Body Blow, Body Blow

The last two days have been ‘interesting’. They have not been bad, just long, draining and frustrating. I have been trying to clear all my open tasks before I leave for a short vacation, so there was a lot to do.

Right now I am supporting three projects that are active, plus one that is under customer review. One of the others requires a lot of prep time and institutional knowledge, that only I have, so while this is supposed to be the one with the smallest allocation of my time, it has turned into the exact opposite.

The are where the frustration comes in had been the last two days of meetings. In that time I have run three meetings for the project, two internal with my team and one with the customer. The one with the customer was with a group that I had trouble reaching, from the very start I could tell it was going to be rough. Several people I the group sat with their arms crossed, a sign of being closed off and aggressive. As the meeting progressed, you could tell that the standard interpretation of that body language was accurate.

The other two meetings were the bigger ‘issue’, they both came across as bordering on direct and personal attacks against one of my teammates and I. The word frustrating also comes screaming to mind. At one point, one of the people in the meeting walked out and slammed the door behind him. That whole meeting, I had to keep repeating to myself “It’s not personal, it’s not personal”. It was that rough a meeting.

It just seemed like blow after blow.

Ugh.