REFLECTIONS ON LIFE AND WHAT IT MEANS TO LIVE FULLY…

My seven months at Pardeux is a time I could probably write a book about. Closer to home, the company was everything I wanted, and it was heaven when I was hired. But soon I saw that the time came for me to have a nasty boss, again. 🙂

A person can be dark and light, depending on what she wants to show you.

We all have experiences with some people in our lives that we cannot quite explain until later. Nathalie is such a person. When she hired me, I found her focused, driven, ambitious and wiling to expand her business. Soon enough though, I saw her heartless, suspicious, workaholic side. A person can be dark and light, depending on what she wants to show you. Nathalie was amazing at showing the cute face to the clients, and the always worried and stressed face to us, her team. She was an avid micro-manager. Not only did she hire three project managers to manage a team of 10 people, but she also decided to buy a software that would notify you by email or text about your next task, and next, and next. So I found myself buried in projects, all by myself, with about 4 bosses coming to see me only to ask me: so your storyboard will be ready by 4 pm, yes? I was a storyboard machine. Besides working with clients and trying to understand what they wanted in their elearning, I also had to convince my 3 bosses that my approach was the good one; I had internal clients to please. This is much harder than you think, because your bosses are not instructional designers; they only evaluate/critique your work. In other words, you do the work, then, you have to find perfect reasoning to explain to them, to convince them in fact, that your instructional approach is the best that could be in those specific circumstances.

I felt overwhelmed almost every day. I worked on about 3-4 projects simultaneously, which is mentally stimulating and a good workload for an ID, but the blatant non-existent soft skills in the top management was maddening and at the same paralyzing. Add to that the horrendous working conditions of an always stinky open space where about 10 people were working close to each other, eating at their tables, windows never open… In my last months, I had pain in the left side of the body, from ribs to toe. My body was accumulating all the stress. I limped around the office for a week before my boss asked me puzzled: why are you walking like this, what is going on?

Micromanagement is the boss telling their team: I don’t trust you, so I have to control you.

The time I worked at Pardeux was an instructional design boot camp for me. Very intense, draining, but oh how valuable. I learned the dark side of the project management in business: you can use it to plan work but also to stress your employees out if this is all you care about. I learned how important soft skills are and how a boss sets the tone of the atmosphere at work by example, e-v-e-r-y day. I also learned that people are not machines, and it is extremely wrong to expect of them to be productive 7, 5 hours a day, every day. I also learned that I love instructional design and I am a good instructional designer. I grew a coat of confidence, something I was lacking until then. I lost the impostor’s syndrome that had plagued my mind for a good two years. I learned that all of us, everyone, want the same thing at work: appreciation and understanding. Finally, I learned that we are all getting in life what we need to grow, personally and professionally. And this is amazing!

We are all getting in life what we need then and there to grow, personally and professionally. And this is amazing!