Nothing I Love More than a Good Challenge!

I always hoped that someday I'd become a full-fledged adult who behaves like a full-fledged adult. No meltdowns, no whining, no crying, no throwing little fits, no breaking into a sweat and running away every time something doesn't go my way. Alas, it seems I have a ways to go.

Obviously this means that being my spouse can be hell on earth frustrating. Being my child isn't easy-breezy either. Close friends, too, have seen the ugly side. And I'm okay with exposing those I love to the real me. It's in the workplace that I really wish I had better control of my reactions to the down parts of life's ups and downs. When I imagine powerful, professional women who have successful careers, I see no resemblance between them and me. Sheryl Sandberg may tell me to "Lean In," but when the going gets tough, I lean so far out that I can touch the street from my third floor office.

You may be wondering how I arrived at this woe's me place. Two things: 1) A new marketing director, and 2) HTML tags and coding, URLs, and lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

My new marketing director started yesterday. She seems great. Very nice. Smart. Experienced. Capable and confident. And I'm not all wigged out about losing my "It girl" status to her, like I was with Kelly, her predecessor. "It" is already lost. That ship has sailed. No, this mostly internal meltdown is a function of having brain freeze on this young woman's first day on the job. The day when you most want to make a good first impression so that your new employee doesn't wonder what the hell kind of moron they're going to be working with. Ideally you don't want the individual it took you months to hire to go running for the hills when they realize their so-called boss is a blathering idiot. Yep. Blathering idiot. That about sums it up. In the process of showing her the ropes, I found myself unable to explain things that she really needs to know, like the status of our current marketing plan. And the location of important files. And how X-Y-Z works. I'm lucky I was able to communicate the location of the bathroom. I was completely incoherent. It was embarrassing. I can only hope that she was nervous enough on her first day to not notice my inadequacies. Except that I kept apologizing for my inadequacies. She's probably counting the days before we can switch job titles. I hope she shows up for her second day.

Even worse than my supervisory stumbling was the nearly overwhelming sense of panic I felt when confronted with a problem I didn't know how to solve. Here's the thing: There's nothing I hate more than not knowing how to do something and do it well. This explains why I don't ski, vehemently dislike magic tricks, don't dance unless I've been drinking, avoid math problems like the plague, and refuse to debate politics or religion. I don't like to lose and I don't like to look or feel stupid, unless it's voluntary on my part. Like blogging about it, for instance.

My childish refusal to work on something that does not come easily (I believe they call it "trying"), is really pathetic. I've become one of those old people who've been on the job for 40 years and refuse to work with that new fangled technology known as a computer. "What's wrong with hard copies, for cryin' out loud!"

This pattern of panic started months ago with a Google Analytics course. It's been toying with me recently on topics like landing pages and inquiry forms. And yesterday it blindsided me with an email subject line that read: "ROI Tag Instructions for multiple ROI Pages." Before I even read the message, my heart started pounding and I began whimpering and stomping my feet. The message itself -- sent from my ad agency -- took things from bad to worse:

"We do not have new ROI tags for Smartbrief and Technically. This will not affect the leads that you receive, but it will affect if I can see them in my ad server.  These tags should go on the Thank You Page that pertains to the Smartbrief and to Technically. It would be appreciated if you could have these implemented as soon as possible. Also, once implemented, if you could send me the url of the landing page, that would be great."

I could share with you the actual instructions for adding said ROI tags to the custom landing pages with the unique inquiry forms, but looking at them again may cause my head to explode. The email might as well have asked me to split the atom, scale Mt. Everest, or successfully train my puppy. Time to put on my running shoes. I can't do this!

I realize that very few of us (probably only those powerful and successful folks I dreamt of one day becoming) get psyched when confronted with something well outside our comfort zone, but my reaction seems a bit extreme. As in "I need to quit my job because I'm never going to understand how tagging works." I guess it hits so hard because my job is the one place I feel most secure in my abilities. I know there's lots of room for improvement in my performance as a wife and mother. I know I totally suck at cooking and general "home" stuff. I know that despite my best intentions, I'm not knocking it out of the park with this puppy thing. But Communications? I can do that. And do it well. I can write. I can work social media. I can deliver strong publications and make effective presentations (except to new employees). I can meet and beat deadlines and have a reputation for getting stuff done. I feel really good about my ability to do my job well. Why would I muck that up with ROI tags, SEO, SEM, and Google Analytics?

It really does make me want to cry. And that's not mature. Not adult. Not the sign of a powerful or successful professional. It's this kind of reaction that makes women look bad. I'm single handedly setting women back in the workplace every time I feign having a heart attack so I can run from the office.

I can go on whining about this or I can put on my big girl panties and deal with it. I'm smart. I can learn how to do this stuff. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'm having a heart attack.