2 CLMs in one day...

CLM - aka career-limiting move.

Let's start with the first one of the day which was committed by the summer co-op student who reports to me. I arrived at work today to find my new business cards waiting for me - my company is going through a re-branding exercise - and the kid actually had the gall to ask where his business cards were. Um. Let's see. You're a summer student. You're here for 2.5 months, and you think you get business cards? Who has a sense of entitlement? I didn't say all of that word for word, but I just made a statement of fact that as a summer student, he doesn't get business cards. Then the kid says, my friend's company is taking him off-site to Montreal. Well good for your friend. Too bad you work for a company that took you out for a welcome lunch and a beer on your first day and on your third day, subjected you to an all-company off-site in which you had to spend the morning being entertained by a famous comic-turned-actor who served as MC and the afternoon playing games instead of on your ass in front of the computer. Boo hoo for you.

OK...in hindsight, this rant seems an over-reaction, but there was always something about co-op boy that bugged me...even when I was debating whether or not to hire him...and I finally put my finger on it last night. He's smug, with no reason to be and I'm beginning to think that I made the wrong decision and should have hired co-op girl instead. I have a feeling this kid is going to piss me off.

The next CLM is a more serious one...one that probably won't have immediate effects but I'm sure it will at some point come back and bite Crepes Suzette in the butt because it was so unprofessional and selfish: We have monthly meetings for our group minus our senior leadership and in these meetings, we take turns facilitating and leading the discussions. In this particular meeting Crepes essentially owned the agenda since she was co/leading both discussions. Some of the group wanted to go out for lunch but she said if we were going out she wasn't going to come because she had a meeting afterwards. Ahem. Her meeting, which was initially scheduled to be immediately after ours was actually pushed back to accomodate us going out for lunch by her manager but she still complained about how she had to prep for the meeting. As if the 30 extra minutes was really going to make that much of a difference.

So because of her selfishness, our admin had to scramble and order pizza for our lunch meeting, which she arrived over 30 minutes late to because she claimed she didn't know we had changed rooms. I had to go to reception and ask that they call her to tell her what room we were in.

Let's see - as faciliator, I had sent out the agenda last week via email with a note for the change in meeting rooms, and our admin had sent an updated meeting request with the room change this morning, so to say you didn't know there was a change in venue is lame because everyone else knew where to be and when to be there - and it's not like she didn't see us all leaving to go to the meeting because we all sit together in the same area.

And after going on in the weeks leading up to the meeting about how she's on the entire agenda and "that's how it should be," she proceeded to sit there at times sullen and spaced out and largely uncommunicative. And then she up and left the meeting before it was officially over without a word, when more senior members of the team were still there and running late to their own meetings which actually started immediately after ours was supposed to end.

To her I say, "Sit your ass DOWN."

Perhaps it's mean of me to feel this way but her behaviour actually fills me with a bit of glee because she's been so petty towards me of late. I thought we were friends, but I feel like ever since it was announced that I was going to be managing the co-op she's been giving me the cold shoulder and intentionally rude and unhelpful because she feels that she is entitled to the opportunity because she's older than I am. She actually had the nerve once (admittedly she was drunk and rather belligerent) to tell me I had to show her respect because she was older than me. Ha. Respect needs to be earned, and if you're talking out of your ass, which she was, then I think you better sit down.

I was swamped with work at one point and after she came back from a 2.5 hour lunch break during which she went and got a mani/pedi I asked if she could please help me with something and she had the nerve to say that she couldn't because there was something she had to finish for one of our executives. And when I asked her last week to forward me links to files she had worked on so I could review them in preparation for co-op boy's start, she took her sweet time doing so because she was so busy working on something that was clearly non-priority since it was related to our off-site.

And ya, this sounds self-righteous, but I'm glad I took the high road and carried on in a professional manner because her crappy attitude is coming through loud and clear. Crepes Suzette will be getting her just desserts...it's just a matter of time.