Disingenuous

April 8, 2024

I received some anonymous feedback today that really threw me for a loop – which is strange because my general stance on feedback is that it should be like breathing – it should be a normal thing that you are giving and receiving every day so it’s not a traumatic event for anyone. But this one upset me more than any other “constructive” feedback I’ve ever received.

I won’t write the feedback verbatim here but essentially this person wrote that the events I plan for women at work are disingenuous and inauthentic because don’t talk to junior practitioners during the events.

First off, this is clearly a blanket statement that is not true – I do talk to junior practitioners at events. I’m assuming the author means “I am a junior practitioner and Rebecca did not talk to me at a particular event.”

The only event I organized in this quarter was a GALentine’s event that I hold for women at my company every year. It started small with about 5 ladies the first year, and grew to be 50+ invitees this year. I’m assuming this person was upset that I didn’t speak to her (much?) at that particular party. I think this is fair criticism – Miss Manners would dictate that you should greet every person at an event and spend time talking to each person. This is why you go to weddings and usually get to spend a grand total of 3 minutes celebrating with the bride and groom – they have to make sure they greet every person at the wedding. One could note that this was not a wedding. It was not a celebration of me- it was an event that I hosted for people to network with each other – which took place in a glorified break room. It was my bad for getting sucked into a few conversations and also not feeling super chatty that evening. I’ll own that I did not do a good job socially engaging. Here are a few things that the feedback giver may not know about that party though.

1. It was something that I volunteered my time toward – not a required event. It was something I wanted to do for the ladies in my network. No one asked me to do it and also, no one was required to attend.
2. I spent about $200 dollars of my own money on goodie bags for every person who attended the event. I didn’t use my corporate American Express – I paid for a hand curated collection of earrings, scrunchies, GALentine’s Day cards that I personally designed (I’ll say more about these in a few minutes), pencils, stress balls, notepads, and fun glasses for everyone to wear in a group picture. My money. Mine. Not to mention the time that I spent assembling all 50 bags by myself (in my own personal time the night before the event, not company time).
3. I spent two full weekends using my Cricut to make vinyl stickers for the event. Every person who attended got two vinyl stickers for their water bottle/notebook/whatever, and I also bought knock-off Stanley cups from Walmart and put an “Empowered Women Empower Women” sticker on three of them to raffle off at the event. This was labor intensive (again, my personal time, not company time) – and I paid for the materials (once again) with my own money. Because this was something I wanted to do for the women I work with.
4. I ordered 10 pizzas for the event. Now – I did let the company pay for the food, which is customary, but I placed the order in advance and made sure the food would arrive on time for the event. I booked the room myself – I did not delegate any of these activities to other people – because I wanted this to be my special treat for the women I work with.
5. I decorated the event space in hearts, hearts and more hearts. A couple ladies volunteered to help me- but I paid for those decorations, you guessed it, out of my own pocket.
6. The day of the event, I was feeling anxious about the fact that I hadn’t provided drinks for the event. So I drove to Target in between meetings to buy drinks and then hauled all of the goodie bags and beverages up to the meeting room.
7. By the time the event actually happened – I was tired. I’m an introvert by nature and I could feel my battery draining early on in the event, probably because of a day of anxiety over everything falling into place plus a full regular work day. I was happy that the ladies were all networking with each other. Many ladies brought desserts to exchange, and everyone seemed to have a really lovely time. I got to see people I don’t see often at all and it was lovely.

I don’t list all that out because I want some kind of reward for going over the top. I’m just trying to show you all the evidence of the true intent that I had behind that event and how much it meant to me on a personal level. Yet, there I was today, ugly crying in front of my boss over what this person wrote. Honestly, this whole afternoon was an emotional ride. My thought process looked like this:

• I ugly cried, and got a little pep talk from my boss. I don’t remember much that I said to him besides *sniff* “Disingenuous”; *sniff* “I work so hard.”; *sniff* “It’s never enough.”
• “It’s never enough.” That was the thing I couldn’t get out of my head. I pulled myself together and went home to work on some stuff. The whole time I was working, the only thing I could think about was “What’s the point? I give up my nights and weekends and nothing matters. People still say things like that about me when I bent over backwards to throw a nice event.” Why bother?
• Then I started thinking about all the things I give up for my job besides nights and weekends (a lot of nights and a lot of weekends). I just got back from a fantastic visit to Kentucky to see my family and I cried when I had to leave my niece Cali Jo to come back here. Then I came back to fire after fire at work, very little sleep all week and a never-ending line of men I’m trying to date in this area who don’t care about my feelings. Cali Jo cares about my feelings. My family cares about my feelings. Yet I’m here in the DC area, a region that is challenging socially, working hard for people who would write things like that about me. Anonymously. Without speaking to me directly. Posting those blanket claims about my character for the people who decide my future – my bonus, my salary, my career progression – to read. How many sunny days with Cali Jo have I sacrificed for this job? How many weekend FaceTime calls with my family or adventures with my friends did I miss out on for this one party alone? For a slap on the wrist from an anonymous stranger for not doing it perfectly. Why bother?
• If I’m not good at my job, am I good at anything? My whole life, every time my love life has been shit (always) or I’ve been in a fight with a friend or when the softball coach was yelling at me for my stupid-looking throw in high school…I’ve always been able to be like, well, at least I’m smart. At least I get A’s in school. At least I’m good at my job. At least I’m a person who tries to lead people with kindness. Is it all an act? Am I disingenuous? I’ve always tried to look at myself square on, warts and all, and I’ve found so few things about myself that I actually like – but two things I’ve always felt to be true are that I’m funny and I’m genuine. When I’m not being funny, I’m being real. Is all of that bullshit?

Of course not. One random person’s opinion doesn’t change who I am or the value of what I do or the value of my time. Of course my event came from a genuine place. Why would someone spend weeks quietly working in the background to make an event so special without a genuine desire to do something nice for women?

I absolutely accept the feedback that I didn’t spend enough time meeting new people that night – which may have translated into not taking interest in junior practitioners. To be fair…almost everyone there was a junior practitioner compared to me. Anyone who knows me knows that I think about junior staff everyday and expend boundless energy to help them grow and learn. I’ve devoted my life to this effort. Am I perfect? No. Do I get tired? Yes. Do I get busy with client work and have to decline calendar invites sometimes? Yep. Am I bad at managing my calendar? Emphatic yes. These are all things that some good constructive feedback could address. But to use words like “disingenuous” or “inauthentic” is assigning intent to my actions that just wasn’t there. And I know that to be true. That’s why I’ll sleep well tonight.

The irony of the GALentine’s Day card that I designed is that it was a “Feedback” themed card. I went to Office Depot and printed these adorable cards that I designed in Powerpoint and then with Canva (and printed them using my own money). They are very pink, but they also show a process for giving feedback called SBI. Basically the process goes:

S – Situation: Describe the exact situation, giving as many details as possible. “On Tuesday during our Galentine’s Day party on the 24th floor at 5:30…”

B – Behavior: Describe the behavior. A behavior is something that you can observe on a video camera. It is not a feeling or an intent or something someone always does. It is specific to the situation. “…you spent most of the party talking to people you already knew and didn’t spend much time talking to me at all...”

I – Impact: Describe the impact that the behavior had on you, other people or the project. “…and that made ME feel really left out.”

Then you pause and allow the person space to describe their intent before you work together to make a plan for going forward. If someone were giving me that SBI feedback above, I could say “Oh, ________ I’m so sorry. You’re right, I didn’t do a very good job networking that night. I was so tired from making sure the event was a success that I wasn’t very social, and I regretted that after the party was over. I did not mean to make you feel left out. Can we have lunch next week so we can connect properly?”

You see how that’s much more constructive than personality-based feedback where you make blanket statements about someone’s character or pre-assign intent to their actions (Rebecca is disingenuous, Rebecca is inauthentic)? The approaches are night and day different and one leads to thoughtful actions taken to ensure that the behavior is addressed, and the other created an afternoon of spiraling on my part and had me questioning my own character because of one person’s opinion. One approach made me think “why bother?” and almost had me certain that I won’t do anything like my event again in the future. The other approach would have put me in the mindset of “Oh, I’ll do it differently next time.” You see? For the sake of the feedback author, I hope they have a leader who takes care to use SBI feedback instead of tearing them down with strong words that make them want to quit trying. Maybe, in time, they might have more empathy for me.

Anyway. F**k that. I’m genuine and kind and I work very hard for the people around me. And I’m not going to stop being me.