I felt a bit nostalgic this weekend so I went through emails from my previous job. I had this folder, in outlook, which mainly contained all the emails that I used to dread back then (it’s funny cause I still dread those emails). I noticed several mistakes I made:

• I was over-protective of my staff.
• I never trusted my staff (no, this doesn’t conflict with point #1).
• I was over-protective of my IT stock (stupid things such as blank CDs, blank DVDs, cameras, etc…)
• I never compromised, instead, I took the lone-wolf approach (being a lone-wolf should never be the way to go for a good manager), and I isolated myself.
• I played tricks on other managers that never hurt me before, but never helped me after (thus lost a lot of support).
• I was always trying to step onto other people’s territory, instead of expanding mine (eventually I lost even my territory).

But then again, 2 things come to my mind:

• If I knew then what I know now
• If I’m back to the same job, the same position, with the same people, will I act any different?

I know for question #2 that I’ve changed, but I remember quite clearly that the environment was very harsh, so even though I’m sure I will act different, I’m not sure that I will become another person.

Here’s a touching little story that happened to me at work a while ago. There was this girl working for us, under me, very loyal, sometimes disobedient, and gifted. She always wanted to follow her dreams and work somewhere else, I wanted to stay with the company.

I was prepared to say anything to convince her to stay, even promise her things that are not within my authority, or I have to beg to get them (that’s how desperate I was to keep this girl on my team). I promised her 3 things, a raise, an office with an excellent view, and that the company pays for her tuition fees.

A short while later she asked for a meeting with me. She told me remember all those promises that you made me? Well I intend to stay, will I have them? I told her of course you can, and I’ll talk to the owners of the company right now. She told me “there’s something I have to tell you”, “what is it?”, I replied.

“I’m Pregnant”.

It was one of those moments where you feel that you’re in a movie and you hear that sound “TA DA DA DUM”. If a woman gets pregnant where I am, she’s entitled for a 1 year leave, paid by the government, and she’s guaranteed to have her place in the company where she was, and she’s guaranteed to be paid her last salary.

I couldn’t hide my disappointment, nevertheless, I told her that I’ll get her what she wants.

The same day I met with the owners of the company, and I told them that she wants these 3 things to stay. Of course they were furious, but I managed to calm them down. Eventually the main person behind the company said, “Look, I have no problem giving her what she wants, unless, of course, she gets pregnant”.

I have no idea why he said this, but at this moment I couldn’t keep pretending anymore, so I yelled, “But She’s Pregnant”. At this point I felt I should be either loyal to her or loyal to the company. I remember the look on their faces, it was a look of both respect and astonishment. I couldn’t take it on my conscience, these people are so good to me that I can’t disappoint them this way.

To make the long story short, she got nothing at all, she hated me for the wrong reasons and I lost her respect.

Have I learned something from all this? Yes, I learned to distance myself from employees, I learned to be cold with them, I learned to show them that if they need affection, then I’m the wrong person to come to. I’ve learned not to promise things I cannot deliver whatever the situation was, I learned to respect myself and to respect my authority. Most of all, I learned that there’s no limit to what employees want, if they can have everything, they’ll ask for everything…

I’m working so hard right now it’s not even funny! I’m working on multiple things on the same time, and unless I have an out of body experience soon, I think I’m going to collapse.

Well, I don’t think I’m going to collapse, I do love my work, but I love it more when I do nothing the whole day (yes, I’m lazy) pretending to be stressed and having a lager.

But now I really am stressed, the thing that I loath the most is creating those Visio charts, I usually give them to one of the designers, but now the ones I’m doing right now are very complex.

Oh well…

OK, I admit it, I’ve promised something to an employee that I was not able to deliver.

Let me tell you the story, that employee was a loyal and dedicated employee that I loved having in my staff. The thing with her that she wanted to follow another career in a huge company. I did my best to convince to stay, I gave her 3 promises, of which I was able to deliver only two of them. The third promise was a substantial raise, which I was able to give her, but I was not able to justify it anymore after knowing that she was not going to stay either way.

Eventually, I did not give her the raise, because I felt that I will lose my credibility when she leaves. She hated me for that, she hated me for everything I did and I did not do for her, and she questioned my influence in the company. I lost her respect, and I lost her trust. Funny thing is that I did the same thing to an employee in another company, although his raise was blocked by the General Manager back then. It wasn’t beautiful either.

I treat her right now as any other employee, and I’m counting the days for her to leave. She was, again, one of my best resources.

Never make a false promise to an employee, for you will surely regret it. Make sure that you don’t promise more than you can deliver, and make sure that your promises are executed in very short time frames.

Sometimes, testers (functionality testers) can be quite annoying. The problem is that they think they have the authority of asking for new features, and this does waste a lot of time during meetings.

Functionality testers are just there to check if something is right and logical from the user’s point of view, and not suggest new ideas and delay the project. Sometimes they do have good suggestions, but such suggestions should be considered after the project/functionality is live.

Never have one of these people in a status meeting (otherwise, you’re just asking for trouble).

I’m currently undergoing some huge stress at work because of a project extremely vital to the company. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very smooth today when I imposed a 2 hour deadline on one of the employees to finish something. The employee responded, by email, when the 2 hours elapsed, that he didn’t know how to do it and that he’s sorry. Now that employee, in particular, is very hard working and loyal and he loves working with me, but he just can’t handle pressure (this is not the first time). I ended up doing the task myself and finishing late. I hate working late.

Was I too tough on that person or was he too soft? And who’s the one who wasn’t able to handle the pressure, was it him, or me? He’s just a developer after all…

How hard it is for people to put the word “Hi” in the beginning of the email? It makes the whole email much more friendlier. I receive emails with just my first name (where probably the other person thinks that s/he is professional for doing so), or with Dear my first name (which I think is very lame, most of these people probably have never seen me, how on earth can I be their Dear?).

Is it too much hard to say Hi in the first of the email. It’s light, it’s nice, it shows friendliness, it doesn’t promote a non-existent affection, it’s perfect. I cannot see a better word than this to start an email.

Emails, by their nature, do not express our feelings, so an email that we think is very normal, the other person might think it’s offensive or you’re passing subtle meanings, or… That’s why we should be careful when writing an email, and trust me, when I’m frustrated with someone, the last thing I want to see the email starting with is my first name or Dear my first name. I really want to know who is this idiot who promoted the Dear thing in the email. It was the Dear word that probably made some people revolt and start the email with the first name.

Even the spammers say hi or hello when they start their: “I’m a 25 year old lonely girl living in your area…” email.

Start your emails with Hi, and your days will be brighter.