Gratuitous 'Hamilton' picture:
There is perhaps nothing that reveals the ugliness of my heart more than its schadenfreude: the pleasure derived from another person's misfortune.
Don’t you, like me, sometimes feel it’s just glorious to see someone taken down a peg or two? How pleased I felt when my supermum friend’s perfect baby had a bad night or a blowout tantrum to match my experiences, or how happy I am basically whenever someone else makes an embarrassing mistake of the ilk that I normally do. (Ah yes, back to the comparing theme: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-wise-words-from-a-welsh-woman ) How much the pedant in me (me, sometimes the queen of typos) enjoys the sense of superiority which comes from spotting a spelling mistake or a grammatical error written by someone who should know better; what a superb opportunity to pull smug rank.
The Bible instructs us to, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” It’s pretty hideous to have it backwards.
There’s another really ugly one too: gluckschmerz, meaning being displeased by events which are desirable to someone else. For the past decade, I’ve seen some younger, keener colleagues receive promotions, whilst I spend half my week at home, skulking about clearing up crafts and hunting for lost shoes and repeating myself endlessly. I’ve discovered it is possible to be both completely loving and committed to child-rearing, and also unsecretly jealous of those whose careers soar whilst mine stagnates; I sometime stand like Veruca Salt, inwardly stamping a foot and wanting the world, whilst knowing that the idea is probably as rubbish as the pile in which she lands.
Anyway, I’m just about as baffled as anyone else that I find myself on the receiving end of a temporary promotion, I with my part time status and dodgy attendance (boys are currently taking it in turns to get covid, whilst the husband and I have to take it in turns to go to work – boys are fine, so no sympathy for them needed thankfully, although feel free to send pity to the two of us for the inconvenience of accommodating these dear humans we created.). So - click, boom – I’m in the room where it happens (or at least I should be, if I weren’t at home and conducting meetings on Teams with a small boy snarfling rice cakes in the background). FULL CREDIT goes to fabulous employers who understand the demands of family commitments and are jolly good at giving people opportunities.
Anyhow, here are some unremarkable reflections about my very brief foray into leadership:
1) There are a lot more emails. Like a LOT more. They fly at you from all directions when you are doing something unrelated, and because I am worried about dropping balls, I feel the need to do something about them, even if that something is forwarding them to myself so they appear again marked unread. And also I am the worst at sending out lots of emails. I’ve recently discovered that despite my short-term rise in rank, my email powers have not been increased, so I still can’t email large groups, which I very briefly considered contesting but then realised it was a good thing for everyone. (Is it a surprise to anyone that I have a lot to say?)
2) There are a lot of 'big picture' things going on that I wasn't always aware of on my little hamster wheel of 'just' classroom teaching. There are some very clever people juggling all the big things and shielding the underlings. I should be a more thankful underling.
3) I’ve always been pretty vocal in meetings, but there is something both exciting and terrifying when your ideas don’t go through the filter of someone senior in quite the same way, so now when I say, “I think we should do X.” then sometimes, you know, we actually do it. I think it is pretty lucky that so far the things I’ve introduced have been positively received, although I have to factor in that I also just work with very nice people.
4) I’ve been reminded that an institution basically runs on the often unseen work of the support staff. Admin and data people are seemingly capable of working magic. “Please could you send me a list of something random, or explain this thing?” Ping! Sorted. How wonderful. I am newly ingratiatingly grateful.
5) Related to this, other people may be fooled into thinking I know more than I do because I have a slightly weightier email signature. In actual fact, I am just learning about how little I know, like how to do fancy things on Excel, and how to, like, scan something. (I am inordinately pleased with my new-found scanning skills!)
6) Soft skills. Man alive – where to start? So I’m obviously used to working with people (students) and they are obviously complicated enough, but there is a clear allocation of power, which means that dealing with any contested area is fairly straightforward (ie, I win). But managing a team of adults requires levels of diplomacy and empathy which I am yet to master. Back in the day, I did a middle leaders course about management styles, and the senior leaders I presented to challenged me about whether I could be sufficiently assertive in my role (second in department, in a department which happened to include a lot of more senior and experienced people). I pushed back; I was achieving what I needed to do and challenged colleagues when appropriate, but my management style was more to play on the I’m-young-and-keen-and-really-need-your-help thing and then all the lovely old timers (like the infamous three nearing retirement Carols) would be very sweet and do all the things (or perhaps the fact that they had spent 40 years being managers themselves just made them very lovely people to manage!) I shared this strategy at a conference I was on and one no-nonsense lady rolled her eyes and exclaimed, “What a strange post-feminist conundrum you are!” But anyway, that card has gone as the grey hairs have come, and, a bit like working out a teaching persona in the classroom depending on the make-up of the group, I’m having to work out my new management style, which so far apparently involves continuously apologising for not being there and thanking people for their patience with me.
7) The best thing about a rise in rank is getting to work more with just the most inspiring and capable people. Whatever my past gluckshmerz might have muttered, those people are in position because they are excellent at what they do. One very special woman in particular is just amazing to attend meetings with, like watching an absolute master at work, whilst I suck up crumbs of wisdom like the biblical Syrophoneican woman.
Today I was invited to a meeting with a colleague (who literally sent me an email instructing me to meet on the balcony with a mug, which in my mind sounds like a ‘Cluedo’ game) who then asked me about looking for other promotions as my current one is time-limited. “Nah!” I brushed off. I see that other people have capacity and capability that I don’t, or at least don’t at the stage of life I’m at. It’s fine. I’ll be ok to step back.
“Not even a little bit sad?”
“Well…”
I definitely won't be resorting to a Burr-esque duel or a balcony-shove, but, let’s face it, I may well descend into ugly schadenfreude and gluckshmerz again. But for now, I’ll try to overcome the ‘who am I kidding?’ mentality, and enjoy the opportunity whilst it lasts. Feel free to rejoice with me (or just wait till I fall flat on my face and then enjoy practising mourning instead of schadenfreude?)
More on work vs. home here: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-parasites-and-rebuttals
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