Rattlesnake Shake Along for the Ride

Yep, that's a rattlesnake. No, it's not AI. No, it's not Photoshop. My dad took that picture on a camping trip after walking up on a freaking rattlesnake. My dad literally took pictures of everything, even when it might have been safer not to. What's not in the picture? Myself and all of the other children that were present on the camping trip. Where am I going with this? Fear and safety. Fear and safety have just as much of a role at work as they do at home. Moments like this camping trip are where my threat sensors started to take over. 

What do I remember about this camping trip? I remember some poorly roasted marshmallows and kids that were likely way too close to the fire pit – man the eighties were different. And, I remember all the dads going to handle the rattlesnake. I grew up in the mountains, so sometimes that phrase “f*** around and find out” was just a norm. That's kind of what I remember of the dad's going to deal with the rattlesnake. That, and the fear. 

I don't really remember whether or not they trapped the snake, killed the snake, or ran off scared. The kids were kind of intentionally kept away from the snake for good reason. But, I remember thinking, if they're all afraid of this f****** thing, I should be too. And I knew that threat could be anywhere. If you're thinking no way childhood you was thinking with the f-word, it's not out of the realm of possibility. The reason it comes so easily from my tongue is because I learned it at a very young age. Thanks, Dad. 

Where does that fear and safety stuff show up now though? It shows up at home when I can't see where to safely move. It shows up as a dad when my very energetic kids do dangerous things that scare the crap out of me, which by the way is all of the time. The fear and safety stuff shows up at work too. How you might ask? Most of the time it just shows up as alertness for my surroundings, what's going on, and when I might need to take action on something to assist one of my teammates. However, it also shows up when I have to report on things and suddenly I'm that little boy again and the authority figures in the room or the f****** rattlesnake. This is why I say all of life experience kind of shows up wherever you go. Am I acting like a foolish 20 year old at work anymore? No. I've learned a lot of things to show up and do my job well. However, those parts of myself that carry things sometimes that I'm aware of and other times that I'm not, show up at the most inconvenient times. Like in the middle of a job interview or a board meeting. 

I know what I'm doing at work, I actually have a lot of confidence in my skills at this point, so much so that I don't mind making fun of my mistakes, and I'm not threatened to share all of my knowledge with the young people that will likely replace me someday. I actually think I'm a halfway decent leader some of the time. The rest of the time I openly acknowledge that the mass majority of us are just plain average acting like we're all hot s***. And, I'm no exception to that. 

When the fear and safety stuff triggers at work, it really sucks because it usually derails me. And, if you've been reading any of my stories over the course of the last year or so, you know that one of the ways I handle that is to shrink or fawn until I feel safe again. I'm trying not to be bothered as much by what people say to me, but that's been a very long work in progress. 

Some days, I reflect on an angry church mom telling me I was “the spawn of Satan” because I didn't acquiesce to their demands and I laugh about it. At the time that that actually happened, my fear and safety bells were in overdrive. I was at work, I couldn't respond to them the way that I probably would at home at that juncture in my life. I knew what they said to me was out of line and instead of standing up for myself I felt unsafe and afraid. Now, I'm not one to just completely ignore that, so I went and had a conversation with my supervisor about the best way to handle it, and I did that. 

The thing is, I don't cower in fear all the time. I don't fawn all the time. I do it when it's not safe to fight or to flight. I can't just get up and run out of a meeting when I'm feeling the pressure of the powers that be in the room. I also can't fight them because I won't do that diplomatically, I will just tell them to shut the f****** quite literally and there are consequences for that. I fawn in situations like that because it keeps me safe. It keeps my job safe. Not long ago, a really honest person, told me that I give off a “don't f*** with me” vibe. They were right and I do that on purpose. I have no patience for the playground BS that shows up at work, in meetings, and everywhere else that you're supposed to behave like an adult. 

Since most of you didn't read my recent post about my parents, I didn't really learn good professional ethics from my parents. I didn't learn much of anything about work life from my parents. I had to learn most of it the hard way. Sometimes the very hard way. To this day, I second guess doing things like sharing these stories and being this honest with you because I've learned that you're not supposed to be honest at work. You're supposed to tell people what they want to hear. Now, not to worry, I'm still pretty honest at work, and sometimes to a fault because it always makes more work for me.

What's the rattlesnake in your work life? What's the thing from your childhood that shows up at work every day and makes it harder to do what you do? That's essentially what I'm exploring here, I couldn't outrun the rattlesnake. I was the slowest person at the campsite. Good news, it would have bitten all the dads before it got to the kids because they were dumb enough to get in its face. Bad news, you can't fawn a rattlesnake. It's going to bite you if you get in its space. Fortunately, you can learn to manage fear and find the places where you feel the safest. You can also be really honest with yourself when you don't feel safe at all and when fear is an ever-present passenger in the back seat of the car that is you.