The victim cycle

Dear Bob,

I have been working for a small company for over 4 years as the “computer support specialist.” However, my duties include the intranet development, backups, virus scan, as well as hardware and software support and training.

I am so dissatisfied with my job. I need to say that I have never liked it here, the company culture I came into and I just don’t fit. However, I am a practical person and I know the job market is not so good, and in this type of job, security just cannot be taken for granted.

I work in a four-person team plus my boss. It seems like every time there is a project I am not asked to be part of it. My pet peeve isn’t so much that I am not included, but it is the way that I am not included that has me a bit nervous. During our weekly staff meetings, my boss will throw something out on the table that needs to be looked at or researched and fixed. A couple of times I have gone back to my desk and started looking at it only to hear him in the cubby next to me with the other person in my department working on it. They don’t tell me they are working on it. They don’t even tell me when it is fixed. That happens all the time.

Last staff meeting, we go around the table and say what we are working on. Right now, an Exchange upgrade is one of our big projects. So… when it was my turn to say what I was working on, I said I had been reading up on Exchange migration but I didn’t know if I was going to be part of that, so I stopped researching it and I am now teaching myself some new web design tools because I want to redo the intranet. At that point I expected my boss to say something like yes you are a part of that, focus on that.  But he didn’t.

Thanks for any advise you may give me; I need an attitude check!!!

Burning up in Southern California

Dear Burning …

I’m just guessing, so take this for whatever it’s worth: It sounds like you’re trapped in the “victim cycle.”

You have legitimate issues and concerns that make you feel victimized. So you expect to be victimized, act like you’re going to be victimized, and (here’s the payoff) it results in your being victimized. Your description of your behavior in the staff meeting is a tell-tale: “I said that I had been reading up on Exchange migration but I didn’t know if I was going to be an integral part of that, so I stopped researching it …”

Guess what everyone else in the room heard? A complaint about how you’re being treated.

No, I’m not going to tell you to suck it up, count your blessings, and start being sunny and positive. Why? Because it would be stupid advice, that’s why. You have a legitimate problem and a legitimate complaint. What has to change is that you have to decide what you’re going to do about it. Right now you’re waiting for your manager to fix it for you. Your manager won’t fix it for you because your manager doesn’t have a problem, and probably isn’t aware that there is one. Your manager probably does have a perception that interacting with you is, for reasons he can’t explain, more awkward than with your co-workers.

So here’s my advice: Take charge of the situation. Ask your manager for a half-hour of his time. Lay out the issue as you see it – not judgmentally and not in a complaining way, but as factually as you can, and in the vein of mutual problem-solving. “I’d like to talk with you about my role in the organization and about how you and I work together. I’m connecting a bunch of dots and to me they look like a trend, but I don’t know if that’s how they look to you. Here’s what they are.”

After you list a select number of representative examples, say, “I’d like to be more involved in some of the projects that come up. If I have a performance problem that’s causing you to not assign me to them, you haven’t told me about it and I’d like to know so I can fix it. Assuming that isn’t the case, I’d like to be more involved in the organization instead of being off by myself, doing my own thing. The Exchange migration is an example – I have quite a few skills that could be quite helpful to the effort, especially when you consider my role in managing the intranet.”

Don’t take the above as a script, just as an example. What’s important is that you plan the meeting, and rehearse the points you’re going to make and how you’re going to make them so you come across in a business-like way, making this a collaborative discussion instead of just you blurting.

And whatever you do, don’t blurt. All that will accomplish is to reinforce whatever made your manager uncomfortable with you in the first place.

It’s going to take some courage to do this. If your manager has anything at all on the ball, he’ll be grateful you did and gain respect for you for doing so. If he doesn’t, I doubt this will do you any damage – pretty much the worst that could happen is that nothing will change.

– Bob

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