Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I’ve heard people in meetings tell me stuff that was just pure bologna. Then I had to ask myself why I created an environment where people told me bologna instead of the truth.

I once managed a project where an engineer stood in a meeting and explained that a hardware part had been “thermal stressed.” He tried to move on from that statement quickly, but I caught it and intervened.

“Don’t you mean that it burned to a crisp?” I asked.

He admitted that is what he meant.

His statement was pure bologna. It was creative and, for a while at least, humorous.

Later, I felt badly. I was in charge. I created the environment. I was responsible for a situation where people felt the need to make up silly terms instead of telling the truth in a candid manner.

Sometimes it isn’t much fun to be in charge and to create the environment. People tend to slap you in the face, and sometimes that happens in a way that you don’t realize that they just slapped you in the face.