Hot Potatoes, Chips and Guilt

This week I was working with a female client on confidence at work and being shut down in meetings by a male manager. This session led us to a conversation about hot potatoes at work. I suggested that at work we all encounter a lot of hot potatoes thrown at us and as we all know with a hot potato you move it along quick. Pass the project back to its owner. Do your bit and move it along. Give it back when it is not meant for you. Give it back to the owner of said potato, until it is returned nice and cool with the answers, solutions or information you actually needed delivered. Basically you move it away from your hands so as to avoiding burning.

Now I am not one to generalise and everyone is different, but in my experience of the working world males are often better dealing with a hot potato in the workplace. As women we can tend to receive the potato and hold onto it. We experience burning hands while we question “Is this potato meant for me, did I do something wrong, it’s probably my fault, the other person is busy perhaps I better hold onto it for a while, I am part time I probably don’t do enough so should hold the potato for a while longer, I have children perhaps you should give me another hot potato or three to hold in the other hand to make up for the time I am not working as I have a family, ooooooo actually while I have this does anyone want some chips?”

I proposed to my client, with a smile, that she was the type to take the potato from anyone and then offer to produce everyone beans and cheese on top. With a reply of “you know me too well” she agreed. I suggested she must have good oven gloves and she replied I have asbestos hands.

I love this imagery and it resonated with me and I am sure many others. How many women would agree they have asbestos hands from holding onto the potato too long? Why do we do this? I would suggest the G word is one of the big reasons. Many of us ladies have an innate ability to feel guilt about any given situation. It was half term last week and I had some time with my girls. One particular busy day, I was at a trampoline place watching the girls jump checking my emails feeling distinctly non present with work or play at that time. Guilt had me pulled both ways. I needed to make a conscious choice to pick a place to be and more importantly be OK that I was there at that time. Whether it be the girls or work or exercise when physically at one place, I often feel I should be at another. I know I am not alone in this.

With regard to the hot potato this guilt leads us to hold onto the potato and cause ourselves pain. Hold on to a task that may not be ours, because perhaps our part initially was wrong or we should be helping as we are only part time or we should take it from others because we don’t deserve any better. In fact we deserve the pain because we are not good enough as we are not full time or we are not able to work late or we don’t do enough or everyone else is better than us or doing more than us. It may not be real burnt hands, but it hurts to treat ourselves this way.

The thing about throwers of hot potatoes is they are the polar opposite of this. They are adept at getting rid of things, clearing their plate and in my experience, this can be whether they have done what they needed to or not. But there is no doubt for some this is an effective technique for managing workload!

So ask yourself are you throwing the potatoes at work or are you catching and holding them with your asbestos hands? If you are holding onto them it may well be that your inner, self deprecating dialogue is taking over.

What can you do about this?

One answer is to teach yourself to think fast when the potato is hot and concisely answer these questions:

- Why has this landed with me?

- Is it mine to action or someone else’s?

- Do I have all I need or do I need to give it back to the thrower to do what they should have done?

- Do I need to just put down the potato because it is old and doesn’t serve any use and people are just throwing it around for no purpose?

Learning to quickly process these questions enables you to see if it is your responsibility or task to action or if you need to just pass the potato where it belongs or throw it back where it came from. This takes confidence and may need some work or techniques to achieve, which can be taught. But the first step is identifying if you hold onto those work potatoes and burn your hands.

If you have asbestos hands, it may just be time to throw that hot potato back where it came from and go buy yourself a portion of chips, on your own, without guilt.