Management 101
10/3/10 21:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkemeraldsYou know how your boss is someone who has a lot of power over you? Bear that in mind as you read on.
Today Google rolled out the exciting new BikeThere addition to GoogleMaps. I was having a look at it this morning when my boss wandered up.
"What's got you smiling?" he asks.. I show him the map because he's kind of a geek and I figure he'll appreciate another cool Google development.
Holy shit, that was a mistake. Not because I was doing personal surfing on company time--we're allowed judicious use. No! He gets a look in his eye. "So, do you support the Bike Plan?" (The city's twenty-year plan for increasing bike ridership.)
Well, duh, Boss. So I say, "Uh, yes?" kind of warily, and then it starts. He pretty much accuses me of being a freeloader because I commute by bike.*
He becomes testy defending his right to live many miles outside the city and therefore to have no other choice but to drive to work. He says that he personally could not choose to live in the city because of the schools.**
I'm all "..." and then all "um..." and I'm trying to see any actual logical connection between Google's BikeThere and this conversation.
I stammer out a few facts, but because he's my BOSS, ferchrissakes, I really don't want to argue with him. I'm over that phase of my life. I like being employed.
Mostly, though, I'm thinking, wow, this well-paid manager of 25 people just made an issue of our differing politics, and has let me know that on some knee-jerk pseudo-economic grounds, he thinks less of me for my participation in bicycling.
(Did I mention that we both work for the City of Portland? Was I naive to think it was okay to be open in my support of bike commuting?)
Now I have to worry about whether my pinko commie bike-riding is going to have any influence on his evaluation of my work. I spent the whole rest of the day freaking out.
*It's the "I PAY FUEL TAX AT THE PUMP AND THAT PAYS FOR MY SHARE OF THE ROAD WHAT DO YOU PAY YOU PINKO SCUM???" meme--wrong on all counts: fuel taxes cover a small percentage of road building and maintenance; the general fund covers most of it. Like all bike-riders, I pay all the other kinds of taxes that go to roads, AND I don't wear the fucking road out with my SUV...grrrr.
**The "Well, some of us have no choice" meme that has fuck-all to do with bike-riding, and a LOT to do with the urban/exurban political divide, so IDEFK.
Yay, work.
Today Google rolled out the exciting new BikeThere addition to GoogleMaps. I was having a look at it this morning when my boss wandered up.
"What's got you smiling?" he asks.. I show him the map because he's kind of a geek and I figure he'll appreciate another cool Google development.
Holy shit, that was a mistake. Not because I was doing personal surfing on company time--we're allowed judicious use. No! He gets a look in his eye. "So, do you support the Bike Plan?" (The city's twenty-year plan for increasing bike ridership.)
Well, duh, Boss. So I say, "Uh, yes?" kind of warily, and then it starts. He pretty much accuses me of being a freeloader because I commute by bike.*
He becomes testy defending his right to live many miles outside the city and therefore to have no other choice but to drive to work. He says that he personally could not choose to live in the city because of the schools.**
I'm all "..." and then all "um..." and I'm trying to see any actual logical connection between Google's BikeThere and this conversation.
I stammer out a few facts, but because he's my BOSS, ferchrissakes, I really don't want to argue with him. I'm over that phase of my life. I like being employed.
Mostly, though, I'm thinking, wow, this well-paid manager of 25 people just made an issue of our differing politics, and has let me know that on some knee-jerk pseudo-economic grounds, he thinks less of me for my participation in bicycling.
(Did I mention that we both work for the City of Portland? Was I naive to think it was okay to be open in my support of bike commuting?)
Now I have to worry about whether my pinko commie bike-riding is going to have any influence on his evaluation of my work. I spent the whole rest of the day freaking out.
*It's the "I PAY FUEL TAX AT THE PUMP AND THAT PAYS FOR MY SHARE OF THE ROAD WHAT DO YOU PAY YOU PINKO SCUM???" meme--wrong on all counts: fuel taxes cover a small percentage of road building and maintenance; the general fund covers most of it. Like all bike-riders, I pay all the other kinds of taxes that go to roads, AND I don't wear the fucking road out with my SUV...grrrr.
**The "Well, some of us have no choice" meme that has fuck-all to do with bike-riding, and a LOT to do with the urban/exurban political divide, so IDEFK.
Yay, work.
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