saying 'this isn't simple' and listening!!

[Zoe Girl]

I think I need a therapy appointment for this, but I have an alternate idea at the end of this.

I did my brave thing!!! I went to the interim director of our department to talk about the roll out of the summer lesson planning packets/deadlines/process. As a background we have no supervisors right now, we have so many out with babies, 3 weeks of jury duty, serious illness, that it is appropriate in this case to to to her. So I wasn't perfect or even that great for parts of it, in fact I am having a bit of a 'vulnerability hangover' in the terms Brene Brown uses. But I was brave. As part of it I heard, as I have sooo many times in my life, "this is simple" about something I share that I am struggling with. So I took a risk, took ownership and said I was struggling with something. The response is several times "it is simple", which means they worked really hard at making it simple, supportive, etc. Part of what I could do probably is appreciate that more. In any case I am trying to do what they encourage us to do, ask for support or help and offer honest feedback. This also what I heard in my recent 3 day training, our project was apparently 'simple'. I shared that part of it was going to be challenging for me since they were training us to do this. Again at least 3 times I heard "this is easy" before the trainer walked away. It is consistently about very detailed checklists and planning documents and processes. So things like telling us what is step one, two and so on. In the 3 day training ALL I had to do is stand in front of people and follow a script. I am sure it IS easy for the majority of people, I have been given training to do with no notice, told to adapt at last minute, and honestly that was no stress compared to reading a freakin' script.

What else can I do? I am in a field that is asking me to communicate when I need support! Then I do it wrong, again. I would love a diagnoses for a learning disability or anything so I can say that I truly DO learn and process different. What disorder would it be? Extreme creativity disorder? Non-linear processing disorder? (I got poor grades in a film class because I kept mixing up sequences) Meanwhile is there any advice about what to say, "I am not sure that we understand each other" or "I am requesting specific help, since it seems very straightforward to you can you help me". What I ended up with was something like "I know this looks easy, it is very much not easy for me so I will try and I need you to know that it will look like baby steps and I will likely make mistakes." The worst part of this was that I got to that statement after sharing more personal than I really wanted to because I was stuck on how to get her to listen to me.

[mschrisgo2]

Zoe, my immediate reaction to reading this is to ask you how old she (your supervisor) is!! And let me tell you why I would ask that. Because for a short period of time in staff development, supervisors were taught: "put them at ease first, make the task less onerous. You can say. It's simple, that relaxes tension and allows for easier learning." And it did, for some people, lets say, um, roughly 30%. The other 70% reacted much like you do: it feels like a put-down, makes you feel worse right from the beginning, and by the end if you still don't understand xyz, it just plain makes you mad.

Fortunately, at the same time they were teaching that in staff development, they also tried to use it with junior / high school students, who very quickly, like, inside of the first year, made it very clear that it didn't have the desired effect for them, and by the way- Stop Using It Right Now! So they pulled it from the classrooms. Staff development was slower, because it took a while to realize it was having the same effect on adult learners.

Is this someone you can be frank with? Can you picture yourself saying something like, "you know, for some reason, that phrase, it's simple, just makes me feel judged and bad about myself before we even start. I'm wondering if there is a different way we can approach this?"

I'm pretty sure it is the actual set up that is tripping you up. Words have meaning, even when they are spoken casually.

[Zoe Girl]

good idea, and the history is interesting. funny thing is that she kept reminding me about other people's point of view while i walked away thinking about everyone else and how i could take care of them. how can i do my job perfectly so no one else has problems

[Tammy]

People who don't do the work, write the policy and procedure. People who do the work, tell the authors that it isn't working. The authors then repeat how easy it is - just follow the policy!

I see it all the time - it's not you. It's them.

Going to them with why it won't work - it often isn't helpful. Many of them don't want to know if it works. They want you to do the simple thing and not bother them.

Sad but true.

[Zoe Girl]

Thank you Tammy, I am struggling to let it go. The wind is insane here in Denver so I was awake a lot of the night. Thinking too much. Did look up a great article about adults who are gifted and have learning issues. Gosh I love this article! I am going to print it for my sanity.

Yeah I really like this director so it is hard. And I am just going to give myself credit for trying and having courage, I came in with ideas, solutions and not complaining. I would say that immediately most of what I was saying was put in that light so we spent a lot of time with me saying what my intention was and was not. We ended the conversation in some good ways. I put some things back on her, if we are all short staffed and struggling then we have the opportunity to work together instead of causing more strife. And once at the end I just exclaimed that I feel bad about the work I do every week! At that point she stopped and said 'so I should say nicer things'. YES! I told her that if she had told us the purpose of this huge summer lesson plan rigid plan I would be ahead of the work and making her look awesome, so she needs to tell me how I can help.

[lhamo]

If there is a way for you to get tested/assessed, I think you should do so. I think it would be helpful for people who do not share these struggles if you could put a name on it an have a brief "elevator speech" you can present to explain why you find such situations challenging. And it would help you be more confident about asking for concessions -- even if they aren't granted, knowing your brain does indeed work differently can help you come to peace with the dissonance, and maybe find good workarounds.

[Zoe Girl]

Great idea lhamo, I like elevator speeches. For my job one speech is that I play with children professionally. I have a job coach who is a school psychologist so she would know how to do this. I did take the right/left dyslexia test and it took me forever and I had to talk out loud the whole time but it didn't give me any sort of feedback. It gave ranges like 5-10 seconds, or 12 and above. I was at 48.

[Tybee]

My husband has ADD, has had it all his life. Sometimes I wish he would tell people; it would make things a lot easier, such as today in the ER, where I think people thought he was mentally impaired or a non-English speaker; he just comes off so goofy when he is stressed, and then they hear he is a musician and a college professor and they back off.

it just does not sound like the problem in this situation is you. She sounds pretty ineffective at leading and communicating. I'd just try to Q-Tip (Quit taking it personally) as that really does help.

[Zoe Girl]

Ahh Q-tip, gonna try that. I am starting another post about the department restructuring and something that happened related to this (Same supervisor who had the conversations).

[Reyes]

Zoe,

Is another job a possibility? Maybe this is the square peg, round hole and that your strengths would be better suited to another line of work?