Disheartened

I had my regular meeting with my manager today. And while we had a very rocky start, since my old manager went on stress leave, and I have been reporting to the new one, things have been better. Much better. We still don't see eye to eye, but we aren't hating on each other, either.

Among other things, I have been getting feedback about my job performance for the first time in 2 years. Real, actual, feedback. Things done well, and things to improve on. Which is great. Honestly there was nothing surprising, I tend to dominate the discussion in meetings, I'm sometimes impatient with people who are slow to catch on, and the like. It's absolutely true. She's also said some nice things about me too.

I got some feedback, via her, from another business unit, for the huge project I have been working on. Some of it was true, and I know I need to work on those issues, some of it wasn't worth the proverbial paper it wasn't written on, and 1 piece was just odd. (Apparently I have negative body language? Huh?)

But that's not the issue. This is the project I knew very little about, spent a pretty fair bit of my own time bringing myself up to speed, so that I could hit the ground running. This truly was a case of "a lack of planning on your part is now going to equal a very huge, very stinking crises on mine).

So, of the 5 pieces of feedback this business unit provided about me, 2 were valuable, 1 was a situation that I would handle differently now that I know my boss better, and 2 related to stuff I wasn't going to win at, any way it happened.

But of the 5 bits, some worth hearing and some not, there wasn't a single good thing. They had nothing good to say about me. Not at all.

And I won't lie.

That was a kick in the teeth.

Excuse me, while I slink off to a job interview tomorrow, with lots and lots of answers to what my weaknesses are.