What Part Of "The CEO Wants YOU To Do It" Did You Not Understand?

Maybe not cancelling the blog is a good thing given the theraputic value it has provided in venting about my work situation. I'll try to do more non-work posts but for now, please bear with me. To help through this, I've changed my workout routines with the trainer so I can do a boxing class Tuesday and Thursday night so I can kick some ass.

Anyhoo, yesterday I got an internal instant message from Frick (of the Frick and Frack Duo). Previously he had been asked by the CEO (who funneled the message through me) to do a search for pictures for our new marketing campaign and to contact his clients accordingly to get what we needed. He begged off of doing it and asked me to do it since he has to make X amount of calls, blah blah blah. Now, I'm trying to be a team player. I'm trying to keep the boat from rocking too much and help out as much as I can. So I did some work on it and got some pictures back in from one client. They were great pics but not what the CEO wanted. I started to look for more pics but realized that I was falling into the trap again and needed to end this now before it went farther and I wound up doing the work that he and everyone else are supposed to be doing.

I went into the CEO's office and asked if I could speaking candidly (actually "blunt" was the word I used). He said yes and I politely told him that if he wanted Frick to get the pictures from his clients, he would have to ask Frick personally since he was trying to push it back on me to do when I conveyed the original message. The CEO asked what was going on and I opted to close the door to his office so we could speak privately I told him that I didn't feel that Frick respected me in my new position (even though I'm not his superior) and that the requests that were being made by the CEO were going ignored or pushed back on me because the request was being made by me and not the CEO. I let him know of the situation I had with Frack and how I handled that which met with the CEO's satisfaction. Interesting to note, CEO told me that if Frack had a problem with it, he shouldn't have called back and "begged" (CEO's word not mine) for his job back after turning it down when it was offered to him the first time.

Let's put it to you this way, CEO wasn't going to have it at all and I didn't want to cause a stir and be thought of as the guy who goes running to tattle to the CEO when things go this way. However, I also know that if I didn't put my foot down at some point, I was just going to be a walking doormat. CEO even noted that there's a nice revolving door in the sales area because there people who can't hack it and people who can't seem to get a grip on things. I'm not saying that he was threatening their jobs if I don't get treated better, but I do believe that he was making note of the fact that they are very close to our former boss and they needto accept the fact that he no longer works there and there is a new "regime" that they are working under. To put it even better, as someone told me, there will always be someone else who is willing to do your job and do it for less money.

As I left the office I popped my head next door into the office of the colleague who has supported me through this transition and I talked him into getting Starbucks. Right as I did that, CEO called in Frick to his office and I could hear him basically telling him that it was HIS responsibility to make the phone calls and get the materials we need. I don't know if he went into the other "respect" part that we talked about but I can only assume that he did. Frick didn't talk to me for the rest of the day (not that he does that much to begin with) and I pretty much avoided him.

The thing is, I know that I had to take this step in order for things to get better -- if they even can. However, the onus is really on them to make the changes because I'm only about 5 degrees from formally bending over and taking it up the ass without the benefit of lube.