Damage Control

It has been an exhausting work week. One day has been tumbling into the next with the amount of work to be done exceeding the amount of hours in the day. Today I was in meetings from 11am through 5pm. I spent almost no time in my office. Tomorrow morning I need to teach and it’s a good thing that it is something I have taught regularly, becuase I have had little time to prepare.

But the most interesting part of today has been damage control in terms of colleague drama. I am trying to decide how to handle it. I have a colleague that I generally like and get along with. However, our liaisonship can have some friction as we are dividing a college. Mix that with a concern over a new interface for one mode of incoming reference, and there tends to be a few problems.

The question I am wrestling with today is how or if I want to do damage control. This colleague has caused some drama based on an action I made. Typically, because of previous frictions, I handle this person in a certain way. I take a proactive “damage control” approach, going to them and clearing any confusion. Me being the junior of us two, and new to the institution, has made this the obvious procedure.

I’m now starting to question this tactic. First, it sets me up to be constantly going to this person every time I feel that they are getting “worked up” over something. I’m increasing unwilling to do that. I am not responsible for how they choose to react to something, and therefore I’m becoming unwilling to manage their expectations.

Contrary to that, I am concerned how this person will act toward me if I don’t do anything. I found out about this drama as a heads up from a colleague who didn’t want me to get blindsided. But there hasn’t been a phone call, nor was there an email. Previously this person has sought me out, even after a few days. I’m not sure, simply because I haven’t interacted with this person enough to determine if this will cause the issue to fester. Equally concerning will be the possibility that small incidents like this will build (regardless of conflict resolution) and eventually toxify the relationship.

For the moment I am tempted to let it lie. I have more important things to do. I did discuss this with my new department head and she will be taking her own approach to situations like this. There are other factors that don’t relate to me, but may be influencing this situation.