Five Things Friday

Hey hey! Happy Friday from Kentucky.. I got in late last night so will be in the state just over 12 hours. I might have been overly optimistic about fitting in the Parnassus Bookstore stop but I am still hoping I can fit that in before going to the airport. Fingers crossed! Here are 5 things on my mind today!

1. Paul did a trial Karate class thisbweek and loved it! My former/retired colleague was SUPER into Karate. He even mentioned karate in his work bio. He's a 3rd degree blackbelt and both his kids got their black belt which takes a HUGE commitment. He’s always been so positive about the sport so we asked Paul if he was interested in Karate and he was. We feel like Karate will be a good source of confidence for him. Paul is SUPER petite. Like Taco only weighs a few pounds less than him despite being almost 3 years younger... So I feel like Karate might be a good sport for him because it seems like maybe size doesn't matter? Another colleague has her black belt and her son does as well and she said the best part of Karate was that from all the sparring competitions, her son got used to "performing" and having all eyes on him so now getting up to give a speech or singing a solo is not intimidating. So bottom line, I feel like there are lots of benefits to be had from Karate. We will see how long he stays engaged/interested.

You can see a HUGE smile on Paul's face in this photo. He had a blast yelling and kicking/hitting. Maybe I should sign up for classes too as an outlet for stress. Ha.

2. I'm still riding the high of making what I feel was the best hiring decision. My new hire continues to exceed my expectations. He's taking things off my plate and he's just a breath of fresh air. I do really love my job but some things have worn me down in the last 6 months. Plus he's just an all around great person and fun to be around. When I was agonizing over the hiring decision, Phil told me to just think about who I would want to work with for the next X years - like can you see yourself getting a drink with this person and working closely for the next 5 years? That helped me get out of analysis paralysis because it was evident I would really enjoy working with this kid (he's 17 years younger than me so he does seem like a "kid" to me, albeit a kid who has his sh!t together). 

3. I think I might do a post at some point about my work travel as I feel like I can now say I travel quite a bit since I will do 14 work trips this year. Would that be interesting? I have packing down to a science now and I always travel with my teeny tiny carryon that I received as a HS graduation gift in 1999. I can even use this tiny carryon for a 3-night trip to California (3 nights is the max amount of time I am gone most of the time). I like quotidian posts like that but maybe you all would be like - boring, move on Lisa. 

4. On Wednesday, my boss told me that he wanted to talk with me later that day and planned a time to call me. This resulted in a crazy amount of anxiety on my part even though I know I am a great employee and don’t have anything to worry about. Some of the anxiety is due to the fact that I have generalized anxiety disorder (which I take a medication to manage). It's also due to having a horrible boss in a previous job. Longtime readers might remember when I worked at a job in 2009-2010 that I referred to as "the psych experiment." It was massive retailer based in Minneapolis that loves the color red and has a dog as its mascot. We all know who I am talking about, right? When I took the job, it turned out that the previous person in the role lied about how much they were working (they understated the number of hours they worked). Then when I took on the role, they added another big project to the job since I was a recent MBA grad. I refused to lie about how much I was working so as not to screw over the next person. But my boss then thought I was incompetent since I was working 60+ hours a week. We had these awful 1:1 meetings in the food court of said retailer. So he'd be giving me this really rough feedback and, embarrassingly, I would start crying. In public. In the food court of a retailer. I would have unexpected meetings with him and that set off a pattern of me forever having massive anxiety when unexpected meetings occur. Flash forward to Wednesday. The call was fine! He was checking in to see how my new hire is doing and checking in on my workload/how I am feeling. So NO BIG DEAL. When he asked if we could talk, I probably should have told him - hey, I have anxiety around unexpected meetings, can you just tell me if everything is ok? I have a good relationship with my boss so I think that would have been fine to do. But note-to-self as a manager and to other managers out there - DO NOT PLAN UNEXPECTED MEETINGS WITH DIRECT REPORTS. Maybe say "everything's fine but I want to talk about x."

5. On that note, I love the company I work for but dear God, they have done nothing to prepare me to be a manager. I had tons of support during the hiring process. I was in constant contact with the HR person that was recruiting for my role and I had so many conversations with her when we were looking through resumes, after my interviews and when I was deciding who to make an offer to. Then once we extended the offer they were like - kthanksbye, here's a pdf checklist of stuff to do when the new hire onboards. So I have started to listen to some of the episodes of the podcast, "Radical Candor" and they have been super helpful. No wonder there are so many terrible managers out there if no one is prepared to be a manager! Which is all so ODD because I feel like your relationship with your manager is a huge part of your happiness with your role. Maybe if companies were better at training managers/offering tips, turnover would be lower? 

Do you have/have you had good managers?