On Me and Hillary down by the schoolyard..

It's not so often that I can say this:

Hillary Clinton and I have something in common.

Ok, as a lifelong democrat (yes, even from the womb; my mother would tolerate no less), we have more in common than that statement implies. But in terms of Hillary and I truly sharing a common experience in the same week, well, how often can I really say that?

Are you on the edge of your seat?

I had one of the most difficult days in my professional life this week. I am ashamed to say that I cried in a meeting this week. I walked into a meeting tired but happy, saw a colleague walk in full of piss and vinegar, proceeded to be thrown under the bus by said colleague, called said colleague out on such action, saw said colleague then disrespect our boss to her face, saw her lay into him and, when an onlooker at the table asked everyone to calm down, I felt my eyes well with tears.

I did the right thing. I excused myself before a drop hit my cheek. I went straight to the restroom, closed myself in a stall and cried.

Now, this is not the first time I've been in the sort of situation where, perhaps, an issue up for discussion in a meeting is, in fact, my fault. I can handle it. I have before, I'll do it again. It was more the culmination of what, so far, has been a pretty challenging new year at work. Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes.. mistakes by not just me, but also my staff, whose mistakes I too must share the blame for as their fearless leader. I get it. But it was that culmination, and the overall "betrayal" by my colleague, a colleague who had arranged to talk to me about this issue one on one later in the day, an action I had avoided in terms of another colleague at the table so not to call him out in front of our boss (I opted to slip a piece of paper to him regarding a controversial e-mail among our staffers with a note on it asking "can we talk?"). Sigh. It was just too much.

When I returned to the meeting, there were no tears on my face or in my eyes, but my eyes were completely bloodshot, so it didn't take a rocket scientist to determine that I was either upset or high. If only I could have been high.

But I felt so defeated. My own campaign, the campaign for credibility and leadership among my colleagues, was done.

Or was it...

The beauty of the aftermath of my emotion was the groundswell of support I received. It would appear it provided an appropriate climax for others to realize we, as a leadership team, just aren't respecting each other. 3 of the 5 colleagues at the table, my boss included, approached me afterward to make sure I was ok and assure me my reaction was, in fact, justified. One even offered I should have "stuck it to" my attacker more aggressively than I did. The "Dementor" never apologized, but he's a Jekyll and Hyde type anyway, and the only other person at the table who didn't say anything to me later is a grumpy Iranian man I work with who doesn't understand me anyway but, at the very least finds me entertaining.

If I could do it all over again, I would have kept my cool and not let the culmination of everything get to me in the manner it did. Still, sometimes it does take a little bit of emotion to make people realize that every word, every action, impacts something, and that life can be tough, so if we can all be a little gentler with each other, perhaps the ride through the rough parts can be just a bit more smooth.