Oh crap, I'm a bureaucrorat

I can't put a finger on when or where it happened, but it happened. Slowly, I'd say. One moment, I was clearly and solidly standing in the safe gray area of indifference, and the next, it had become very evident that I had reached the point of no return. You know, the point beyond which one must either see a series of events to the end or continue forward because it is physically impossible to turn back. Yes, I had crossed over to the dark side.

You guessed it. I've become an asshole.

You know the asshole. You probably know him well. He's the guy that you promised yourself you'd never be when you grow up. If you grow up. The kind of asshole that tells people what to do. That uses words like competitive landscape, time management, constructive criticism, work-flow, value-added, take-aways and actionable items. The kind of asshole that delegates, manages expectations, has strategy meetings and speaks only in sound bytes.

It became painfully apparent to me what an asshole I've become when I turned to someone during our weekly staff meeting today and asked her to write down some important points so I wouldn't forget them. Or, when someone on the team was trying to explain something and I cut her off and asked her to prepare a flow chart. She thought I was joking at first -- because it's one of those things the un-asshole would probably find humorous -- until I qualified it with, "I'm serious," and she noticed I wasn't smiling. Or, at the end of the meeting when I asked for a "roundtable" where each person on the team gives an update of the items on their radar this week. I mean, short of airplane controllers, who talks about "things on their radar"? Assholes like me.

It only gets worse. After the meeting, I asked members of the team to compare notes and pull together meeting minutes along with takeaways, actionable items, and agenda items to be discussed for the next meeting. Our team has never had meeting minutes before. I don't know how far up my ass I had to go to come up with such an asinine idea, but clearly, it was the asshole in me talking.

As ADub is on vacation for the next two weeks, I plan on compiling everyone's meeting notes so she and I can discuss the takeaways, actionables, and agenda items in preparation for her absence and the next team meeting. Short of Chinese food, I've not heard the word "takeaway" bandied about with such frequency. Last I remembered, back in the non-asshole days, the only thing I had to do for meetings was to show up. None of this preparing or compiling business that assholes do.

Yup, I've become one of them. I've become an asshole, and I don't know what to do about it.

Jeebus, save me from myself.