January 4, 2012
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An Apology To Tina
Dear Tina,
Four and a half years ago I was your supervisor at a major college university. I was 25 and it was the first time I had ever been someone’s boss. Making sure someone’s timecard is signed, sealed, and delivered on time was a new experience for me. The year was 2007 and I was still pretty green in my new position. I can honestly say that I was not ready for the additional responsibility of being someone’s supervisor. The only experience I had being responsible for someone else was the fact that I’m the oldest of three brothers(by 6 and 10 years respectively). That’s it. No real training to draw from except some of the typical ‘don’t sleep with your subordinates’ type of stuff that would get me fired. So Tina, you came along more or less against my wishes and, to this day, I wonder if I was a good boss.
A lot of 2007 for me doesn’t make sense due to the mental illness that was developing inside my mind. There were many things I believed about myself and others that, to this day, I still struggle to discard. For instance, I’m a little paranoid that you or your uncle found my Xanga page here and still ‘keep tabs’ on me somehow. I just can’t shake that belief. I know it’s all in my mind, but I can’t shake it. So I’m writing you this letter with the belief that someday soon you’ll check my page to see what “my old supervisor Dan is up to” and see this note. Yes I’ve changed the names of the people involved in order to protect myself, but if you see this, you’ll know I’m talking about you.
Do you remember that day in August when you told me to talk to your uncle about the formatting issue and pretty much played the ‘UNCLE’ card? Yeah that ticked me off something fierce and I knew immediately that I couldn’t let you get away with that, especially since you did that in front of a handful of other people. The other reason I couldn’t let you get away with it is because I had to show you I respected you enough to come down on you for making that little snafu. You did that over the phone, but I let it go for the moment and thought things over for about a half hour before I left my building and rode the bus to yours. I’m just not very good in social situations so the whole ride there I was thinking about what I was going to say and how I was going to say it.
Well Tina, I’ve gone over this incident a number of times over the past four years because I just don’t know whether I handled it properly. And I don’t mean coming down on you, what I mean is when Raquel made her snide little comment, “You’re going to be fired” in her sing-song manner. The timing of when she did that threw me off, but I adjusted by simply saying, “Not quite”. I did that not necessarily to answer her, but to let you know that I wasn’t going to fire you. Yeah you knew that I was going to give you a talk, but no, you weren’t going to be fired for what was a simple mistake. I had your back, but I still feel today that I owe you an apology for not showing everyone in that room that I had your back.
When I think about what a great boss would have done I think about Jack McCoy from Law & Order when he was the District Attorney. So I’m going to pretend that I was a boss more like him and tell you what I would do now that I should have done then. Tina, if you remember the layout of the room when I said, “Tina can I talk to you?” it took you a few seconds to come around the left side of the desk around to where the three other desks were sitting in the middle of the room. Raquel was sitting in the chair closest to the elevator when she made her comment. You weren’t quite around your desk yet and I was standing in the aisleway in between your desk and the three others. What I should have done instead of saying, “Not quite” is hold up my left arm palm outwards to halt you once you got around the desk. Then I would have held up my index finger indicating, “just one minute”. At this moment I would be facing Raquel. My back would be straight and my eyes would be set on Raquel and I would have said, “Raquel, Tina is an excellent employee who has been with us for four months. She’s done everything I’ve asked of her despite her busy schedule outside of this office. I do not fire people for making one mistake. And yes, she made a mistake and she knows it, but your snide remark is not appreciated. Do you understand? I have Tina’s back and will continue to have her back in the future. Period.” Then I would have put my arm down and proceeded to lead you into the other room and I would not change a word of our discussion in there.
In my mind, I was a good boss for respecting you enough to come down on you for your mistake. We all make them. In my mind, I handled our discussion properly and was a good boss in doing so. My apology is simply for not handling Raquel in the proper manner. I should have, but I didn’t. So Tina, I’m sorry I wasn’t a great boss to you. You may be asking yourself why am I bringing this up four and a half years later. Well, that may be the only time I get to establish myself as a great boss. My illness precludes me from working anymore and even if I did there’s no way they’d let someone like me supervise anyone else. So that one incident involving you has stuck in my mind as the one and only time I’ll ever get to find out what kind of supervisor I would have been.
In a way, I hope my paranoia is wrong and you never see this, but if you do I hope you know that I respected you and had your back.
Your old boss,
Dan
