How Taking A Psychology Major Shaped Me Into A Kind of Manager My Staffs Love (But Myself Hates)

“At times I was proud of myself for making my staffs loved the amount of time they spent in the office under my supervision. But in some of those times, I felt like it all against my personality and view on how a manager supposed to work.”
It’s just one of those days. I was sitting on my desk, watching my staffs working. Their headphones on, eyes focused on their laptops, and fingers dancing like crazy on the keyboards. There were some targets lingering on their mind. The targets our company had set and I happened to supervise how they got those targets done.
I turned from them and looked at my work journal. It’s a book contained everything my staffs and I had done and everything that happened during work hours. Something caught my eyes. I did not realized and surprised to find that those things happened almost everyday.
Almost everyday, there was a staff who’s coming late. With many kind of excuses.
I agreed to do this supervising thing, the moment my company’s CEO personally asked me. This was actually not part of my job description, but he’s lacking of options and I was available. So, there I was. I never knew that being a supervisor could turn me into some other self, that my real self actually hates.
Or was it really being a supervisor that turned me into other self?
I have a bachelor degree in psychology. A major which apparently changes my view of the world, though it took some time for me to realize. I think it shaped me to become the most understanding human being on Earth.
Whether it’s about other people having a debate on getting married or not getting married which I ended up thinking the debate wasn’t necessary since everyone has their own needs. Or as simple as when someone loves something that I extremely hate, and I end up thinking ‘okay, everyone loves something I don’t necessarily have to love as well.’
Debate done. Though things go a bit different when it comes to work life.
I looked at the excuses my staffs gave me about their lateness. Most of them are traffic problem, waking up late, family emergency, and so on. In my ideal thought of a manager or supervisor, this kind of thing should’ve been cleared easily. You can always give them penalties, punishments or other negatives for being late. Being late affected the work timeline. It supposed to be intolerable.
Yet, there I was. Saying ‘it’s okay I understand’ to every excuse they gave me.
- My staff’s father was sick and my staff had to brought him to hospital. How did I suppose to be angry at my staff for being late because of that?
- My staff got a flat tire. No mechanic shop opened at 6.30 am. So, she got to wait till around 8 to have her tire got done. Office hour starts at 8. Obviously she’s not going to make it in time for work. How can I control my staff’s vehicle to be okay all the time so it can get my staff to work on time?
- My staff didn’t hear his alarm went off. So, he’s late and I just shaking my head in disbelief, but accept his excuse anyway.
Were those three enough to tell you how shitty I was being a supervisor for them? They were okay with my acceptance. But myself was having a real fight inside. This wasn’t supposed to be like this.
I was okay at the time I said that. But at the end of the day, I was like ‘why the hell was I okay with that?’. I mean, I totally aware my staffs being late interfered a lot of work timelines, and it affected the way we wanted our targets to be done. How could I be okay with all those excuses, knowing that it damaged a lot in one day?
The fact that my company set the rules that there are no tolerable late excuses with few exceptions is maybe one thing that my staffs took advantage on. But also, the fact that I was easily saying okay to any excuses my staffs gave, was another story.
Learning psychology taught me how to understand other people’s condition. No matter how bad. This is very useful when a friend in need came to me and spoiled all his/her problems. It’s very useful when I was in ‘counselor’ mode. But I don’t think it’s a useful skill when I want to discipline my staffs.
I understand too much. And everything that is too much, is never a good thing.
Currently I am taking a break from this supervising stuff. I think, there are a lot to learn from those 3 months I spent from getting my job done by supervising other people getting their job done. One big challenge remains. I should have taken advantage of my psychology major to understand them as an employee. As an asset my company can count on. Not as a human being who thinks that being late is okay and they are always tolerated.
Apparently, this challenge is not just about me learning how to discipline other people, but also, how to discipline myself to be able to say ‘no, it’s not okay’.
