See note^[1]

I have been thinking a lot about the role of power in interactions between individuals. This week, I had another work incident that once again made me think it is so much harder for me to get respect than it is for a “guy”. It is a myth that I have to work harder and be better to get to the same place a guy would get with less effort and less genius. Even if I do work harder and I am better, I don’t get to the same place.

Deconstructing it in my mind, coming out of college, I still had the world view that there were three places in the power structure: above me, me, and below me. I like things orderly. That power structure is not real. In fact, there is an intricate weave of power between what I have that you want and what you have that I want. Roadblocks to us both being pleased with the exchange include the external actions and the internal reactions we both have.

You used to tell me, Zerrius, that I should never attribute to malice that which could be incompetence. Mistakes. We all make them, but given my assumed power structure, those above me should never make mistakes and those below me should never suffer from my mistakes.

Isn’t my perfect world shiny?

It occurred to me that really, most of the people I interact with are neither above me nor below me. The power structure is not hierarchical. Instead, it is a dance where my behavior and my intent makes a difference, but just as important is the intent and behavior of my adversary. Or comrade. I can make mistakes, and I can choose to act with malfeasance or mischief. 

In short, I have more power than I think I do. It makes me less happy than I think it should.

I had to ask someone to add me to a meeting. [Internal response – that bugs me and it makes me doubt myself. If I really should be in the meeting, wouldn’t they have added me anyway?] External Behavior – Oh look! You are having a meeting I should be in. Could you add me? 

And now it gets interesting – he added me to one of the meetings, but it was a recurring meeting. Was he acting in mischief, malfeasances or did he just make a mistake? And does it matter?

After I pointed out that I didn’t get the recurring invitation, radio silence. Ergo, unlikely it was a mistake.

He pointed out the meeting was very boring, so Mischief? Malfeasance?

If I had resilience, I would be able to ignore this conundrum of what his intent was because it wouldn’t matter to me. Instead, I have persistence, so in the end I will get what I asked for. You see, I am not powerless in this relationship.

Between mischief and malfeasance, the result for the work will be the same. I will have to continue to work with him, yet these situations chip away at my commitment to the work. Each time something like this happens, my initial reaction is to withdraw from the situation. In fight or flight, I almost always want to choose flight. I almost always choose to fight. For a while. I fight until I have the strength to walk away. I do not believe in my own power. In the hierarchy I described above, I have some deep belief that I do not have the power or the authority to win. 

Even when I win.

This… this is the effect of being bullied. You can be bullied when you also have power, because the damage it does internally is lasting. And that damage, repeated over time, builds up. In me, it builds up until I change careers or quit a job or walk away from a relationship. Or decide to go back to college for a degree in engineering because there is no bias in math.

I think the complicated interactions and their affects are why it is so hard for people with resilience to understand bullying and how it is harmful. I suspect that people with this type of resilience also lack empathy. They lack the ability to look outside of what they experience and have compassion for a situation different than they experience. They do not consider the inner narratives happening on both side of the power struggle and do not acknowledge that the narrative does matter both to the battle and in the aftermath no matter which side wins.

About a month ago, I had a conversation with the person I report to at work about a meeting we were going to have with a company that is developing something for us. I said I did not like those meetings because I felt defensive and attacked. He said he never thought they were attacking me and perhaps I was hearing what they said through filters. I said, perhaps one of us was using filters, but I didn’t think it was me.

He heard me. When I get frustrated and want to walk away, which happens at least every six weeks or so, I stop and remember that he heard me. Who I am is my thing to evolve. Where I work now gives me some degrees of freedom to figure out if flight is the right endgame.

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^[1] I am not a fan of the Oxford Comma. I am also not a fan of the fact I am too lazy to figure out how to edit the HTML in word press to figure out how to add a footnote in the title.