authority

In the Top Ten Things I Won’t Miss at My Job, I present #7: Authority.

I’ve always had problems with authority - I’m one of those people that, if I were ever thrown into women’s prison for a month or two for some minor offense, would keep getting myself into trouble to the point where I was in solitary confinement with a life sentence without parole. I wouldn’t necessary shiv people because I wanted to, but because someone with a uniform on told me not to.

Now, I understand that this is my problem and than respecting people who are older and wiser and smarter than me is generally a good and wise thing. However, I can’t help but notice that the structures of authority in places like offices are often… not accurate.

Or, to be more exact, I hate when people wield their authority in the wrong ways or use it too often as an excuse to treat people badly. My good boss (one of the few things I’ll miss about my job) treats everyone in the office the same, from the mail guy to the president. She asks peoples opinions, thinks about how projects or assignments affect each person, and thanks people when they do things for her, even if doing those things are part of their job. In short, she earns people’s respect. I’m more than happy to do a good job for her and go out of my way for her.

On the other hand, other people in the office seem to think that their title or corner office entitles them to treat me like I’m some other species - because I’m assistant I have to be dumber than him, to have fewer aspirations, to not deserve the things that they have. There seems to be these ideas that assistants have to be babysat, that they can’t be trusted with anything, that their math has to be checked, that their opinions don’t mean anything. They never seem to stop and think that maybe I’m simply in different circumstance they are.

These things drive me crazy on a daily basis - taking comfort in the fact that over the last year I’ve secretly been building up my own business has been the only way to suppress my outbursts. It’s such a small difference: between being told to do something and being asked. Between being part of a hierarchy and being part of a team.

In freelancing, even though you’re still working for someone, there’s an immediate built-in respect on both sides: I am providing them with a service that they can’t do themselves, and they are providing me with work. Going into the first meeting with a client means an equal exchange of information: they tell me about their company, and I tell them about the best ways to express their ideas and products with words. And the best part is, if they don’t like my stuff they won’t ask me to do another project and if I don’t like working with them, I won’t accept another project.

In the end, though, I can’t tell you how awesome it was to have this conversation with my least favorite authority figure yesterday:

“So I heard you’re leaving us. What company are you going to?”

“I’ve actually started my own business.”

“You’re what?”

“It’s going to be way more awesome than this company.”