Sans Fig Leaf
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"Get over..."
20 September, 2007
I was involved in a
project where the person in charge screwed up in a rather major way.
Feelings were hurt and several people had to scramble to fix things. In
the middle of the scrambling, the in-charge person got into a bit of a
dust-up with one of the folks helping out. The words, "I said I was
sorry! Can't you get over it and move on?" were said in anger. Which
didn't make anyone feel very motivated to finish pulling anyone else's
fat out of the fire.
After the crisis had been dealt with, the project still needed to be
wrapped up. Some of that wrap-up involved setting things up for the
next project. Again, the big screw-up was mentioned, and the in-charge
person didn't handle it very well. The words "Get over it!" were used
once more.
Not long after, I was involved in another project altogether, with
different people and under different circumstances. Yet things went bad
in a similar way. The primary difference was that in the second
project, I wasn't the jerk telling other people to get over it.
I like to think of the second incident as karma in action.
In the decades since, I've
never learned the secret of how to completely avoid making mistakes,
but I like to think I've gotten better at handling the consequences of
those mistakes. One epiphany I had when I was on the receiving end of
an angry "Get over it" is that just because something happened in the
past doesn't mean it's over and done. Setting aside any emotional or
trust issues, the physical and logistic consequences can last a long
time.
Most people know that while you are frantically engaged in fixing a
problem, it isn't over. What they don't always realize is that as long
as anyone is still cleaning up the aftermath of a problem, it isn't
over. If the time and energy expended fixing and cleaning up after a
problem leaves you short of resources for the next project, then the
problem still isn't over. If you are in a subsequent project and people
seem to be repeating the previous mistake, then the problem most
definitely isn't over and done and gone.
As I said, that's just the logistics. Emotionally, people will be
(justifiably) less likely to trust someone who has caused them pain or
difficulty. It doesn't matter if the pain or difficulty was
intentional. Also, unintentional trouble that is not acknowledged, or
is dismissed as unimportant, will make people even less likely to trust.
Another lesson I learned
from these incidents was that two reasonable people can look at (or be
in) the same situation, and perceive it in very different ways. For
instance, I knew that I had screwed up. I knew how I had screwed up. I
knew what it was going to take to work around the problem. I had
apologized and had committed to doing everything necessary to fix the
situation.
The others involved knew
that I had screwed up. They heard me say I knew how to fix it and that
I would. But that's not the same thing as knowing that I really meant
it, or being sure that I was correct about what it would take to fix
things. They had every reason to doubt. Since I'd already made one
major mistake, I could just as easily make more, right? So while I was
ready to move on--confident that I could see the light at the end of
the tunnel and we were nearly there--they weren't so sure the light
wasn't a train speeding right at us.
That's not the only way
that a problem can appear to be over from one person's perspective, but
not to others. If I've left the organization, for instance, I have no
idea what lingering difficulties remain for folks still involved. Just
as if you were never directly involved, you may not see how
far-reaching the aftereffects may be.
When explained this way: a
specific person doing something which caused many headaches for other
people, it's easy to see why "Get over it" isn't a productive thing to
say.
It's just as unproductive when talking about larger, systemic problems,
where there may not be a specific person to blame. Yet people continue
to do that whenever certain topics come up. Civil rights laws have been
passed, so discrimination must be over and done, they say. Never mind
statistics that show disparities in pay, promotions, and lay-offs.
Never mind the many studies where otherwise identical resumes (some
with an "ethnic sounding" name, others not) are sent to hundreds of
companies, and the ethnic-sounding names are 5 fives less likely to
receive a follow-up. Many people think members of certain minorities
need to "get over it" about workplace discrimination.
They react similarly with
statistics about pay, promotion, and lay-off disparities between women
with children and men with children (which is even more startling than
the statistical disparities between women and men in the workplace in
general). Again many people think women, and specifically mothers, need
to "get over it." And so on, with other groups I could name.
To be fair, no matter how
real a problem is, simply complaining about it isn't always productive,
either. It's true that other people involved have to be made aware that
a problem exists if they're going to help with the solution. For
certain long-term intractible situations, a reminder of the problem on
an on-going basis can keep us moving toward a solution. But merely
complaining, or dwelling on earlier instances of the problem to the
exclusion of moving forward is going to frustrate the people who are
trying to help us. Which is why they feel justified urging us to "get
over it."
When I feel the urge to
say that to someone, I try to remind myself that just because I think
they're beating a dead horse doesn't mean that there isn't still a
legitimate problem. So instead I channel the "get over it" urge in a
more productive direction: "How can I help?"
--Will Rogers
.