I
walked into the office yesterday to find someone sitting in my new office. It was the manager of the new team that moved
into our area. He had been angling for
that office even before they moved downstairs, and I guess he just decided that
possession was nine-tenths of the law.
Granted,
I hadn’t had a chance to clean it up and move my stuff in yet, but still! The audacity.
The inconsiderateness. I was
outraged. I was furious. My blood was boiling under my skin. But I decided to just sit down at my desk and
get on the meeting that I had. I kept
telling myself during the meeting that I’d give him the benefit of the doubt. I’d give him until after the meeting to prove
me wrong. He didn’t. In fact, it just got worse.
Right
after my meeting started, he called his team of two into the office and
conducted a team meeting in there. On
top of that, the manager’s boss came by and started giving him high fives and
taking his picture as a show of congratulations for “scoring” the office. I was so livid, I was shaking. I was breathing. I was praying. I was hardly paying attention to the call I
was on.
For
an hour, I watched this flagrant violation being tossed in my face…in my team’s
face. Their team meeting broke up just
as my call was ending, and his two direct reports left the office and shut the
door behind them. That was the last
straw. I grabbed my cleaning supplies
and slowly walked to my office. I didn’t
knock. I just opened the door. After all, it was my own office, why should I
bother knocking?! I told the guy that I
was moving into the office at that very moment, so he needed to leave.
And
this is where the situation went from crossing the line to outright
disrespect. The guy had the audacity and
cajones to look at me and say, “It’ll be 30 minutes, because I’m about to get
on a customer call.” I was expecting…well,
more hoping…that his being in the office was just a slight error in judgement,
and he didn’t realize that it was my office.
A respectful person would have profusely apologized for the oversight,
gathered his things, and quickly relocated.
This was not a respectful person.
The
old me would have taken being trampled on, agreed to his statement, and slowly backed
out of the door to wallow in anger. The
old me. I am not the old me, and I was
pissed. I told him that he would have to
take his call somewhere else, because I was moving in. My voice was low and menacing. I didn’t yell. I wasn’t compassionate or sympathetic. I was in charge.
He
tried to play the disgusted card, whining that this call was with a customer
and couldn’t I come back later. I simply
said, “No. This is the time I have to
move in.” Then, he tried to play the
exasperated card, acting like I was being unreasonable and where was he
supposed to go.
All
the while, he hadn’t moved. He was still
sitting at my desk with his papers strewn out everywhere, and his continued disregard
for me was flipping every switch I had and a few that I wasn’t aware that I
had. That was when I lost my cool, and I
said, “Frankly, I don’t care. You can
find a conference room, or how about this, you can take it at your desk. Either way, you need to leave, so I can clean
my office.”
At
this point, he let out a huge huff, gathered his papers, and scuffled off to a
conference room to have his call. On the
way out of the door, he looked back and said, “You know, your name isn’t on
this office. How would anyone know it was
yours?” That was an unnecessary parting
shot, so the very first thing I did was to go peel the name tag off of my old
desk and stick it to the window right beside the door. Then, I proceeded to clean and organize my
office.
This
incident didn’t just affect me. It
apparently affected everyone on the team.
Some were outraged just like I was.
Others were waiting to see what I would do. At the time, I didn’t realize that they viewed
this as a test. They had had their doubts
as to whether I was ready to lead the team, and this would give them their
first glimpse to prove myself. I passed
with flying colors.
