Mr Pointy

I had an odd sort of day at work - in a meeting earlier today I rather snarkily made a pointed comment to our managing director (or his boss - above a certain level in the corporate hierarchy everyone looks the same to me) about his general lack of presence and the near total absence of information provided to us about how the business is performing. I think I rather startled him, since until that point I'd been sitting quietly behind him saying little, and it seemed to derail him somewhat. Admittedly at the time he'd been preaching on what we could do to improve communication throughout the business. My point, made in a roundabout - though still pointed - fashion was he should be leading by example, which he doesn't. I can't criticise him too much, since much of what he does he's rather good at, but he's not a (forgive me the phrase) a people person. He doesn't like to talk to us directly unless it's absolutely necessary, and even his indirect communiques, courtesy of the company newsletter, betray an amazing lack of empathy towards those in his employ. He's made promises to use before to do a better job of keeping us up to date with what's happening, but the momentum typically peters out in days and things are soon the same as they ever were. Hence I felt justified picking him up on this. In a meeting. With lots of other people around.

The few seconds of uncomfortable silence that followed did give me brief pause to wonder if this was perhaps a career ending decision, but I live to fight another day.

Still, the incident made me wonder when I became this person. It's not the me I remember from times past. Not too dissimilar, but there are definite differences - slightly harder and sharper edges perhaps. Or perhaps not - I don't have a particularly objective point of view after all. That said, if I should ever happen to veer too far from whatever norms I cling to, do let me know. I should hate to change so without realising it...