MORE FRIENDS.....

The more I think about past 'friends', the more I think that Self Promotion, or rather preservation,  is just part of human nature. Let's look at... I’ll call him… LP.

I worked with him at two companies.

Then I took a great contract that paid exceptionally well, where I had to put together a team for a long running project. Since it required software and organizational skills, and I thought of LP. He was thrilled since it paid double what he was currently making.

Everything was going smoothly until it was mentioned that the company was thinking of bringing one of us on permanently. LP wasn’t comfortable with contracts and wanted a permanent position. I made it clear that I didn’t want it, but that’s when everything changed.

He suddenly had unscheduled meetings with department heads, lunches, and a lot of whispering. Although I was the Project Team Manager, people started going to him, even though he had no decision-making authority and was not a project manager.

The project finished, I moved on to another, but that was the last time I saw or spoke to LP. He had been the right person for the team and I wanted to help him, but he betrayed our friendship, and for what? I didn’t want the job and made it clear from the beginning.

Is it just human nature to be competitive even if there’s no contest? We had some good times together, but to me, trust is everything. Sad.

Don't buy into the self preservation thing, unless it's absolutely necessary. I"m not talking about self-sacrifice, martyrs never survive. I'm talking about helping / mentoring others, as long as its not to your own determent. 

Simple, huh? 

PEACE, Sisters! 

NOT EVERYONE IS A FRIEND….

I contracted for a very large project; the only woman and eighteen men. I was drowning in testosterone… Finally, the manager hired three more women, one of which was TP.

From the very beginning she was whining about, well, everything, but I work with engineers, so I was used to that.

Everyone is different and I’ve learned over the years to accept and even embrace that.

TP was somehow sad and bitter. I treated her as a friend, even though she seldom smiled and never [and I mean never had anything nice to say about anything or anyone]. She was a real team killer. Luckily, I wasn’t on the same team, but the woman who is still my BFF, was. Just being around TP was draining.

Example: One afternoon TP and I were talking about a shoe sale at Nordstrom’s when the manager walked by on the way to a meeting, and she said in a very loud voice:

“Oh, my God, I’m so embarrassed! I can’t believe you said that!”

He stopped, looked back and from the bewildered look on my face, he kinda’ smiled.

All I could say was "what the hell?” TP scurried off without a word.

After the meeting, he came to me and asked ‘what the heck is wrong with her’?

I said my guess was she was trying to be funny. [This particular company didn’t allow end fighting, so I was being nice]

That was the beginning of a long string of that kind of behavior. It wasn’t just me, but pretty much everyone, and in earshot of management, and playing team members against each other. The classic political maneuver: ‘trying to make yourself look good by crapping on everyone else’.

What follows is totally MY freakin’ fault. I was offered a great job with a national company that would go perm within a few months, so I accepted and recommended my BFF. TP came to me crying that the manager hated her [true], he was going to fire her [probably], and she had nowhere to go. She begged me to recommend her….

Yep, I felt sorry for her and agreed with the following conditions: No throwing anyone under the bus, leaving the negative attitude at home, and no making yourself look good by denigrating anyone else.

She said, “Of course!” That should have been my first clue that she DID NOT make the connection of the conditions and her behavior.

The funny thing was that she fit right in, culturally. She crossed so many lines I can’t even see them in the rear view. I moved on to a better place in all possible ways.

Would I ever consider trying to fix that friendship? Hell no! As a wise man tells me all the time: “You can’t save them all…..”

 Amen!