k_rex

So, I've been in this progressively worsening situation which finally came to a head last week at work. The head of a bunch of my studies is this somewhat flaky but intelligent person who I've worked with for about three years or so--we'll call her Jane. She's completely opposite to the head of all our NIH studies, who is one of those "directive" personalities (aka. old white guy who's ego has trouble fitting into a stadium)--we'll call him Dick. These two folks might as well be speaking different languages since they can't understand what the other one is saying. This situation progressively devolves with Dick stressing out Jane who flounders even more, giving Dick more ammunition. Now, don't think that Jane is completely without blame here--she's not seeking therapy, she's not communicating worth shit, and she's driving everyone nuts. But we like Jane, so we're going with it. It's increasingly clear that Dick is up to something and he's convinced the head honcho that "something needs to be done". So, last Thursday afternoon they remove Jane from being in charge and put me in charge of one set of the projects and this other person in charge of the other set.

I am now in the position of getting a promotion (one that I've wanted) that makes the team I work with happy and more productive, but at the expense of my friend and colleague getting completely screwed. Lovely. The other down side is that I was soooooo close to getting rid of a chunk of my work to the person who took over the other set of studies and now I just have to keep working my ass off. It also is bringing back some emotional deja vu from when the head honcho "reorganized" my job a few years back. Can I just say that therapy is a wonderful thing?

The good news is that Jane is not holding it against me (at least not to my face) and being relatively mature about the whole matter. The other good news is that the team is now getting a bunch of stuff done really quickly because we're not waiting on Jane to dither about stuff.

The big fear factor is now I'm on a level that means that Dick is paying attention to me. He really is a Dick and I've got to figure out how to keep him from giving me too much trouble. I've always had trouble flying under the radar, so I'm having to really work hard at keeping my mouth shut and staying out of trouble--not that I know what Dick identifies as "trouble".

Anyways, I'm coping. I suspect it'll all work out, but it ain't pretty right now.