I got a call two nights ago from the RE's office - still just CD2 - and they asked me to start my Follistim that night at a dose of 150IU. So Kaitlin's given me the shots, that night and last night, and I have an ultrasound/bloodwork appointment for Friday morning. I think I'm going to stop by the Avella pharmacy first and pick up my trigger shot, to minimize time that I'm out of work.
I also ordered the swimmers and had them shipped to my RE, but they haven't received them as of this morning when I called... I asked them to call and leave me a message once they do get them, just so I know they arrived safely. Two little vials, and they're so darned expensive. I am hoping that with this new donor, the samples may be fresher (he runs out of supply quickly, so he must be popular and currently donating) and maybe there will be a higher motility count. It would also be really nice if this donor's chemistry was maybe a little more compatible with mine.
In the meantime, stress at work is escalating again.
A couple of weeks ago, our Department asked all employees to fill out an "Employee Retention Survey" - an opportunity for employees to anonymously provide feedback on their job satisfaction, with a heavy emphasis on whether they felt they had positive relationships with management. Yesterday, our department director (my boss's boss) and a representative from HR came looking for me. I was at lunch, so I wasn't there to meet with them, and had to find out from one of my staff when I got back that our director was trying to find me.
(Embarrassing -- even though he didn't seem too bothered by it.) Anyway, eventually Director called me and said they'd received results from the Employee Retention Survey from my unit that needed attention. He and the HR rep were going to schedule individual meetings with me and every one of my staff to look into it, and he has asked my staff not to discuss their survey responses with one another in the meantime. And, he said he was not telling my direct boss that he was doing this - and, he didn't want me to worry, he wasn't trying to find blame, just figure out how to improve things. But he assured me that no one would be able to see his calendar and know that we were meeting.
But of course, being told not to worry by your boss's boss after he requests a private meeting with you and HR is really just going to create more worry. Especially when it's due to results of a survey that was supposed to be anonymous, which means that more than one of my staff had to have provided responses that made it easily identifiable that they were in my unit.
My guess is that this issue revolves around my boss. I had a horrible year with her in 2012, and a little bit of 2013, in which I was very afraid of her, dreaded interacting with her, felt discouraged and demoralized every time I talked to her, and basically was absolutely miserable. I would have quit if I could have afforded it, and actively tried to get a new job someplace else. I went on several interviews, in fact, but got no job offers, so I was pretty much stuck where I was. That being said, in the past year or so our relationship has improved drastically. I think we finally figured out how to communicate effectively with each other, and I feel more supported and encouraged now. I am not sorry that I stuck it out because I am pretty happy, overall. I do still have a lot of residual fear, a sort of lizard-brain gut-instinct every time I'm scheduled to meet with her, every time a problem arises that it appears I'm going to be held accountable for. But, thus far they've turned out okay... even more positive than I was expecting... and slowly that lizard-brain thing is fading. I do think it will be a long while before it goes away, because the experience was so traumatic, but I am SO grateful for the improvement.
But. I know that my staff are also afraid of her. I know that this comes from both their infrequent direct interactions with her, and also from what they watched me go through when she was being so hard on me. I have to take responsibility for that last part, because I should have done a better job of not passing the anxiety, stress and fear that I felt down to them. I didn't do a good job of filtering it. And, I did tell them when the pressure was coming from my boss... our manager... as opposed to coming from me. I shouldn't have done that. Now, even when I take full responsibility for disciplinary actions or unpopular decisions, they are absolutely convinced that the real force behind it is my boss.
And, when you add to that the fact that the quality-bar keeps getting raised higher - I had to tighten a lot of processes, increase accountability, increase expectations and demands of staff as a part of resolving the issues that my boss was pressuring me about - and yet the quantity of work continues to grow, it feels like they're being asked to do the impossible. And I feel like I'm asking them to do the impossible, and that if I can't figure out how to get the work done with the staff I have without destroying morale, then it will mean I'm not a good boss. What should be a positive, encouraging, motivational challenge has become a demoralizing, discouraging, hopeless source of stress. As I put it in my own survey response - it's exhausting when good will never be satisfactory if better is possible. There comes a point at which everyone wants to know exactly what level will be - and will STAY - satisfactory. The constant pressure to do more, to do better, to do faster, with less resources, is exhausting.
I am guessing that Director wants to talk about concerns about my boss, but I am terrified that I have it wrong, and he wants to talk about concerns about me. Or, that concerns about my boss will get turned into concerns about me. I don't want to walk into the meeting blind, prepared to discuss all the problems I've had with my boss and how they can be remedied, only to find that what he really wants to talk about is problems with me. But - I have to think that if this WAS about me, he'd be including my boss in it. And the fact that he's excluding her would seem to indicate that he wants to gather info and more detailed feedback before deciding how to approach it with her.
I am terrified, though, that if he approaches her with this, she's going to turn it around on me, and blame me for painting a bad picture of her to staff. I will accept some responsibility for that. I did fail to be a good filter. I was so traumatized that I deflected a lot of the "blame" for the higher quality standards and the more definitive discipline onto her. I already felt like my boss despised me, and couldn't stand to make my staff despise me too. So I did what she asked me to, but made it clear to staff that I was following orders. And I am afraid she'll try to crucify me for it. I'll accept responsibility for being human. But none of it would have happened if she hadn't been so awful to me to begin with.
And I'm not trying to throw her under the bus, either. She is ALSO human. She made some mistakes with me, and with my team. But I think she's recognized and learned from them, because otherwise I wouldn't see so many changes in our relationship now. I don't resent her for it because she's a person just like I am, and if I want forgiveness and acceptance of my mistakes from others I must be willing to give it to those who have wronged me, too. I still fear her, and to an extent don't trust her or feel safe with her - but that is fading and so long as we can continue to interact the way we have been in the past year I think it will continue to fade. I am willing to set aside my fear and distrust and give her the chance to do things differently - and she appears willing to set aside her frustration and distrust of me, and give me the chance to do the same.
But how to fix it with my staff, now? I don't know. I would like to have them have the opportunity for some one-on-one, big-deal kind of positive experiences. And I am doing everything I can to credit my boss with the awesome things she has been doing for us... even paint myself as the strong-arm and tell them that my boss is the one who's requested leniency, to try and change the perception. But still, staff express reluctance to go to her for anything. They'd rather call me on my cell during my time off than call her for help, if it can be avoided. They'd rather go to HR or fill out an anonymous survey when they have problems with me, because they don't feel comfortable with her either. They try to avoid direct contact with her whenever possible.
I am also worried that Director is going to ask my boss to spend more time with my team. Which I admit is probably the best solution, even as much as I dread the idea because of that lizard-brain thing. Honestly, I'd rather have zero positive contact and fewer negatives, than to increase positive contact but also increase negative ones too. The negative is just so BAD. I don't even know how to describe it to Director without sounding like a complete baby - "she's scary."
And, there's some responsibility that needs to be shouldered by my team, too. They are a group of very strong-willed, vocal folks. Several of them are pretty intolerant of flaws they see in others, and are pretty rigid when it comes to wanting their own way. Several of them lack diplomatic skills, lack patience in each other and with me. And I work with them constantly, to try and help them learn how to be more patient with each other, to be supportive and encouraging rather than punitive. But their stress levels are high. The higher they get, the more difficult it is to be patient, understanding, and positive. I don't get it right all the time myself. I'm sure I've made big mistakes, even, at times with them, just like I feel like my boss made some big mistakes with me. But not being bosses themselves, they have less perspective than I do of how that can happen. And regardless, it's my responsibility to get better at leading them.
So yeah. LONG rambling work post that's probably unnecessary, but it's weighing so heavily on my mind today (and will, until next week when I have that meeting with Director/HR and find out for sure what's going on) that I needed to get it out somewhere.
And now back to our regularly scheduled work day.
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