Gotta Let Go
And not just to really rock tonight.
I had just a wonderful couple of weeks at work. It's not easy to take when you find out senior managment considers you one of the bottom performers on the management team. I know this because we went to a "pay for performance" model with a bell curve type rating system. Those at the top end of the curve get like 4-6% increases. Middle of the pack get around 3%. Bottom 10% of performers get 0-1%. Guess what increase I got? Well, it wasn't zero, unlike one of my pals in my office (who does a great job in my opinion BTW).
Let me tell you, I really struggled with that especially coming on top of my performance review. It made me a real miserable bastard for a while. Just aske the Wife. She was ready to throw me out of the house since she was really tired of my being a total asshole to the kids. And I was too.
So, anyway, I'd already made the decision that the company was not going to get my best efforts. It became obvious to me that senior management was not looking for leadership from me, so I won't give it. I'll just do the work assigned to me and take care of my people (my direct reports, that is). However, I took some time to reflect and pray on it all, and I came to a realization.
This realization basically hit me on Good Friday (probably a good day to do so). I'm not sure what it was. I was off work since the boys had the day off from school. I had a car appointment at 10:30 so I logged in to work to catch up on some email and a few things (which I typically do). I dealt with the usual silly things, people calling in sick, calling me to complain about how one of my people was rude to them, dumb stuff like that. Time came to take the car in so I grabbed a laptop to work on my MBA paper while waiting in the show room. It was during that time that it really hit me. Not sure what it was. The boys were behaving well. I was acutally feeling good about being productive for myself, and I realized that, once again, all the stuff going on at work was due to my trying to make things happen myself.
I spent the last six months or so trying to find a way to get promoted at work. Why? Mostly for me. To feel better about my importance to the organization, to make more money so perhaps the Wife wouldn't have to work, and basically further my career. However, in doing so, I was paying far too much attention to work and not enough to home. I realized, as I had at another time in my life, that I had stopped letting God take care of these things for me. I tried following my own plan instead of His, and I got bit in the ass for it.
So I've stopped. I'm no longer worrying about work. Let the Lord worry about it for me. If there's some promotion in my future, it will come. If not, it won't. But I need to take the time to make my home life better, not my work life. There's a bunch of stuff going on at home that needs me to be calm, collected, and most of all, not freaking angry all the time (which I've been lately). So on Friday I actually just enjoyed the day with the boys. We grabbed some lunch and did some shopping after the car was ready, hung out at home and played a few video games, and generally just chilled out.
Most importantly, I turned off my work cell phone. From Friday afternoon until today (about an hour ago) the cell phone has been turned off with the exception of grocery shopping yesterday. And I'm pretty sure in the near future I'm going to get my own personal cell phone and stop using my work phone as the only one. When I get home, off it goes. I'm not on call nor do I get paid to be on call, so anything that comes up can wait until morning. In one of our leadership trainings they talked about Be Here Now. Well, when I'm at home, I'm not at work, so I won't be there.
Since Friday I've had such a sense of peace about it all. When at work, I'll do what I can to complete my tasks and improve my team. When I leave the building, it can all stay there and wait for me for the next day. If they want more than that out of me, they should promote me to a position that can demand more of my time. If I feel like taking it.
I had just a wonderful couple of weeks at work. It's not easy to take when you find out senior managment considers you one of the bottom performers on the management team. I know this because we went to a "pay for performance" model with a bell curve type rating system. Those at the top end of the curve get like 4-6% increases. Middle of the pack get around 3%. Bottom 10% of performers get 0-1%. Guess what increase I got? Well, it wasn't zero, unlike one of my pals in my office (who does a great job in my opinion BTW).
Let me tell you, I really struggled with that especially coming on top of my performance review. It made me a real miserable bastard for a while. Just aske the Wife. She was ready to throw me out of the house since she was really tired of my being a total asshole to the kids. And I was too.
So, anyway, I'd already made the decision that the company was not going to get my best efforts. It became obvious to me that senior management was not looking for leadership from me, so I won't give it. I'll just do the work assigned to me and take care of my people (my direct reports, that is). However, I took some time to reflect and pray on it all, and I came to a realization.
This realization basically hit me on Good Friday (probably a good day to do so). I'm not sure what it was. I was off work since the boys had the day off from school. I had a car appointment at 10:30 so I logged in to work to catch up on some email and a few things (which I typically do). I dealt with the usual silly things, people calling in sick, calling me to complain about how one of my people was rude to them, dumb stuff like that. Time came to take the car in so I grabbed a laptop to work on my MBA paper while waiting in the show room. It was during that time that it really hit me. Not sure what it was. The boys were behaving well. I was acutally feeling good about being productive for myself, and I realized that, once again, all the stuff going on at work was due to my trying to make things happen myself.
I spent the last six months or so trying to find a way to get promoted at work. Why? Mostly for me. To feel better about my importance to the organization, to make more money so perhaps the Wife wouldn't have to work, and basically further my career. However, in doing so, I was paying far too much attention to work and not enough to home. I realized, as I had at another time in my life, that I had stopped letting God take care of these things for me. I tried following my own plan instead of His, and I got bit in the ass for it.
So I've stopped. I'm no longer worrying about work. Let the Lord worry about it for me. If there's some promotion in my future, it will come. If not, it won't. But I need to take the time to make my home life better, not my work life. There's a bunch of stuff going on at home that needs me to be calm, collected, and most of all, not freaking angry all the time (which I've been lately). So on Friday I actually just enjoyed the day with the boys. We grabbed some lunch and did some shopping after the car was ready, hung out at home and played a few video games, and generally just chilled out.
Most importantly, I turned off my work cell phone. From Friday afternoon until today (about an hour ago) the cell phone has been turned off with the exception of grocery shopping yesterday. And I'm pretty sure in the near future I'm going to get my own personal cell phone and stop using my work phone as the only one. When I get home, off it goes. I'm not on call nor do I get paid to be on call, so anything that comes up can wait until morning. In one of our leadership trainings they talked about Be Here Now. Well, when I'm at home, I'm not at work, so I won't be there.
Since Friday I've had such a sense of peace about it all. When at work, I'll do what I can to complete my tasks and improve my team. When I leave the building, it can all stay there and wait for me for the next day. If they want more than that out of me, they should promote me to a position that can demand more of my time. If I feel like taking it.
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