(R)Evolution of (Im)Proper Practices

When a company or organization is growing, the leaders of the group usually is forced to play it by ear, making up processes and et cetera as they go along. This is completely understandable. Instructions often change, practices evolve, and point people shift as responsibilities are moved around. Also understandable.

However, it's one thing to move forward, rethink things, and change the methods by which tasks are done, and informing the people involved as the system is revamped; it's a whole other to do it and expect your employees or colleagues to just intuitively know that something subtle is different today in the way your coworker or supervisor is doing a small everyday task.

I don't have ESP. When I get told to do something and that steps one, two, and three must be followed in XYZ format, I do it. I get it right and then I do it again. And again. And again. That's how workflow and proper guidelines for completing a task are established. But if the person above you decides suddenly that way is inefficient and changes the way it's done, you can't be expected to know without being told, entrenched in your own responsibilities as it were, what tiny difference is now the new ground rule for taking care of that task. I mean, if no one TELLS you anything, how do you know???

Well, this is the problem I'm having. Time and time again, I'm being told many months after the fact that the way I'm doing things is outdated. I'm left out of the meetings where these miniscule details are discussed, and then am forced to shoulder the blame as to why I'm still doing things the old way. Or better yet, that I made up this method and got it out of the blue, since "no one ever" did it this old way.

It's extremely frustrating to be told you're in the wrong when you know you're not. How is it doing something wrong if you're still following instructions you were given that no one had anything to say about for months? How can it be an error on your part if you were never told that the rules you were given were superceded by a new law? And how can you avoid being kind of pissed when you're told that you made up the instructions that you were previously given?!

Anyone that knows me knows that I'm the last person to be shy of asking questions. If I don't understand something, I'll be the first one to raise my hand and the first one to ask for details and examples. So it's absolutely impossible, based on my nature, for me to be running around "making up" processes. It's even more impossible that I'm just creating my own guidelines when I remember specifics of the conversation that established the practices I'd been following, even if I don't remember exactly who I was talking to (names and faces all blur together for me ...).

It's insulting. It's offensive to my intelligence to make any kind of inference that I got my instructions out of nowhere. It's frustrating to not be able to say that since the person making that inference ranks above you. And you know what? It's not efficient to just assume people will pick up on the little different ways you do things when the topic at hand never overlaps since said superior's work on the task happens AFTER your own. That almost gives me the right to say, "Well, didn't you notice that I've been doing it this way, since my work happens before yours?"

I'm just a little annoyed right now because this is a situation that has happened over and over again, and it annoys me that I'm annoyed or have to be annoyed at all, since I also happen to LIKE my bosses as people. A huge internal conflict; I know. But this fatal flaw is going to force me into defending myself in a way that is actually counterproductive to that like, and screw me over. And it makes me nervous that one day, I'm going to have to fight that losing battle and say, "No. You're wrong. I can't read minds, so you're wrong and it's not my fault."