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Disappointing Response
Jan. 28th, 2006 08:29 amYesterday I finally had enough time at work to seek out the manager I wrote about last week -- the one whose comments about Brokeback Mountain had prompted me to speak up during the lunch gathering -- and offer him feedback about the incident.
I had been feeling far more nervous about this than I had about speaking up in the moment. So on Thursday, when Jeannie and I had some unexpected free time together, I told her about the incident (no names, no details that would enable her to know which manager or which team), and asked her if she felt a personal, private conversation was warranted, or if I should let it go. Especially since a week had elapsed, and ideally feedback is supposed to be prompt after an incident. I told her that I felt comfortable talking to the person.
She told me that if I did feel comfortable, that I would be "doing him a favor" by saying something. She too made a distinction between personal beliefs and how they are expressed in the workplace, and shared her experience of having to speak to someone in one of our centers twice because of the way in which he expressed his religious and political beliefs.
Encouraged by her feedback to me, I decided to gather my courage and go do it. I felt my stress level rising as I walked to the far corner of the floor, and when I realized it, I detoured into an alcove to stop and pray and collect myself. The last thing I wanted was for the encounter to be complicated by stress in my voice. Or to come across as judgemental or defensive.
The manager had no problem joining me in a side room, and he listened quietly when I described what I had heard, how it had made me feel, and the fact that someone from his team had emailed me to thank me because they had not felt comfortable talking to him about the way he expressed himself.
I had expected gratitude from this person -- not happiness, of course, but appreciation for hearing that their words and attitude had had reactions that they were not aware of.
I had not reckoned with the intensity of his views. Not just about homosexuality, but about what's going on in American culture right now. I found myself in front of someone who takes seriously the idea of a vast left-wing conspiracy, who is appalled at how people speak about "our President," and who believes that Hollywood movies are forcing beliefs and values contrary to traditional American values onto people like him. He also claims that one of the characters in Brokeback Mountain is a predator, forcing the other, more ambivalent character, and pursuing him for years. (I haven't seen the movie, but this is the first I've heard of the one character being described as a 'predator'.)
He also told me that there are other people on his team who enjoy expressing their own radical views that are opposite of his own, and tweaking him with them, and that it's part of the culture of his team to say things like he did, from a variety of personal perspectives.
The bottom line is that he is someone who feels that we are in the midst of a cultural war, and he feels persecuted by the forces of political correctness and those who use 'diversity' as an excuse for tearing down traditional American values.
Sitting across from him, listening to him tell me these things, hearing the passion in his voice -- although, to his credit, I never felt like he was attacking me -- was an almost dream-like experience. I quickly concluded that there was nothing more for me to say of substance. Expressing my own, entirely opposite views, would not be constructive. He had made clear that he felt these issues were so important, and his team used to expressing views emphatically, that he was not going to apologize for or change the behavior I had challenged, and I did not have the authority or the desire to insist on it.
After the encounter I regretted speaking up at all. I felt like I had jeopordized what had been a good working relationship with no positive result. Later, I realized that if I hadn't spoken up, I would have felt myself a coward, and that my own integrity would have been compromised. This is a manager who is moving to another team now, working in another building, so we would not have had an ongoing working relationship anyway -- but I wonder what would have happened if that were not the case. Would he have held this against me? Or me him?
I had been feeling far more nervous about this than I had about speaking up in the moment. So on Thursday, when Jeannie and I had some unexpected free time together, I told her about the incident (no names, no details that would enable her to know which manager or which team), and asked her if she felt a personal, private conversation was warranted, or if I should let it go. Especially since a week had elapsed, and ideally feedback is supposed to be prompt after an incident. I told her that I felt comfortable talking to the person.
She told me that if I did feel comfortable, that I would be "doing him a favor" by saying something. She too made a distinction between personal beliefs and how they are expressed in the workplace, and shared her experience of having to speak to someone in one of our centers twice because of the way in which he expressed his religious and political beliefs.
Encouraged by her feedback to me, I decided to gather my courage and go do it. I felt my stress level rising as I walked to the far corner of the floor, and when I realized it, I detoured into an alcove to stop and pray and collect myself. The last thing I wanted was for the encounter to be complicated by stress in my voice. Or to come across as judgemental or defensive.
The manager had no problem joining me in a side room, and he listened quietly when I described what I had heard, how it had made me feel, and the fact that someone from his team had emailed me to thank me because they had not felt comfortable talking to him about the way he expressed himself.
I had expected gratitude from this person -- not happiness, of course, but appreciation for hearing that their words and attitude had had reactions that they were not aware of.
I had not reckoned with the intensity of his views. Not just about homosexuality, but about what's going on in American culture right now. I found myself in front of someone who takes seriously the idea of a vast left-wing conspiracy, who is appalled at how people speak about "our President," and who believes that Hollywood movies are forcing beliefs and values contrary to traditional American values onto people like him. He also claims that one of the characters in Brokeback Mountain is a predator, forcing the other, more ambivalent character, and pursuing him for years. (I haven't seen the movie, but this is the first I've heard of the one character being described as a 'predator'.)
He also told me that there are other people on his team who enjoy expressing their own radical views that are opposite of his own, and tweaking him with them, and that it's part of the culture of his team to say things like he did, from a variety of personal perspectives.
The bottom line is that he is someone who feels that we are in the midst of a cultural war, and he feels persecuted by the forces of political correctness and those who use 'diversity' as an excuse for tearing down traditional American values.
Sitting across from him, listening to him tell me these things, hearing the passion in his voice -- although, to his credit, I never felt like he was attacking me -- was an almost dream-like experience. I quickly concluded that there was nothing more for me to say of substance. Expressing my own, entirely opposite views, would not be constructive. He had made clear that he felt these issues were so important, and his team used to expressing views emphatically, that he was not going to apologize for or change the behavior I had challenged, and I did not have the authority or the desire to insist on it.
After the encounter I regretted speaking up at all. I felt like I had jeopordized what had been a good working relationship with no positive result. Later, I realized that if I hadn't spoken up, I would have felt myself a coward, and that my own integrity would have been compromised. This is a manager who is moving to another team now, working in another building, so we would not have had an ongoing working relationship anyway -- but I wonder what would have happened if that were not the case. Would he have held this against me? Or me him?
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