Disappointing Response
Jan. 28th, 2006 08:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosYesterday 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?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 05:15 pm (UTC)Just my two cents.
Chantal
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 05:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 06:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 06:24 pm (UTC)Imagine you lived in Kansas and how you would feel if most of the population was conservative, and you were the one in the minority.
I'm not saying you were wrong to say what you had to say. From the way you described the initial incident, it sounded like he was probably out of line in a work environment.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 06:34 pm (UTC)I have been in social situations where people who share my liberal views have expressed them with the kind of vehemence and disguist that this manager expresses conservative ones, and it's made me uncomfortable when my conservative friends are present. I haven't run into the situation in a workplace before.
I'd like to think that I would have spoken up in that case as well, but this incident has made it more likely that I would have. I believe in fairness. If this kind of speech is inappropriate for the workplace, then it's the kind of speaking that's the issue, not the particular beliefs behind it.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 07:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 06:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 06:29 pm (UTC)You've got a lot of integrity.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 06:35 pm (UTC)The Predator Comment
Date: 2006-01-28 09:13 pm (UTC)http://www.glaad.org/action/alerts_detail.php?id=3849&PHPSESSID=6c8007d0e288235466524732ed8c045b
http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid24216.asp
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 10:20 pm (UTC)What is worse, when these people get into positions of power, they feel it is their duty to manage from their values. I've seen it first hand. I worked in an office where we had someone so incompetent that she cost us significant money just fixing the stuff she broke from her incompetence. She made scheduling a bitch, as no one wanted to work work around her because of the hateful things she said about gays and liberals. The first time she offended someone, a manager tried to council her to keep her beliefs out of the workplace. Next thing we know, the division manger is telling that manager to show more tolerance for her beliefs, and he'll advise her to be more discrete. That was when we learned that the religious nut-job had learned of the job at church, from the division manager. Finally, someone went to HR, and filed a formal complaint against them both. It was a much nicer place without them.
Homophobia has no place in the workplace. Neither does someone's religious beliefs. You have brought brought it to his attention, and he does not see anything wrong with it. You should advise the person who e-mailed you to go to HR immediately and file a complaint, and you should do so yourself. This manager is a threat to anyone who holds different beliefs.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 02:15 am (UTC)On the bright side, no one changes their views overnight. I think it's a multi-step process that happens by degrees, and you may be one of many people who speak with him and eventually help him to at least see that there are a variety of opinions on the subject, and to be able to listen and tolerate, if not entirely accept.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 05:31 am (UTC)In my eyes, A Good Manager-Type would have thought about what you said and how it affected his team's comfort level (the work environment is, after all, related to productivity, employee welfare in general, etc.) and probably decided that it was best not to mix politics and work. Ideally, he would have thanked you, and apologized to the team (with the caveat that the apology was for making them uncomfortable, not for the belief itself).
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 05:39 am (UTC)He disappointed me.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 06:21 am (UTC)No one know what might have happened, but whatever happened, however he would have chosen to respond, I still think you were completely right to speak to him about his behavior; it is inappropriate in the workplace, religious beliefs or not.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 03:53 pm (UTC)You did the right thing
Date: 2006-01-29 05:39 pm (UTC)Re: You did the right thing
Date: 2006-01-29 06:18 pm (UTC)Thank you.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 12:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-30 03:44 pm (UTC)No matter what I am proud of you and inspired by your story.