grumpy people get stuff done

Earlier this week, another person on my team (we'll call him Jack) asked me if we could meet for half an hour, but wouldn't tell me why. I'm always friendly to Jack and joke around with him, but have problems with certain aspects of his personality and behavior, as do most other members of the team. We've never really talked much, but I believe Jack views me as a trustworthy person because he likes to come over to my desk and complain to me about things happening in the office--usually upper management.

Jack and I sat down yesterday afternoon and talked for a while. It turns out that his boss gave him some negative feedback because someone told her that he was "too much of a hard ass" or something along those lines, so Jack wanted my advice on the situation. What was both funny and disturbing about this was his reason for wanting my advice. "The grumpy people on this team are the only people on this team who are getting anything done, and you're one of the grumpy people, so I thought I'd ask you what you thought." What??? I'm grumpy? I might be a bit (OK, very) sarcastic, but I've never viewed myself as grumpy.

It was an interesting conversation. Jack thinks very highly of himself. He's older than most people on the team, and has worked in a similar capacity at many other major companies. He has tons of industry experience and knows a lot of people. What Jack doesn't see, however, is how he irritates people. Since he asked me for feedback on the situation, I took the liberty of telling him what people think about him--most of which he doesn't know, because the "Minnesota nice" passive-aggressive nature of my office's culture typically precludes people from giving each other authentic feedback, especially of a personal nature. Our team is understaffed, so most of us have to work much harder than we should have to, and must play roles that are broader than our job descriptions call for. Jack, however, doesn't think this is his responsibility. In his mind, he was hired to do one thing, and that's the only thing he will do. He has publicly stated this on more than one occasion, too, which makes everyone else really angry. Jack also doesn't like email or spreadsheets. If you send him something electronic, you can almost be guaranteed that he will walk over to your desk and give you the information you want, rather than email it to you, which is most people's preference on my team because we like/have to keep electronic records of things. Finally, Jack is not helpful. If people don't take Jack's advice or recommendations, Jack acts like it's not his problem if something goes wrong and will point fingers at people and say "I told you so."

I told Jack all of these things, and I think he was very surprised. Not surprising, however, was his defensiveness. Jack thinks he can do no wrong, and that he should be given more responsibility because he's way more experienced than his counterparts. Interestingly, however, he refuses to help train any of them despite his experience. His boss had also given him this feedback, but for whatever reason, it didn't compute. He brought up the "grumpy" thing again at this point, and stated that none of the grumpy people were getting promoted, despite the fact that they were doing all the work. So, I reminded him that a big part of the job isn't just your numbers, but also how you market yourself and how people perceive you. To this, he replied that I was one of the grumpy people and wasn't getting promoted, either. I've actually been promoted seven times in the last nine years, but I didn't think it would help the conversation, so I didn't mention it.

In the end, the conversation ended abruptly. Jack's phone rang, and he decided that was more important than talking to me. I've never been in a meeting with Jack where his phone didn't ring loudly (he doesn't believe in silent or vibrate modes). This is another thing that people hate about Jack, but I never got the opportunity to tell him.

But seriously, I'm grumpy?