Something Unexciting, and Probably Not Completely Different

So, I’ve had over a week now to process what I learned at ALI about MBTI, especially as it relates to me.  At the institute, there was a lot of “Oh, so that’s why I’m that way!” going around.  Which seems kind of silly, because it’s a description of how you are, not what makes you the way your are… but anyway, while it all rang true, coming home, being aware, I’ve had little revelations all week,

like, the reason I have trouble giving student workers projects is because I am not specific enough about what I want, and I have trouble being specific because it’s not usually fully defined in my head yet.  I know what I want, what’s in my mind… Why don’t you?

Having international graduate students has actually helped this some, because I have different expectations for how I’m going to have to explain what I want; I just need to carry that over to the rest of them…

like, the reason I have nearly 30 unplanned skeins of yarn is the interest in starting something new, in suddenly knowing what that yarn needs to be, and the reason I can’t bring myself to finish the last 8 rows of a second sock while I wind yarn I don’t have plans for yet is because the sock is old news and I’m ready for something new….

like, I’m becoming more (socially) confident as I get older, maybe because I care a great deal less about what others think, or maybe because I’m just getting more practice, but when I have a period where I pull out of myself, I end up needing a period nearly twice as long where I can pull down the shutters and go on vacation from everyone else…

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Specifically as it relates to management, I’m having a lot of new experiences this week.  I have an employee to whom I gave a reasonably well defined (in my mind) assignment.  We had numerous discussions about workflow and business logic, and that all seemed well and good.  She told me repeatedly that everything was on schedule.  Friday was the deadline, and I begin to go through it to test, and not a single screen actually works.  The back-end code is pretty decent, and mostly functional, but the UI is totally not functional – as in no action results in anything but an error.

While I was off in my own world of work for the last 6 weeks, it never occurred to me to go digging around in my employee’s work world – if she had trouble, she’d let me know, right?  Add to this that she is an immigrant, so we have cultural mis-communications as well.  Rather than tell me “No, I can’t do that” it is better to agree and then not deliver.  Absolutely not my preference.

So this weekend, I am culling through the application, rewriting and finishing every screen I can, and thinking very hard about my lesson:  Just because people say they can do something, doesn’t mean they can or will.  Not everyone will ‘fess up and say they can’t, or won’t.  I’ve got to pay closer attention, and try to ask in ways that don’t require them to say no.  Ugh.  I’ve always sucked at learning other languages; I can’t imagine learning different languages for different people is going to be any easier, even if it is all English.