Week 21–27 November
She Shot Down a Colleague In a Team Meeting
Then I pulled her in for some fast feedback, grateful for her, despite her prickly disposition
“I can’t believe that you took so long to do this work; this is not what we need,” the lead on the project said. She was shaking her head, looking at a secondary screen, and clicking with apparent irritation.
The analyst on the Zoom call with us looked dejected. My heart went out to her.
“I’ll take it from here; we don’t have time for you to continue producing this kind of work,” the lead continued.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
The lead looked back at the main screen and out to all of us in the virtual meeting. The instant smile stretched her lips but never reached her eyes.
“Okay folks, that’s all for now. Thanks for joining,” she said in an artificially sweet tone before she ended the call for all of us.
This woman has such a very different personality from mine. She is usually short-tempered, appears hostile, prefers to do everything herself, and looks genuinely pained when she smiles. I am super patient; I believe in the power of teamwork, and I smile — a lot.
