Sunday, March 22, 2009

Not the Boss of Me

When I was little and my brothers and I would fight, we could often be heard shouting back and forth, "You're not the boss of me!" It's funny how this keeps coming up. People bossing me about is probably one of the things I dislike most in this world and it's still one of the things that causes me to react with old patterns and sometimes (often) to my own detriment.

At my clinic, one of my partners has pretty strong opinions and boundaries, resulting many times in the rest of us going along with his ideas. Whenever I complain about him, the complaint often includes reminding myself and whomever I'm speaking with that, "he's not my boss, he's my partner."

At home, I can't stand it when A tells me what to do, despite the fact that most of the time, I'm happy to help him and take care of him. The worst is when he rushes me - it's not just the rushing, but it's the being on his timeline.

Happily, at the market, I work with/for a new manager in a very egalitarian setting. In some ways, she very little like a boss/manager as she usually doesn't have to tell me what to do and rarely has to manage me. In fact, one day, she even told me she wished I were her boss! Not something you should ever say to your employees, but I took it as a compliment, nonetheless.

Well, today, another woman I work with asked me to do two things and it tripped my trigger. The first is something I do every Sunday, so she could have guessed I would be doing it any moment. The second involved making a change to the first. It bugged me because I felt like she was bossing me and also because her second request was incorrect - that is, she asked for me to do X when I really needed to do Y. Instead of telling me there was an xyz problem, she tried to tell me to do the solution as if she knew my job better than me.

I didn't do anything, I didn't say anything, but I am still feeling slightly bugged and it just reminds me of all the other "bossing" events that happen that make me feel bugged. I'm hoping writing will help me just let it go. Put it in a bubble and blow it away.

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