There is nothing I can title this post that does not smack of teenage angst
Well, that was ....
"agonizing," I believe was the word I caught our client using at the end of that conference call, not knowing that I had not yet hung up my phone.
So, yes, agonizing. The project I've been working on for the past year just went completely south. It's been horrifying watching it head that way, slowly at first and then gathering momentum as it went. It had picked up speed exponentially in the last month, with abusive emails, extensive edits, approaching deadlines, and now a cancelled meeting. (That's a cancelled meeting for seventy-odd people who were planning on flying in from around the state in a few weeks, not a cancelled meeting with my co-worker down the hall).
On the other hand, we have now hit bottom, and at least we did it before we went public. And this may give us the time and the resources to get back up and make this something really good, instead of the "you want what on what deadline?!" disaster that this has been developing into since August. We can pick up the pieces now. We can go on. We can do better.
I just.
I am really good at taking responsibility when things go wrong. If I screw them up, I am not afraid to say so. And I am not perfect, so I do screw things up, and hopefully I learn more each time about how not to do it in the future.
But I'm not so good at not taking responsibility, or I don't think so, maybe I'm fooling myself. We didn't have the time, and we didn't have the resources, but I can't help feeling that it's my responsibility that it didn't go better. I'm the project manager, for chrissake. If it's not my responsibility, whose is it? I'm sitting here in shock, trying to process or cry or produce or let go, and it's not happening. If only I had, if only I'd done, if only I'd been morebettersmarterharderworking. If only.
"agonizing," I believe was the word I caught our client using at the end of that conference call, not knowing that I had not yet hung up my phone.
So, yes, agonizing. The project I've been working on for the past year just went completely south. It's been horrifying watching it head that way, slowly at first and then gathering momentum as it went. It had picked up speed exponentially in the last month, with abusive emails, extensive edits, approaching deadlines, and now a cancelled meeting. (That's a cancelled meeting for seventy-odd people who were planning on flying in from around the state in a few weeks, not a cancelled meeting with my co-worker down the hall).
On the other hand, we have now hit bottom, and at least we did it before we went public. And this may give us the time and the resources to get back up and make this something really good, instead of the "you want what on what deadline?!" disaster that this has been developing into since August. We can pick up the pieces now. We can go on. We can do better.
I just.
I am really good at taking responsibility when things go wrong. If I screw them up, I am not afraid to say so. And I am not perfect, so I do screw things up, and hopefully I learn more each time about how not to do it in the future.
But I'm not so good at not taking responsibility, or I don't think so, maybe I'm fooling myself. We didn't have the time, and we didn't have the resources, but I can't help feeling that it's my responsibility that it didn't go better. I'm the project manager, for chrissake. If it's not my responsibility, whose is it? I'm sitting here in shock, trying to process or cry or produce or let go, and it's not happening. If only I had, if only I'd done, if only I'd been morebettersmarterharderworking. If only.
posted by The Stute Fish at 16:09
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home