Some time ago I decided to teach some onlne classes. It was lucrative and fun; after all, I still miss teaching from time to time. And at frst that’s what it was: a fun gig.
But after awhile, I found myself getting sucked into thinking like I was an employee again. I call this cubicle-think, even though as a college professor I never had a cubicle. What it means is I started to get involved in administrivia. I had a nice friend and we’d call each other up to speculate, “What really happens if we miss a virtual meeting?” Or, “What do you think the new administrator will be like?” I’d get totally frustrated when I’d get a ridiculous memo about anything from communicating with students to dealing with plagiarism.
As time went on, I enjoyed the gig less and less. Finally I realized, “This is nuts. I a not enjoying this anymore.”
I decided I would ignore the memos. I would continue to skip the meetings. I worked on my business. I planned to resign after the current term ended.
But to my surprise, I kept getting asked to return. Nobody seemed to notice I wasn’t returning their messages or skipping meetings.
A light bulb went off. This wouldn’t work in many jobs, but a lot of times we get sucked into focusing on things that management doesn’t really care about. Or we hear that someone else got shafted and we think, “Oh no…what does that mean?” Often the story is either (a) wrong because it’s been filtered through a dozen rounds of gossip or (b) unique to that person and we don’t know all the details.
I also decided that comparing notes with a colleague can be fun and enlighteing, but you really need to be your own intelligence agent. My friend often got upset over things that never happened to me. And she just couldn’t buyt into my carefree attitude: “Hey, if they really want us to attend that meeting, they’ll say so.”
The big difference was that I had another source of income. I bought my own health insurance. I refuse to allow myself to need the job.
True: This option is not always realistic. But I read somewhere that one lesson from Harvard Business School is, “Don’t ever get into a position where you lose all your power.” If you’ve lost some now, your first goal should be to reclaim your power, before you do anything else.
We talk about these topics on my coaching calls and my new Blog Talk Radio show.