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12 230913 What Should We Expect From a Work Environment?: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

12 230913 What Should We Expect From a Work Environment?

Meredith Holley28min

Megan Goering Mellin

00:05

Today we're going to talk about expectations. What should we expect from a work environment? As we dive into this topic, we will cover the ground between level setting and inventorying our expectations so that we can be more empowered in dealing with moments when those expectations turn out to differ from our experience of reality. Where it is, we come into workplaces with all kinds of expectations, often thinking that we don't have any at all. Where do expectations come from? And can you give us an example of some expectations? You've found yourself bringing in a different working environment? Yeah,

Meredith Holley

00:44

totally. So I, I see people, people often come to me, especially when I'm doing mediations and they say, all I'm asking for is to be treated with respect, all I'm asking for is to be treated with decency, just common sense is all I'm looking for. But what they mean, about what common sense is what they mean about respect what they mean about decency, or any or like, just, what seems to them as obvious is not obvious to the other person participating in the experience. And a lot of times this could be justified. So for example, I think like a lot of people don't want to be interrupted at work. That's a common trigger. A lot of people don't want to be touched at work. A lot of people don't appreciate raised volume, in voices at work. However, a lot of times we aren't aware of when we're doing those things. So some people at work don't want to be touched. Other people think of themselves as huggers. And think of touching as really supportive. Some people don't appreciate raised volume at work, other people are think of themselves as being enthusiastic and engaged. And as passionate people and raised volume is part of who they are. Any of these things, you can see people like interruption, I interrupt people a lot. And I'm more conscious of it now than I used to be. But for me, I want to move conversation along, I want things to go quickly. And so I tend to start speaking, not realizing that the other person hasn't finished speaking. And so I think any of these things, probably most of them come from our family dynamics growing up, they come from the education system that we were in, growing up, they can come from TV that we watch, they can come from different cultural values. And most but the main point is that most of them come from good places, most of them they come from, from places of our own values and our own experiences in life.

Megan Goering Mellin

03:00

So we get expectations from all over the place. I'm with you on that family dynamics. Basically, it's any place where these stories get created in our mind, right of like, not only what's important, but that second layer you spoke to of what it looks like when that is being upheld, versus what it looks like when it's being transgressed. I don't know if anybody out? Oh, yeah, go no, go ahead. I was gonna say I don't know if anybody out there is a high school debate nerd if that is in anybody else's like cultural milieu, from the 90s, early 2000s. But in high school debate in the national forensics league in Kansas, where I grew up, there was this term called a bright line. And either a situation had a bright line, or it didn't have a bright line. And so I think one of the things that you are pointing to that's very juicy here is like, well, of course, I need Respect in the workplace. But the bright line around respect, not only might not be clear, it might not be the same for you and the person next to you who both want respect. But one of you comes from a family of 20 really loud people who show their respect and love by being all up in each other's faces, and kind of nosy and asking questions and reflecting that they know what's going on in your life. And then the next person who comes from a much more serene, or kind of solitude oriented environment, may feel like what respect looks like is staying out of my business and focusing on your own work so that I have space to maintain my own area in the workplace. Each one of them might realize they have expectations around respect, but what respect looks like can be different from person A to person B,

Meredith Holley

04:41

we have that in the law, too. It's not just in debate in the law, they talk about a bright line rule versus like a rule that's open for discretion or interpretation. And I think that that's that's exactly right. I think that there are some workplaces that I've seen where people work with a vulnerable population. For example, work with people with disabilities, children and elderly people who are designated as vulnerable populations. And a lot of times those workspaces have much more written down behavioral expectations about what is what can happen in the workplace. So I've worked with organizations before to help them create an affirmative consent policy, for example, where there have been issues around like they they've worked with vulnerable populations. And they're, they know that there's additional liability for non consensual touching. And so they also work with that with employees of just saying, Hey, can I give you a hug right now? Hey, are you open to me putting my hand on your shoulder with this? Can I touch you right now? Like I've even said to clients before, who've been really emotional, like I said, to a client the other day, can I touch your body right now? Because I just wanted to give her a hug. And she was like, yes.

Megan Goering Mellin

05:51

She knew what she meant. Obviously, it wasn't like, Excuse me, context was? No, you were you were like, You were erring on the side of clarifying the intent, so that she had every room to be like, actually, I'm not requesting not okay, bodily contact at this time. Yeah, you had humor in it a bit too, in your, you know, immaculate Meredith way in that way. But giving her room to say, uh, no, right, because you have a client relationship. And like, as when you're in your, many of your roles there, there can be a power dynamic there. And that was, was addressed by this like kind of affirmative consent protocol, I'm hearing you say that workplaces really differ, and can, you know, can choose to differ even further if they want to, but workplaces really differ in the amount of clarity that they create from the outset, when we have something like a corporate value, or a legal commitment to quote unquote, safety or whatever. I don't think professionalism is a legal commitment. But they can have different levels of clarity on how much they say, this is what this looks like. This is what this doesn't look like.

Meredith Holley

06:58

And I think that we I think that that is a problem that happens quite frequently is that policies are not clear about what the actual behavior is that they're expecting or prohibiting. And so we say bullying is not allowed, we say professionalism is expected those things like but somebody will accuse another person of bullying. And the other person says, this is just how I show up. This is how my family dynamic was growing up, I'm not bullying, I'm being direct. Or a person will say this person is passive aggressively talking about me to co workers in a negative way. And the other person's like, No, you know, you were misbehaving. And so I was just, you know, trying to correct the situation like these dynamics, if we're not specific. It leaves a lot of room for honestly, like a lot of abuse and drama.

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