"The Life of the Boss Lady"

part 15897287.

Its really scary to realize you made a wrong decision, if you are boss. However, this wrong decision was made earlier than I became the boss. The wrong decision was my new "young" (in fact he is just one year younger than me, but hey, Im also damned young to be a boss) colleague. Yeah, the same colleague I was so excited about and so satisfied with after the very first days.

I had known him earlier from the student magazine (if someone here still remembers those times...), and he writes really well. He has some kind of sarcasm I always liked in his articles on various topics. He studied political science, but we watched lots of football games together with friends, and he says he is interested in football and sports in general.

I have never asked him what this "interested" means. How much interested?

You know me. If I could, I would spend all day at stadiums, sports halls and ice rinks. When I had 16 I filled in my students card the field "temporary address": THE STADIUM. The school principal was shocked when he saw it, LOL. Im obsessed. But if people ask me, I also say: "Im interested in sports."

Well, my new colleague is not so much interested. He is interested but not obsessed. He wouldnt like to spend 24/7 at stadiums. And this becomes more and more obvious.

He makes mistakes. He writes silly things, because he knows just a little about the topics he has to write about, but he acts as if he knew more than me, so when I ask why he wrote this or that, he acts as if it was me who had the wrong informations.

On the other hand, he constantly asks me to be "hard as steel" when criticizing him, saying he is happy about it. Oh well, I would be happier if there was no reason to criticize him. Be sure that GJ is harder than steel when criticizing him and my new colleague is really glad about it. Instead of saying: i will try to do better he keeps repeating whe should be merciless towards him.

Well, there are times when Im really angry or I see a really unprofessional work and then I am merciless, actually, but I dont have any pleasure in it. I want to make a good sports section in the paper, not to be a feared domina or something.

Last Wednesday was a total disaster and the new colleague failed in so many aspects. It wouldnt be such a big problem. I also had incredibly tough times at the beginning when I questioned my skills really often. I wasnt sure about my writing abilities, I wasnt sure about my flexibility, I wasnt sure about my knowledge...

But I was sure about one thing: sports journalism is the one and only thing I want to do. So Id better do it better, because if I fail as a sports journalist, there is no other option for me.

After the disastrous Wednesday I have talked with the new colleague several times. I tried to understand his motivations and I realized in horror that he has no other motivation but not letting me down. I mean: this is touching, really. Im not his mother or girlfriend or anything, he shouldnt care about me! He should have his own motivations!

I also asked him how important sports are in his life. He said, he has many other hobbies, but he wont let them to affect his job. But when I asked him if he can join me at a football game, he answered: if you want me to join you as in my free time, than I say no, but if you say I have to join you, because of work, I say okay. It was that big game SVK-CZE and I knew I wouldnt be able to do everything all alone. But I was a bit shocked that if it wasnt obligatory, he would rather stayed at home. This shows his relationship to sports and it is not the best.

I absolutely love my job, but I have to admit its demanding. You have no weekends and you have to stay at the office late at night. But since I still would go to football games every weekend, and still would watch all the football games at night, I never felt it as a "sacrifice". Im doing what I would do in every condition, and I even get paid for it. Amazing.

But for the new colleague, this is just a job. And though his writing skills are great, his general knowledge about sports is somewhat shallow. His articles are full of mistakes, not spelling or stylistical, but factual ones. I dont really know how he will be a good colleague, someone we can rely on. This causes my sleepless nights I mention on facebook so often.

Thank you for reading my novel.

To be continued.

Titi....Everybody in management positions runs into this problem on more than one occasion. You make, what you consider, a dumb mistake in judgement. You beat yourself up over it, LOL, and you learn from it and go on. You hope you'll never make the same mistake again but sometimes it takes more than once to learn whatever lessons you need to learn become a top expert in your field. I think you'll find that a lot of colleagues you hire, over the course of your time as boss, will not measure up to your expectations and you'll have to devise ways to either work around them or to motivate them to work harder, be more conscientious. That's a tall order, for sure, LOL, but it comes with the job.

Did this guy understand what all the job entailed when he was hired? Is that stuff laid out in precise detail so there's no misunderstands about it? From what you are saying it sounds like he's the kind of person who tells you what you want to hear but, in reality, he's nothing like that. I really despise people who say one thing while meaning something else, LOL. I sympathize with you. Can you reiterate to him that his silly mistakes will not be tolerated, that you expect much more of him, that he is to do whatever extra work is required to bring his knowledge of sports up to what it should be--even if that means spending his off-the-job hours talking to athletes wherever they may be?

Mary C.

Thank you very much for your encouraging words, Mary, unfortunately the guy proved to be really stupid and he doesnt care about his job at all. Yesterday I sent him to tennis: instead of hawk-eye he wrote snake-eye. :337malzonka.gi

Tomorrow will be a really tough day, we have to make six pages and Im already having nightmares we wont be ready. Anyway, Im gonna do my very best because I cant afford any mistakes right now.

Im going to talk to my colleague, tell him all the stuff he did wrong, and we will see.

It will be hard to find anybody else instead of him, because we are a small newspaper with no real future and not good financial conditions, we are a minority newspaper so we dont have such a wide selection of people, but hopefully someone else will appear, because this guy was a wrong idea, unfortunately.

Take care Titi. I'm keeping fingers for you!!!

Hang in there Titi - &

(I cannot get over how dumb this (seemingly intelligent?) guy is!!)

Geez, Titi, that whole situation sucks! While you're talking to him, ask him why he wanted this job in the first place. It sounds like he needs to get out of the sports' writing business and find another profession. He's the last thing you and the department need right now. Hang in there!

Mary C.

shake eye? really???? because snakes are so well known in the animal kingdom for their sight abilities ??? this guy, should maybe write for a comic newspaper.
oh, tit, i am so sorry for the unconfortable situation you are in now.

Take care Titi .

LOL, Irina, in my area some guys call their most precious body part "the one-eyed snake", so probably he was thinking about something else... Okay, Im evillle...

Btw, I have just talked to this guy... And guess what happened? He started to cry. I really really dont understand this... What are these guys made of? Any toughness out there? I dont say guys dont have rights to be emotional, but it somehow ruins the illusion if they start to cry out of nothing when facing the first trouble.

Anyway, he says he concentratres when he writes but he still makes mistakes... I would have been happier if he had said he was thinking about something else, so there would be slight hope he will be better if he concentratres.. but if he writes stupid things when concentrating, then i really dont know the solution...

You are right, Mary, its not an easy task, but Im somehow calmer about all this after I talked to him. He kept saying he is interested in this job so now its upon him to show it. He got one more week to prove his skills. If not - then we will search for someone else.

oh , dear, titi. this dude has some issues. it's not a boy/girl thing. i just hate this kind of behavior when confronted with a problem that is definitely not life threatening or something like that. if the boss gives you a criticism you take it in, think about it and then try to fix it or if you don't agree with the boss and have the balls you go and state your opinion. but crying??? that's emotional blackmail and i kind of hate that. i mean unless he is going through something really bad at the moment that you don't know about, this dude is in my mind the manipulative kind.

ps: "the one-eyed snake". omg, men have problems. really. why not "the no brain snake "? that sounds more accurate

Titi, the girls are right, this guy has serious psychologic problems I think. It´s important to give him a chance but you´re absolutely right - you can´t afford to wait forever and hope that he´ll get better, considering the condition of your newspaper... I hope he gets some help from someone, and I think although he cried, he appreciated that you talked to him. And ladies, don´t tell me anything about the TOUGHNESS of men - I witnessed one of them crying to a web cam last week..... (personally, I don´t think men are not allowed to cry in front of others, sometimes you just can´t hide the pain or struggle inside of you, whether man or woman, and I think it´s okay for them to release it this way....not all the time of course LOL)
Keeping fingers crossed for you, Titi, that this situation solves to the best of both of you

By the way, "the one-eyed snake" I do know but "the no brain snake" is absolutely ::


Michelle