I don’t know what it is, but apparently, some people think they can stop by my workplace, unannounced, and expect me to stop working to deal with their political issue du jour.
Today’s particular situation went like this:
Developer: Is Brenda here?
TRC Staffer: May I tell her who’s here?
Staffer comes to my office . . .
TRC Staffer: So-and-so is here to see you.
BK: Sigh . . . tell him he needs an appointment and if this is a political matter it is not appropriate to interrupt me at work. He knows this, I’ve told him multiple times.
TRC Staffer is hesitant . . .
BK: I’m sorry, but he needs an appointment and I’m pretty sure it’s political.
TRC Staffer: I understand . . . I’ll tell him.
Staff goes back out there to deliver the news . . . and she does so very respectfully . . .
Developer: Can you make copies of this for me and give them to her?
TRC staffer very politely makes copies for the developer . . .
BK gets irritated that TRC resources are used to make copies for the developer and that the staff has been put in this very awkward situation and instead of answering calls of tenants and landlords who need help, TRC staffer is playing private secretary to developer.
Now, to be fair, it is not just developers that do this to me, but they tend to make up a bigger share of the non-appointment political interruptions at my workplace. All I’m asking is for folks to think a little bit about what they are expecting. If I stopped by your workplace unannounced and expected you to stop working and deal with some political issue, how would your boss respond? You can bet there are a fair amount of people in town who would get fired for this type of thing if it was a repeated activity. And could you imagine if the person interrupting you wanted to use the business copier and staff time to make personal copies?
It’s true, I work in a very community oriented organization in a very community oriented building. People stop by and say hello from time to time because that is the nature of the kind of place I work, but if you have political business with me, please . . . either make prior arrangements with me so I can take time off from the workday or wait until after business hours. I, and my staff, have jobs to do. And it doesn’t include free copying services to people with political business with me. I don’t mean to be cranky about this, but please, respect my workplace. Email me, call my cell phone, stop me before or after a public meeting, but leave my workplace alone.
