The Criticism

When I worked at the tough customer service job I referenced in my first blog post, I learned a lot of foundational aspects about working as a team, working for a large company, and working with a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds. One of the things I'll never forget is how they wanted employees to provide feedback to each other. If you felt like you had to provide feedback to another employee, whether it was about how they handled the customer interaction, or how they acted with another employee, it was imperative that you had to ask first. You would gesture to them and ask, "hey, do you mind if I provide you some feedback?" Seems like a simple task right? Even if you had exisiting rapport with the other employee, which of course - many of us did, that didn't excuse the fact that you first had to ask permission to provide feedback. This was to ensure that the person was also ready to accept, or hear the feedback, which is crucial. 

If they were
(which 90% of the time, we would normally say yes,
either due to the fast paced environment, or maybe deep down we already knew we probably could have handled the situation better before the interaction was even over)
then how the feedback was delivered was the next pivotal moment.

They often used this example to frame how feedback should be delivered;
"I noticed your interaction with that customer, and heard you give them the option of [blank],
did you also mention [blank2] or [blank3]?"
which of course gives the reciever a chance to provide more context which may have been missed during the interaction. At which then, it becomes more of a conversation, whether they say yes or no, the feedback can carry onwards with:
"from an outside perspective, it seemed like you might have been pushing towards the first option, and that the customer seemed forced or stressed to make a descison. Maybe there could have been a fourth option, to have them consider their options and return once they had a chance to digest it more."

Something like this, but really focusing on the actions that evoked from their interaction, and not jumping to any conclusions that the employee was intentionally forcing the customer one way or another.  

Fast forward to corporate life, and it seems that whole approach is unfortunately extinct. 

I actually tried to bring it forward to my longest standing job, after noticing my manager wouldn't provide feedback to me in a way I was comfortable with. But it didn't last, or she just didn't see the value in it. But especially when the world moved to working remotely, I felt as though it was more important than ever to check in, before dishing out. We won't always know what that person is going through, whether we're talking to them through a screen or in person, so unsolicitedly piling on criticism (instead of properly thought out feedback) can pile up in the worst way possible. I was unfortunately the perfect example of this for the past month, but after a long, well-rested weekend, I want to share what exactly happened and how I felt throughout the course of it so others can either relate, or at least learn from my experience. 

Without naming names, or being too specific to what I'm currently working on, I'll try to sum up the last few weeks as much as possible. It all started with some tough client feedback, which resembles a straight-up complaint compared to the proper definition of feedback above. They basically said a report I worked on "wasn't good enough" and that they didn't know what to do with the information we were providing. Now, here's the thing, after writing this out and reading it again, there could be so many reasons as to why the client felt that way.
Is there education needed around what the numbers are representing?
Was there a misunderstanding about what the report was set out to achieve?
Is there a way we could re-design or re-word the report to be more clear?
These would have been all great follow up questions to ask if my mouth wasn't stuck wide open on the call, at a lost for words since the client's delivery left me in shock. Even after discussing with a colleague who was also on the call, they too were left flabbergasted and unsure about how to move forward. So at this stage, tensions were starting to rise and we needed to go back to the drawing board. Meanwhile, we had a billing issue we needed to resolve with a vendor that meant collaborating and discussing in more detail with the same client. I was partially responsible however, I'm not the greatest salesperson, and I was asked to negotiate a way forward with the vendor while we craft a plan with the client. I was told this was our top priority for the next few weeks which envoked a major sense of urgency. I tried to move quickly by sending the necessary emails, and requesting meeting times with all parties involved. I was asked to come to the call prepared with the estimated expenses for the year so I spent as much time as I could nailing those down. I then, got asked to move the call to the following week, when really I was eager to get it sorted and over with. I was starting to feel like an inflatable tube man, just shapeshifting at everything being thrown my way. Once we finally had the call, I immediately felt overtaken when the client interrupted me mid-scentence and shfited the narrative to where they wanted to focus. My manager then interjected and steered the conversation, which ended up being a total of 8 minutes total, i.e: could have been solved weeks ago and over email. 

Now, I am an advocate for transparency which often poses its challenges in corporate workplaces. I realize and understand that I don't need to know every single detail about company operations, however when it pertains directly to my job, communication is key. You could even summarize it so clearly as, if I don't know all the clues how can I even start to form a hypothesis, let alone clear next steps? So even with my ego aside, I felt that there were blockers to getting my work done effectively.
The next day, it was sunny and beautiful out, and I decided to go for a mental health walk in the middle of the day. Yes, a privilege to those who work from home and don't have back to back calls all day. Some people have even suggested taking your calls on a walk, which I can't usually do, due to sharing my screen or referencing documents while on the call. So I saw the opportunity to clear my head and take in the fresh air. Within 5 minutes of returning, I got a phone call (which is not common - usually it's via an app for work) but I dared to answer regardless of not knowing exactly who I was about to speak to.
Lo and behold it was my gyno, with a follow up to some testing I had done about a month ago, and needless to say, it wasn't the most positive of results. So I now have a follow up appointment in a month to undergo a procedure inwhich I didn't even know existed prior to that six minute phone call. 

Shock.

Tears.

Questions.

Google.

Worry.

Those who know me, know that when faced with something like this, I tend to think "what if..." Which can either be a good or a bad thing. I think it's stemmed from the customer service job, where we really had to provide as many options necessary in order to have the customer feel empowered to make their own decision. But just like in the example I gave above, delivering options in such a way that seems forced can definitely lead to the reciever feeling stressed. But hey, when it comes to healthcare, it really does come down to only one or two (if you're lucky) options sometimes. It can also add stress when not understanding why something is happening, how it got to this point, and going forward, are there things to do or avoid in order to avoid a repeat situation?
This goes for the majority of situations, not only healthcare-related ones.
So we sleep on it, mull it over, more googling, maybe a bit more worrying.
The next day was International Women's Day, which normally makes me happy and proud to be a woman and leaves me feeling strong. Unfortunately, and likely due to the past rocky month behind me, I had a few calls in the morning which led me to feel small. In the first, I was told "if I could give you advice, it would be to stop worrying and continue doing," pertaining to feeling like I had blockers at work. And in the second, while I was pitching an idea for a new campaign, someone had a comment that wasn't related to what I was saying, to which he then said "sorry, I wasn't fully listening to you."

I'm not going to call out the gender of either of these two people but you paint your own picture.

This absolute unsolicited criticism was the tip of the iceberg for me. There was no request to provide feedback, there was no level-setting, there was only assumptions and lack of listening which clearly does not lead to much good. So Friday sucked, but I woke up on Saturday feeling a bit better and took the day easy. We were watching a comedic game show Saturday night which lifted my spirits but also left me with possibly, my new favourite quote from Sam Campbell:

"Now I see where you get this confusion, and I forgive you."

Will I actually ever say this golden response in a corporate email? Maybe, maybe not. But the morals of this long, winding post about delivering feedback is two-fold:

1. Assuming someone is in the position to recieve feedback is wrong.
Ask first, and start with aligning on what you heard and how it may have made you felt. 

2. Women shouldn't feel embarassed about what they don't know about their sexual health.
I do feel like my sexual education could have been better in my upbringing, but whether that is on my extremely underfunded public school or my parents/family to blame is moot point. Women need to confide in each other and have these conversations more openly so it feels normal to talk about, and not like a taboo dinner-table topic. 

So with the second point being said, my next post will focus on this procedure I have booked, and everything leading up to it. So I can hopefully provide another woman the insight, the ability to make her own decisions and of course feel as though we're not alone in navigating these issues.