Whew!

This week has been one of those weeks in which people seem to understand when working in a similar situation. No matter where you work. Let me explain . . .

I'm a supervisor for an Analytical lab that works primarily with compost from several mushroom farms. I have a manager who oversees my lab, a general lab (strain developement) and a growing lab. For the most part, he's been a pretty cool guy . . . until the last couple of months. I've been getting along fine with him and we usually walk during lunch for about an hour.

Let me say this as well. He is younger than I am. I have no problem with that. The problem I have is that he still acts like he's a kid at times. I'm 31 years old, he's 25. Not much of a descrepancy until you see him have a temper tantrum. It's like watching a 16 year old get pissed because he doesn't get his way.

This Monday, I had an employee let me know that she will have to take some sick time because of tendonitis. Not work related. She was in so much pain she wouldn't be able to work. She was in tears and she was tearing herself apart because of the problems that would cause us in the lab. Leaving us in a lurch and all. I told her to leave and take care of her problem. We would be able to handle it. I let my manager know the situation. I guess that sort of set the tone for what happened later.

Later that morning after I had a chance to get to my office, I find that my manager sent an e-mail to the Lab Manager and myself to send out reports. I didn't see anything wrong with that. If questioned why I hadn't sent out reports, I would have let him know that I was missing data that I would have by the afternoon and I would send all the reports I could. Unfortunately, he was in immature mode. He put a 2 foot by 3 foot sign on my whiteboard saying "SEND REPORTS". That pissed ME off.

I didn't say anything . . . at least not right away. I don't like talking to anybody when I'm pissed. Things just don't come out right and the situation can get really ugly. But later after lunch, I found him talking (I didn't know he was in lecture mode) to another lab tech. I told him the e-mail or the sign would have been sufficient on their own to get his message across that he was concerned about the reports. I jokingly stated that was a tad immature. Obviously that was the wrong thing to say. He said, "It's bullshit that you don't do what was asked of you! Total bullshit!", as he was walking away.

Suffice to say that I was stunned at how he just snapped. He didn't even give me a chance to explain myself. The other lab tech was completely taken by surprise by his reaction to me. She told me that was so wrong of him to do that.

The boy has had other instances of this occuring. He's pissed of the Lab Manager several times with his attitude. Some of us are still surprised that he hasn't been written up.

One thing I've decided though. I'm just going to have a professional relationship with him. No more buddy talks and of being in the upper echelons of the lab any more. I'm just gonna take care of business from now on and stay on top of everything. Maybe that's just what I needed. A wake up call to get my act together and start looking towards the future. After that incident, I was considering a farm managers offer of working for him. But I think I may be going back to school to get my BS or BA degree. My AAS degree in computer tech went nowhere. I need to get out of this lab. It's not fun any more.

GD