29 March 2015
Breaking Down Conflicts
A key skill in coding involves being able to take a large problem and break it down into smaller issues that can be more easily analyzed and solved. Though the benefits of this skill are especially useful in computer programming, it's also a skill that can be handy for analyzing personal conflicts. It's normal to feel angry and have interpersonal conflicts with others, but what's important is to be able to break down those feelings to better understand where they are coming from.
A time that I can remember being especially angry was when I first moved back home after graduating from college and began working for my father. Prior to moving back home, I never really had an especially close relationship with my dad. Of course I loved him and cared for him, but I never had the same sort of affectionate relationship with him that I did with my mother. My dad's never really been one to show affection, as that's just how he was raised, and as a result, I was always much closer with my mother. So I really wasn't sure how things would work out having him as my boss.
Initially, things were really rough. Working with my dad meant that all of a sudden he and I were around each other practically all day. Not just at work but also at home. That was something that was completely new. But more than that, working so closely together we inevitably had a ton of fights. Given that I was his son, I felt like my dad was especially hard on me, so as not to seem like he was favoring me. I felt like he was much more demanding with me than he was with others on staff and also much more critical. Often, I felt like he would yell at me and scold me for things in a way that he would never do with anyone else. I had never even heard him raise his voice at anyone else in the office, but it seemed like he and I were constantly getting into yelling matches. I felt that he was super controlling and couldn't look beyond me as his son to treat me with the respect he would any other employee. And the fact that we were father and son led to things always carrying over at home. There was no separation between our work relationship and personal relationship. I remember one day he made me so mad that rather than just going for lunch, I went on a long drive to cool my head. I've never been that upset about anything before or since.
Eventually, I realized things couldn't continue any longer. At a point when things were especially bad, I scheduled a meeting with our shared boss to discuss possibilities of remaining with the company but just working in an entirely different department. Once he found out I had scheduled that meeting, my dad was really hurt. We didn't really talk at home for a week and were pretty standoffish with one another at work. It was clear that in spite of the way I was feeling, he had always been doing what he felt would be best for me in the long run. I had never seen my dad that hurt by anything, and it made me sad to know that I could even hurt him in that way. I knew my dad loved me and he had really done a great thing for me by giving me the job in the first place. It was only my second job after college, and it permitted me a great deal of responsibility that I know I couldn't have gotten anywhere else.
It seemed to me that the biggest problem the two of us were having was communication. My dad didn't really understand what I was feeling because I had never really vocalized it to him, at least not in a calm, collected way. But also I didn't know how he was feeling. And more than that, neither of us could draw a clear distinction between our personal and work relationships. In order to repair things, I apologized to my dad for scheduling the meeting and told him that I loved him but also told him my different grievances. I told him I felt like he treated me differently than everyone else and that he was especially hard on me, in spite of me being a good worker. I also told him we needed to separate our work and home lives. At work I'd be his employee and assistant, and at home I'd be his son. And in the same way, at work he'd be my boss and at home he'd be my dad. Similarly, my dad told me that I needed to respect him more as my boss. He had over three decades of experience, but it seemed like I was always questioning him or undermining him in a way no other employee would. And I agreed he was right.
After our talk, things dramatically improved. My dad understood me much better, and I really started to thrive in my role at work. We hardly fought at all and really built a great working dynamic. An unexpected result too was that our personal relationship also began to improve. Fast-forward two years and my relationship with my dad is closer today than it's ever been before. We really understand each other much better, just as father and son, and I'm grateful to have gotten closer to my dad while I still have that opportunity. It was a life-changing move coming home, and I know I'm better for it.
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