Syzlak’s SEM

While I’ve talked about reputation management and the lack of comprehension within the industry, today I’ll talk about a different type of reputation management: relationship management. I know this strays a bit from the world of SEM, but once in awhile (or for the last 2 months) I’ll stray to tackle other topics that interest me. Often times they apply to SEM or life in general, and I believe this is one of those times.

The other day a friend of mine asked a simple question

How do you tell a coworker to STFU without sounding like an asshole?

This depends and in my younger days, I would have gone the blunt route. Nowadays, I tend to sigh or walk away - I’ve learned to cover my ass. We all have annoying people we know; whether they be co-workers, friends, family, sig. others or bartenders. Learning how to deal with them is clutch in learning how to succeed in life. In my friend’s situation the problem seems to be that a co-worker is loud, frequently off-task and fairly self-centered. Nothing is ever “their fault” thus they never apologize, nor own their own actions.

When I heard the full criticism of the co-worker, I came to a humbling realization

That’s kinda how my old job was

Yeah?

Although I don’t know which side of your situation I was on. I was a lot louder and more obnoxious back then and nothing ever was my fault (but then really…when is it?). There were a couple people who I know despised working with me; however, as someone once put it “you either love Syzlak or you absolutely hate him…no one is ever just ‘fine’ with Syzlak.” Today, I don’t think anyone here hates me…and there are even people who are “just fine” with me!

…and I achieved this goal through maturity.

It’s true. Although I’ve worked since I was 17, I’d never had a white-collar job until I was out of college. Then at the ripe old age of 23 (I failed 1st grade), I entered the Search Marketing world. For the first 6 weeks, I was a bit timid - although always a know-it-all. I felt that I always had to look like I understood, regardless of whether I really did. When I used to work retail, this wasn’t the case. I was willing to listen, to learn and then afterward I would start to let that side of my personality come out. This was the big leagues though, this was something that I might end up doing for a long time; and in my mind, I had to look smarter than everyone else.

After I’d become more talented and given more responsibilities it just got worse. They’d fed my ego. I was going to be the most obnoxious person there, even though the entire time, I just thought they were all to uptight. It was like a Rodney Dangerfield movie for 8 hours a day. People would be working while I would be swearing and cracking one liners. When anyone would try to talk to me about it, I’d respond flippantly with the old “Hey, relax will ‘ya?”

To some extent, none of this has really changed though. I’m sure my direct boss has a hard time when I go off on my rants from time to time. I’m sure he’d rather I didn’t swear. I bet he’d like it if I didn’t snap at him so often. Hell, I’d like it too, but at the same time, that’s just me. Where I’m different from my friend’s co-worker is how, when and where I “act out.” I wouldn’t go off on a rant if I was in a big room with other people, that’s how it was when I was 23 and in my first job. Today, it’s confined to an office with my boss. He tends to be cool with it and accepts me, thus I know I can rant when I need to.

*****

By this point, you’re probably saying, “We get it, you’ve changed. Why, what or how did the change happen?”

For me, it was having a more consequence driven leadership team. When my company was bought out, my days of being a fuck-off had to come to an end. New management came in and they kept calling me on my shit. Sometimes I’d be perceived as being insensitive, rude, inconsiderate to co-workers. Once they even construed something to have been inappropriate with one of my clients. To be absolutely fair, although they weren’t always right and I still see it as a witch hunt (I had refused to relocate), it did make me think twice about how I carried myself throughout the workday.

In general, I think one of the big problems with any office is under-management, and that’s exactly how I was when I had my first team. In a lot of today’s businesses, youth are given roles well beyond their experience. Sometimes it’s due to strong performance, sometimes it’s a lack of personnel; either way, it often leads to either abuse of power or under management.

During my second year at my first job, I became a bit of an important person. I had people in Atlanta, Houston, the OC, Las Vegas, Seattle, Anaheim and Eugene that I either managed, trained, influenced or contacted. Some directly, some indirectly. To make matters worse, my local team were mostly made up of people that the company wouldn’t have hired for a proper job. I had the Leg-Up program from Cypress Creek Elementary and they were difficult at times to say the least. [Note: Josh, Marleena and Daniel, if you read this know that I wouldn't include y'all in this group - you guys were great...well, Daniel...you kinda let me down at the end, but hey we all got tired of that job]

In the end, the best lesson I ever learned was when I realized that it didn’t matter. There’s always going to be something screwing up your day or your life. So why end up making it worse by bitching and blaming. Recently, persistence has been the one thing keeping me going. For 2 years I’ve bothered my boss to expand our department’s client base by going outside of the Agency’s normal business model.

What does he say?

Well, now I’m writing the proposal. Sure, it’s 2 years later, but it took that long to get to the point where

• I could make a change
• I was respected to that level of trust/responsibility
• I’d convinced enough people that this would be a good idea
• I felt confident in the fact that either it would work or I’d be looking for a new job and either way I’d be comfortable

It probably helped that you started wearing pants to work
Yeah, thanks for explaining that boyshorts aren’t named after their audience

This post is tagged advice, general updates, other people's work