Every Relationship Needs A Little Work

It's getting to be that time again where the days are long but are gone in a blink. Yesterday I was booked in back to back meetings from 7am until 8:30pm - which means I spent over 12 hours talking about work we could be doing rather than just doing it!! I'm not going to be pretend to be shocked by it, it happens all the time and happens in and outside of this organization so what can you do? The politics of this project that were coming in waves are more like Tsunamis now. I think I do an OK job of handling it but it makes it hard to manage the implementation with fighting that. One or the other I could do, not both.

Last week was absolutely terrible. I don't want to garner a pity party because it's my own damn fault but I ended up having two crying fits resulting from massive frustration. Thursday it all came to a head. Which was one of the meetings I had last night. It was supposed to be a 30 minute mtg but it jumped to almost 2 hours. I had a long, open and confidential discussion with a Sr Mgr from our consulting partner about how toxic our work relationship had become again and our arguing had begun to hurt others on the team. I've always said, when G and I agree, we could put a man on mars. When we disagree, we become cavemen. He was starting to show signs of disrespecting my authority, responsibility and such and I wasn't having it. The thing is, fundamentally, I think G and I like working together but he turns into a machine and rolls over people. Last week the weight of the company was on his shoulders and mine. Instead of working together we stabbed each other in the back. I called a time out today - one of the VPs we report to wanted to mediate but I refused and said G and I have been through this before and we would do it privately. So after a long end of day discussion, we realized our goals are alike and the arguments we have are not personal - though he had personalized it by "tattling" to the VP... He owes the VP a retraction and apology. I respect G enormously and know that he gets excited and jumps the gun. But he knows me now and knows I took the ongoing role of Implementation Mgr so he realizes how seriously I take this.

What fascinates me - intellectually and spiritually - is that I chose to invest my energy in working out my "relationship" with G, gave him benefit of the doubt and all that but I didn't do that for my personal life. I jettisoned a few guys I've been talking to on Saturday I'm just disappointed to realize I found the energy to work out another toxic situation with G but didn't give anyone else that might means something to some day a chance. Granted, a romantic relationship presents far more long term complexity than a working one...but why did I choose to address work over personal?