Last night I watched an episode of a show called White Collar.
Not really my thing but engaging enough to follow along while slathering myself in coconut oil (not weird), and having a casual evening conversation with slightly future me about tomorrow, which is now today (slightly weird).
The title of the episode was Deadline, and it involved this woman from the FBI team going undercover as the new assistant of a journalist who was risking her life following the trail of corruption at a pharmaceutical company.
The journalist was, of course, the typical workaholic mean boss (see the mean boss trope!), who expected nothing short of everything.
Expecting the impossible.
The journalist, who was basically doing Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, hit all the bad boss notes.
But the main one, of course, is expecting the impossible.
In this case it was pretty extreme:
You have a few hours to move my child’s birthday party, notify everyone about the new location, find a bouncy castle, buy the kid a present, do the dry cleaning, finish this report, translate this document into Portuguese, go out and get a smoothie and also make the coffee.
Oh, and all while doing your actual job which is a full-time job of answering the phones, filing, copying, problem-solving, and running the office.
I’ve had that job. Remember? My third-worst job? Not the second time I got fired, though. That was something else.
It takes a village. Or an army. Or something.
The FBI chick basically engaged her entire unit to secretly make all these things happen.
Someone did the translation. Someone’s wife organized the party.
It all got done.
With a staff of maybe a dozen people working their asses off.
The undercover operation was a success, they took down the Evil Pharmaceutical Company, the FBI chick got to reveal her true identity, yadda yadda.
It worked. Yay, teamwork. Or whatever.
Back to expectations.
But no one ever bothered to tell the boss that her expectations were so completely unreasonable as to be inhuman.
That what she thought reasonably could and should be done over the course of a day could not in fact be done.
At least, not without a dedicated staff of at least eight people.
And yes, I get that this is television and that the point of the show was not about the personal process of this particular journalist or her relationship with leadership.
But they let this woman (I know, it’s a character, but yes, I’m taking this personally) go on thinking that there had in fact been someone who could meet her demands. Which she will now keep looking for and not finding.
In this fake world…but really everywhere.
In this constructed world of the television show, everyone this journalist meets will fall short of her expectations.
They already did, of course. But now she will never examine those expectations.
Old pain.
So very often when I interact with past versions of me, I end up discovering parts of myself that are still in pain. Still hurting and angry.
And so very often this hurt is related to encountering someone else’s unreasonable expectations. “Unreasonable” being the mildest word that I can come up with right now.
Part of the pain comes from the sadness that I did not have the self-knowledge and self-awareness — the sense of amnesty and sovereignty — to be able to set my own expectations.
Me-from-now, me-from-then.
Me-from-now could do a lot better in that kind of situation. Though me-from-now probably wouldn’t end up in one. But if she did, she’d be able to recognize things that me-from-then could not.
That she hadn’t done anything wrong. That she wasn’t incompetent. That she gets to have expectations too.
Me-from-now could probably even come up with something to say.
Something like this:
“Hey, I’m sorry. Your expectations seem to be X, Y and Z, and these expectations don’t work for me. What you want cannot be done. Not by me, and quite possibly not by anyone. So if this is going to work, we’ll need to re-define some of these expectations and set new expectations together.”
While me-from-then used to cry in the bathroom.
Of course, it helps that me-from-now has been practicing this stuff. And it helps that me-from-now is not afraid of being fired, because me-from-now remembers all the great things that have come from losing terrible, terrible jobs.
Today.
Today I’m going to think about expectations.
About who I am as a boss/leader/CEO/pirate-queen.
And what my expectations are in general.
And I am going to imagine that the writers of this show have written an intervention scene. Or maybe they force the boss to do the job she thinks can be done. Or maybe they give her a week off to be slathered in coconut oil and rethink her life.
I don’t know. But I have my green Island Time notebook and a pen and I’m going to find out.
And comment zen for the comment blanket fort…
If you want to invent new endings for this episode with me, I would love that!
If you want to whisper reminders and reassurance to you-from-then in various situations, go for it.
As always, I will remind us that we all have our stuff and we’re working on it and it’s a process.
As part of respecting that process, we don’t give each other unsolicited advice or analyze each other’s situations or tell each other how to feel.
Kisses.
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I like this! I get overly invested in fictional boss-assistant relationships as well (2 1/2 years as a PA to four bosses I adored, followed by about 3 weeks as a PA to someone who was both impossible and really sweet, right up until she fired me – apparently she fired her assistants at least every three months, presumably because of those impossible expectations you’re talking about.) So I think me-from-then could use reading this post. xxx
Yes. This.
So very often when I interact with past versions of me, I end up discovering parts of myself that are still in pain. Still hurting and angry.
And so very often this hurt is related to encountering someone else’s unreasonable expectations. “Unreasonable” being the mildest word that I can come up with right now.
Part of the pain comes from the sadness that I did not have the self-knowledge and self-awareness — the sense of amnesty and sovereignty — to be able to set my own expectations.
A thousand times, this. The job before my current one, this one that I love and appreciate and that loves and appreciates me, was terrible. Such bad expectations, and I did not know enough at the time to seek definitions and outlines for expectations from the start– and so, in not doing so, I found myself agreeing to what I thought was one thing and was, in fact, another.
I still wince when I think about that job, but I am getting better at projecting sovereignty like a force-field over me-from-then and making sure me-from-now doesn’t hand over my power to my old bosses. Stuff happened, expectations did not mesh, and it ended poorly– but it had to end so that I could move on to this job and so that, hopefully, they could find someone who could better fit them.
Thank you for writing this, so I know it isn’t just me.
Me-from-now needed to hear this. So much of my life is signing up for situations like this and feeling like a failure. I sign up over and over thinking THIS time, I will beat it. I will prove them wrong. I will be worthy of their approval. AS IF those expectations equal approval. the truth is, even if I could meet the expectations, I wouldn’t get the external approval I am seeking.
Dear Becky – LET THIS SINK IN TO YOUR SOUL AND HEART. HOLD IT. BREATHE IT. LET IT BE. AND LET IT GO.
Love, Becky
“all the great things that have come from losing terrible, terrible jobs.”
YES YES YES! Oh yes.
I kind of wish I had seen that episode now. Because you know in “Prada,” once Anne Hathaway decides to embrace the job, suddenly it all becomes possible and she becomes this huge success in the eyes of her vicious boss (both characters softened significantly in the movie, btw. In the book they were both mightily jagged pills) though of course it destroys her personal life.
So I appreciate that, while “White Collar” didn’t educate the impossible boss, at least they didn’t play the “well it’s really possible if you just TRY” card.
The best move I ever made was leaving a longterm job where the expectations were impossible. It took me a little too long to realize that the expectations were the problem. Here’s to figuring it out faster!
Hoo-doggie! Talk about hitting a sensitive spot!
We had unreasonable neighbors who considered themselves bosses and attempted to order us around like this, to the point of trying to change our property rights. More than awkward. Husband just left a boss who had unspoken, unreasonable expectations that he purposely changed as often as his underwear. Intentionally devalued his staff’s strengths and overemphasized trivial shortcomings.
Yes, still in pain. Still hurting and angry. Still looking over my shoulder to see if it’s coming again.
We sold a house and moved away from a place we LOVED — something I thought I could not survive.
But I am here. Things are good. I am learning much about sovereignty, loving boldly with more connection and less drama, tentatively trusting again.
Thank you for the wonderful reminders of being.
I’ve never had that boss in real life but I think that’s because she’s moonlighting as one of my monsters. If you put your ear up to your computer screen (I double dog dare you), you can probably hear her talking down to me and making demands* right bloody now:
*yes, the following is spoken in Meryl Streep’s voice
“Starting on your Bachelor’s Degree right before thirty years old? *Haughty Sniff* Late, aren’t you?”
“Slept in due to working late last night? How do you ever expect to accomplish anything, silly girl?”
“The ideal day will consist of AT MINIMUM: one hour’s worth of yoga, three hours of writing, three hour’s worth of dance training, as well as art production. I expect this all to be done before you go off to your ridiculous evening job so you can have that thing you call – oh, what was it? Ah yes. Food.”
Your post has made me think that maybe I need my own team. People who can back me up and help get things done. Like a heist! Ooh, and they’ll all wear vests.
Yes, excellent. *Wrings Hands Together*
havi: i’m 100% certain our me-from-thens would have been in the bathroom crying together. man, i wish i could hug those two. bully bosses can suck it.
me-from-now still needs to be reminded about unreasonable expectations because sometimes i am my own worst bully boss.
thank you for the awesome reminder to be reasonable. muah!
I’m imagining a scene where when the FBI woman revealed her true identity, she also revealed the team that was necessary to make it all happen… That would be a wake-up to the mean boss!
I’m still thinking about this post. I’ve been caught by unreasonable and impossible expectations. I’m also examining myself for unreasonable and impossible expectations of others. You know, just in case.
**me-from-now remembers all the great things that have come from losing terrible, terrible jobs.**
so true. i’m hugging me-from-Then right now and stroking her hair and “shush shush”-ing her as she cries about being a failure and not knowing what will possibly happen to ever be good in her life again.
here’s the truth about *THAT* horrible job:
it’s not just a horrible job, it’s an impossible job. no one does it “well”. they either burn-out or do it for so long that they aren’t even helping anyone anymore. further, it’s not even a “job” — it’s a monster that became your life 24/7 for years. and some years the State just “ran out of money” and decided not to pay you, but because you’re “court appointed” and you actually cared about the families there was nothing to do but keep working. the people you worked for were ugly, mean, petty people who had no clue what it was like to actually do the job — they sat in their office (where they never went without paychecks) and harrassed the people actually “in the field” doing the work. the system itself is broken, so no matter what you did, sweet pea, you never could make enough of a difference. remember the days you would leave meetings to cry in the bathroom because of the futility of it all?
that job SUCKED! so much wasted time/energy dealing with the bureaucracy instead of making kids’ lives better. and never a light at the end of the tunnel. ever. the paycheck was never enough to make up for what that job did to your soul (plus it was barely enough to live on and you lost your home, which was a huge emotional disaster)
me-from-Now doesn’t want to spend another minute mourning that job or feeling “less than” because my contract wasn’t renewed.
so there.
xoxoxo to havi + selma + everyone else. i love this space.
Hi. I’m the one with unreasonable expectations. I am working on not being this person, and I try not to act on these expectations as little as possible, but still they are there. I am moving into supervisory positions, so I can potentially exert these expectations onto people other than my loved ones, who often are kind and smart enough to separate me from the expectations, and sweetly tell me to shut up and take a nap already.
Why, though? All good reasons, like the journalist. She was trying to save the world, for chrissake! All of the people in that world needed for those things to be done. It was a crisis situation!
I don’t want to be that person, but I’m trying to be gentle with myself, remember that I’m coming from a place of good even if my actions look ugly, and that sometimes our outsides look better than our insides do to ourselves.
I wish for her an intervention with flowers and candles and a chance to grieve for the stuff that doesn’t get done, big and small.
Oh…. I so needed this. Thank you, Havi!
I’m imagining that instead of everything working out, the birthday party didn’t happen and when the mom showed up to join the festivities which weren’t happening, and almost burst into tears, the birthday-girl-child proposed that they walk around the corner to get ice cream. So the child leads the way in finding a simple, delightful way to celebrate her birthday rather than succumbing to disappointment that the overblown plans crashed and burned. Ha! Take that, ridiculous expectations! Simple pleasures triumph.
I actually went to the office bathroom to cry today. I need to have serious chats with me from 6 hours ago.
I fell down the rabbit hole of cross-links in your posts tonight, and I don’t even remember a lot of what I was reading now. But, as usual, your honesty about the work you do with your stuff has given me this little kernel of hope, a tiny ray of light or breath of sweet air in a musty closed off room full of junk and clutter.
I almost feel as if putting it into words will scare it away, but I am so full of gratitude tonight that I had to just thank you. You give me hope. You give hope.
@Lauren Good for you for coming out and saying that. A welcome reminder of our bosses’ humanity and how they may be feeling. xx
I first remember coming into awareness with this concept in a work situation. I read about handling the excessive expectations thing, and started telling my boss: Here’s about how long each of these projects will take and here’s the conflicting deadlines. You’re the manager, so manage: please prioritize what you want me to work on within the constraints of the system.
Blew my mind at the time. Later was able to translate it into other situations and people.
Sometimes the boss (or insert your own person/archtype here)is just focused on other stuff and a bit out of touch with the details. It’s part of my job as a fellow human being to educate them.
“We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.” –G. K. Chesterton
Years ago, my sweetie worked for a small start-up company, run by two guys who used to call him into their office and proceed to drive him crazy.
“How much time do you estimate it will take to finish Project X?”
“Well, it’s hard to estimate accurately, because of variables Y and Z…”
“Why are you being difficult?”
“I’m not trying to be difficult, it just is hard, because of variables Y and Z…”
“Just give your best estimate. How much time will it take you to finish Project X?”
“Well — and this isn’t necessarily accurate, remember, because of variables Y and Z — but let’s say, about two weeks.”
“Fine. You have one week. Get it done.”
Heaven only knows what management books they’d been reading…
@Paulita — I love your alternate ending. Maybe FBI chick could be there too, doing her big reveal, and they could all go out for ice cream together.
@Lauren — I offer you virtual flowers, and candles in your favorite fragrance. Thank you for your view from the other side.
This struck a deep chord, Havi, though with a twist.
From the first paragraph I was thinking of the mean boss I work for sometimes. Given that I’m self-employed, that would be me. I can set the most unrealistic and unfair expectations of myself and, unless I notice and shift gears, I can be very unkind when I fail to meet them.
I see this in my clients, too. When you work for yourself, it’s easy to get so wrapped up in your stuff that you don’t realize you’ve turned into your very own Boss from Hell. Great steaming heaps of mercy and compassion are called for here. That and a sincere apology from me to me, from you to you.
I’m so glad it’s not just me who watches TV about X and Y and sees all this underlying stuff that brings up my stuff. I think it should all be a dream and in actual fact one thing needs doing and it only just gets done in time – with her input. Then she realises the unrealisticness of how the world works compared to her expectations? Or something.