become a leading research university—something encouraged by the powers in Louisville and Kentucky. The University strongly encourages pursuit of grants and has some pretty verbose rules about spending the money.

Nevertheless, as I am learning from academia, many people are there who cannot function in the regular work world. I have had a number of professors who have few if any people skills—and would probably not make it past the 90 day probationary periods of a regular job because they cannot work well with others (clinically these are called narcissistic and borderline personalities).
I think that the University of Louisville has a number of them.

These low-emotionally intelligent types are protected by political correctness. They know how to invoke political correctness when it serves their interests—but will violate it in like manner too. What you get is a cloud of emotional dysfunction that ironically masquerades as acceptance. However, political correctness is really emotional and intellectual tyranny—academic freedom and freedom of thought on most campuses does not exist.

An example in the form of “a rabbit I want to chase” was when I was at Iowa State University back in the 1980's. The dean of students was a black lady who appeared to be a controlling borderline personality. Since I was a journalism student at that time, I had heard the story from the white “Iowa State Daily” editor who did the story himself. She wanted him to read back the quotes—which he did. However, she then reached across the table—grabbed his notebook—and read them for herself. I had one other second-hand encounter which told me something was not right with this woman—when I got into Clinical Social Work—she was one of the first that came up on my scope as a past example of a Borderline Personality who is a paranoid control freak.

All that being said, my gestalt is that the provost was thinking along these lines. The former education dean could hide in the cloud of emotional dysfunction until it became clearer and clearer, that the former dean was a problem. The story hinted that more and more complaints were made and insinuated that the former dean was leaving for such a reason. The elephant in the middle of the room is that he was leaving to take a job that paid $50,000 less per year than what he made at U of L. It appears that his high performance was not mattering anymore and his heavy-handed methods were bringing diminishing returns.

After the recitation of some of the details of the story, I have thoughts about leadership and character. There are multitudes of people in leadership around the world with bad character, little emotional intelligence and little moral fiber. I might have a little sympathy for the former dean given the details of his upbringing and my understanding of how personality disorders happen.

However, it comes back to me how this guy brought in money and made changes. It did not turn out until five years later how he spent the money and made the changes that something was supposedly done. Character took a back seat for such a long time.

I think that money will always replace character as the first standard in judging performance. It is becoming more evident that way in academia and in most work places--even with corporate statements of purpose and value.

Given this push for grant money it seems that the biggest message outside of the money piece is that universities are not proving to be places where character is nurtured and practiced. There are two many personality-disordered faculty members who can provide cover for the even sicker personality disordered faculty and administration who accidentally know how to manipulate situations under the cover of research grants and political correctness.

The story tells me that it is questionable whether the University of Louisville can honest say that character “is happening here.”