The Big Talk

The first thing that I did when I got to work yesterday was to send a short mail to my boss telling her that I needed to talk to her immediately. Since my boss is home based and travels extensively, it is very difficult to have a one-to-one with her. Within five minutes I got a reply asking me whether the talk would be about my leaving the company and if not whether I was OK with talking on the phone. My reply - no to both the questions, this issue was extremely important to me.

Luckily for me BB (big boss) was leaving for Geneva from Terminal 5 and she thought it best that we meet there. Hey, no problems with me. The day before I had already made a list of all the issues I wanted to discuss with her and about a paragraph each on what exactly I intended to tell her. If moaning about work was going to be a problem with DH, then it is definitely time for me to sort out my issues with BB.

- I had negotiated for an 8-4 working day before starting my new position. Why was there a subtle pressure being put on me to sit longer hours?
- When I sit at office and work late hours BB never asks me what exactly I am doing. So why is it that when I want to leave work early, I have to give my entire life history justifying why I am taking off earlier than usual?
- BB made some unprofessional comments during one of the meeting. Ask her why she made that remark.
- Talk to her about her trust issues

I did not want to be diplomatic but just say things as they really are. I was so fed up of all the internal politics and snooping around that was going on within the department and much of it instigated and encouraged by BB. My last boss is/was my role model and I thought this one would take her place effortlessly. But people can be so drastically different from each other. Current BB is a bit stuck up.

Anyway, it was very difficult for me to begin the conversation with her. Though I knew what to say, I was uncomfortable in how to dish it out to her. But once I started I got the flow and it went great. Right at the beginning I told her that I wanted to speak up first and once I was through, she could have her turn. Because she was willing to hear me out and really understand what I was talking about, I thought it was a win-win situation. Remember I was willing to resign if I was not going to get my way. But hey when I have people signing my praise at work all the time, I did sort of know that BB would be stupid if she asked me to leave. It’s funny, when you are prepared to quit, the fear goes away and you can get away with saying almost anything and believe me I did. It was such a frank talk that we both are glad that I made that first step to initiate it.

In the end I got my way. She agreed to all my conditions with me agreeing to just one of hers. I am so relieved.

Now I have just one bone of contention with BB - She supports McCaine!!