The problem with working with so many people, though I do enjoy and am making a living managing people, is that sometimes I blur the lines in how to manage them - between at work and building a home.
My carpenters, contractors even the flooring guys love to tell me stories about their worst renovations, cabinet horror stories etc. And the fact that I feel emphatic listening to them, makes me a bad home owner. Because I sometimes watch over them, and engaging small talk is inevitable, I sort of understand the difficulties they have installing like let's say my shelves. "Your walls are not straight, that's why it is so difficult to install and this part has to jut out a little" - put the blame on the condo developer; and my carpenters get less of me shouting "This is unacceptable, your shelves are worse in workmanship than Ikea's!"
Our custom-made book shelves.
Because I manage 17 fabrication plants for my company, I have learnt to balance my management style over different people over 6 countries. Some, I have to yell at; some I have to make praises in order to motivate and get some work done. The best thing about it is, I hardly see these people, and at most once a year. Even that, I don't stay long enough to even hear their grandmother stories. So the ability to emphatise is usually missing, and I hardly have guilt growing from the shouting and banging of tables. So my work ethics are getting in the way as I try to avoid knowing these people, I try to maintain a Alpha male stance of being able to judge and criticise. But it gets hard once you are stuck in a situation when personal conversations creeps in. And that happens in home renovations when I obviously am not sure how the plumbing works, and making small talks helps to learn, in order to either self-repair in future; or in order to know if the guy knows what he is doing. I also have to control my anger and cannot shout or bang table in this situation as - 1) My table has yet to be delivered, 2) They have yet to fix the issue, and because I do not know anything about what they are doing, potentially I could have poor workmanship due to negligence or the fact that they do not like my face.
Remind me to get an Interior Designer in future - it makes life a whole lot easier when all you need is to push one button.
