Rebel Yell II

Trey Smith

(Did you miss Part I? This post might make more sense if you read it first!)

I really lucked out in my first professional job as a social worker. The County Administrator (John Bullock was his name) was the perfect boss for me. I never understood why most of my colleagues didn't like him; I thought he was kind, fair and even-handed.

The aspect of Mr. Bullock that meant the world to me was that he explained his decisions. He also allowed staff members to disagree! Of course, as the boss, he made the final decision and he didn't always agree with staff recommendations.

I can live with decisions that go against my thinking or recommendations when the reasons are given. I realize that I'm not always correct in my analyses. I realize that there are many times when a different strategy might work better than the one I favor. This is not to suggest that I'm overjoyed when my recommendations don't hold sway, but, more often than not, I can accept it.

If I had remained in Monticello, Arkansas, under the tutelage of John Bullock, I'm guessing my life would have turned out far differently. Unfortunately, I made an ill-advised decision to transfer to Berryville, Arkansas, because I wanted to live in the Ozark Mountains. It will go down as one of the stupidest decisions I've ever made.

I transferred to an office that was run by a dictatorial bitch! She didn't just make unilateral decisions; she issued edicts. Underlings were not to question her edicts -- we were to implement them without comment. This was a recipe for disaster for a freethinker like yours truly.

We butted heads frequently. If she rendered an edict that I thought was ill-advised -- and I thought almost all of them were -- I'd march down to her office for an explanation. This absolutely enraged her because, as she often told me, she didn't have to explain herself to a peon like me.

Without a rationale for her latest edict, I usually didn't follow them. I did what I thought was in the best interests of each client and my open deviance generally led to disciplinary conferences in which my supervisor would berate me for defying her. It made for a toxic environment.

The last straw -- only 11 months into my tenure -- came when I openly contradicted her at a multi-county conference for a specific client family. She laid out her proposed strategy to help them (a plan she had not discussed with me, the caseworker, prior to the meeting) and, when the regional manager asked if I agreed, I said not at all. In painstaking detail, I discussed WHY I thought my supervisor's plan was imbecilic and offered a divergent alternative. To make matters worse, the group adopted the plan I had pitched.

When the other participants had left, my supervisor tore me a new asshole. She told me in no uncertain terms that I would never embarrass her like that again. When I didn't jump up to say, "Yes, ma'am," she gave me a choice: resign (due to an injury I had suffered on the job) or be fired for insubordination. I chose resignation.

While no other job I've held was that toxic, a few came close. When I worked at offices with supervisors who allowed for vigorous discussion and explained the reasoning behind their decisions, I tended to get along fairly well. When I worked at offices in which robust discussion was frowned upon and decisions were not explained -- the majority of places I worked -- I didn't get along at all.

In looking back, there is no question that I could have handled many of the conflicts in a more civil manner -- I sometimes was a real "hot head" -- but I think the conflicts would have occurred anyhow.

This represents one of the banes of being a freethinker. You don't jump simply because someone else tells you to do it -- even when jumping might well save you from a fall. It's a good thing I never joined the military. I would have made a terrible soldier!!