I Get Yelled At Sometimes

I am an academic administrator at a small university, so I get to interact with other adults from a power position. You would think that the power associated with academia would minimize overt hostility aimed in my direction. After all, at least in theory, I could delay graduation or reduce a grade point average.

Actually, I get yelled at sometimes, and I don't think the power associated by some with my position allows me to get away with much.

Now, this is one of those situations in which I need to be clear, more clear than usual, that I'm sharing my perceptions and others might think I'm entirely off-base. So be it. I think I'm a decent guy. I try to remain fair and share leadership. I know I won't be able to keep people happy all the time, but the frequency of pure and unadulterated anger is fairly small in my department. Still, this week my peace-keeping average took serious hits.

I arrived at work Monday morning and, by nine, three different student issues had emerged. Then another department's chair sent me a freak-out e-mail about a "recent and unannounced change" in course requirements. I later discovered the pertinent policies on the courses were put in place in 2002. After lunch one of my colleagues ripped me a new asshole over program development. I lost my cool. I have only lost my cool twice in my career.

I will leave the details of the scenarios vague for legal and personal reasons. They're really not the point, anyway. Cognitive dissonance, and how one grows to approach it better over time, is the point. I stand in front of students, week after week, and I tell them it's ok if they're insecure about their performance. I say that part of growth is going out in the darkness and getting accustomed to "not knowing". I reassure my students that they will, at different points in their careers, doubt themselves. They will be well served, I implore, if they develop a strong belief system on which they can rely when they hit the inevitable roadblocks.

I am an arrogant, full of shit pansy. When I encounter the same challenges about which I'm sermonizing, when my ego plays chicken with the outside world, I'm as scared and shaken as the next guy.

I know I've done the reading and mental preparation to put me in a place where I should be able to deal with tense scenarios relatively unscathed. I deal with these scenarios much better than I did even four or five years ago. There's no substitute for getting your feet in the fire, as an administrator, and, well, having people yell at you. You can't get accustomed to open hostility until you face it in the same way that you can't get past the intimidation of Randy Johnson's fastball until you get in the batter's box. Had I encountered a day like yesterday even a few years back, I would probably still be in bed with the lights off and the covers pulled over my head. A professor of mine once said, "If you can't handle everyone in the building hating you all at once, you probably shouldn't become an administrator." Not only do I agree with that statement, I've shared it in my classes many times. But, you know, I'm not sure if I will ever reach that point where someone is in my face, screaming, and I can remove myself and cooly defuse the scenario. Another professor once said, "Nobody, ten minutes after losing it, says, 'I'm really glad I lost my cool on that person'". I suppose some might be okay with a big issue emerging out of hiding, a clearing of the air through a screaming match, but I doubt the players come out overtly happy. Maybe I'm wrong.

How does the Dalai Lama stay so calm? Does he get yelled at a lot? Is the image of the calm hero in the face of the verbal storm sort of the white-collar version of a stoic gunslinger? Am I shooting for an ideal that doesn't exist? Is the image of the serene, magnetic leader an airbrushed centerfold?

Ultimately, do I have the balls and self-possession to hang tough through these incidents? I think I do. Circumstances may dictate otherwise. I believe you have to 1) be consistent, 2) act differently around different people. What the hell does that mean? I think my character has to stay consistent while I interact differently with different people. Obviously, I'm talking out of my ass again if I'm trying to sound like I have the nuances of human interaction nailed. I'm still working on figuring out what words to say and even with which people I should speak about what. There's an interesting tension in my department in that I believe some of my colleagues actually like it when I play the tough guy role. While some of my students and colleagues think I'm the universe's biggest asshole, others think I'm too easy on people. Try to work that one out in your head, people.

I'd like to blame blowouts and bad days on others' fears and insecurities. I'd like to think they attack me because they're afraid of change or insecure about something in their own lives. I'd like to spout off the cliches about the tough roads change agents face, etc., but none of those really help me in the middle of the night when I'm replaying the scripts of a verbal asshole-tearing over and over again in my head while I should be sleeping. I guess what I've learned from this scenario, and I can articulate better than in the past, is that, before I get to the point where I learn from these scenarios, I still have to feel the pain. Who said I wasn't going to feel that pain? I tell my students all the time they should expect the pain and stand tall through the long hours of self-doubt and flagellation.

I know I'm getting better at passing through cognitive dissonance because the "incident/recovery" window is shortening. In other words, I reached a basic recovery state from this incident in a day or so, whereas earlier in my career I would have needed a week. The day after a bad day is usually decent. I'll have to remind my students.