First I will talk about working with your spouse. I was asked to do a lecture on this subject. I had kept the topic to only good but during the question and answer period I ended up giving up some of the bad too.
Hubs and I actually work well together 90% of the time. I anticipate his needs and we work seamlessly. But....yeah always a but. There are just some things that annoy me about working with him. I am sure though he doesn't have one bad thing to say about me unless we count the number of times he's fired me. But then doesn't one have to counter those times with the number of times I have walked out or quit or told him to stuff it 'you know where' or 'do it yourself can't you see I am busy'?
Most of the lecture I gave I already have done on another lecture: How to work with difficult people. Who is the most difficult person in any arena? The person who knows you the best - your spouse.
I tell managers that instead of looking for advice to improve the working relationships in the office, look in the mirror. Yep, look in the mirror. The reason why? You can't change the other person no matter what you do. So instead your goal is simple: How do I get what I need without conflict or internalizing it so my blood pressure goes up or don't go postal?
In every aspect of life we encounter others with clashing personality types. Instead of focusing on the other person's 'faults', you instead focus on their behavior and the results of those behaviors. When you do that, you will see ways to improve both the relationship and the result.
I have 3 rules I strictly enforce when we work together:
1. Be nice to each other and treat each other with the same or higher courtesy than you do all the other employees or colleagues. Yes this means you will have to compromise on some issues. Learn to pick your battles. This also means you have to be polite and courteous to each other even if you want to rip their insides out. You have to hold the ripping until you get back home.
2. Be sure to set business and free time boundaries. When you work with your spouse, it is impossible to leave it at the office, especially us since we bring home work. So we set up times it is appropriate to ask me something about the office. When I am heading to bed is not the time. When I am reading a book is not the time. Hubs has more of a problem with setting things aside than I do. I try to anticipate his needs and questions but I also let him know when he is being unreasonable. I started setting up an hour he gets to discuss whatever he needs or wants to get off his chest or things extra he wants me to do. In that hour, I also get time to do the same for him. I try to do it once a week. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
Remember when you had wee ones and you went out for the 1st time without child and tried to set up rules that you are not going to talk about baby at all? Yeah didn't work. Talking about work at home is the same. Keeping the 2 totally separate doesn't always work and definitely doesn't always work in my household. A little tip: I found the more I allowed us to talk at home, the less we actually did. Also diversion is good and it is easy to divert a male's attention.
3. Be an individual. I happen to think this one is the most important. You work, eat, sleep and are together 24/7/365. So you and your husband need to have your own personal interests away from each other. Each of you needs to get a hobby or something you do with your own friends without the other and don't feel guilty if you don't do things together. Daughter and I have girls night out with a dinner and movie with other mothers and daughters. We have a blast. Hubs has golf and dinner outings and once a month his buddies all get together for a man's night out. Hubs also does things with our son (paintball, movies that he knows I would never watch).
The hardest part I have found though with working with your spouse is technically our employees have 2 bosses. We don't always agree. I laid down ground rules. There are some things that they definitely come straight to me about - billing, bills, payroll, supplies, office management. There are definitely some things that they only are to go to him about: medical management in the back, how patients are to be scheduled, how he likes the medical supplies set up, how he likes office surgeries to be set up, etc.
BUT.....lately I have been having a large problem with the employees lately - one is the main girl who is responsible for inputting all receipts and payments, doing statements and appeals to the insurance companies, taking phone calls from any of the offices that are closed, supply ordering, and getting each office their needs, reports, etc. She reports to me. The other girl only works at one of the 3 offices but gets more per hour than all 3 employees - she has been in the field longer. She used to do a lot of what I do so I handed a lot of what I did over to her including billing. But the 2 had a problem working with each other - the main girl was jealous of what I allowed the other girl do and felt slighted I didn't ask her. Both girls although 35 years in age apart, are moody. They are both good workers but when I have problems, boy do they escalate fast. It seems to happen when I am the busiest and they take over things they are not supposed to.
Take for instance this week: medical supply orders are to be approved by my husband before an order is placed. The main girl is then to call me with a total for approval and a check for the COD. I was told the order was around $1000.00. I planned and budgeted for $1000.00. I found out on Tuesday the amount was over $1800.00. That is not $1000.00. Plus I found out the order was not approved by my husband. Now note I was with father in law who was in the hospital so I was not working. Main girl took over. I reprimanded main girl for the amount of the order and for not getting husband's approval. She retaliated and told husband some of the things I haven't done but implied and gave him false information. When I got home from the hospital dealing with 2 dementia patients all day (his mother and father in law), husband confronted me with all my 'problems'. Now in this it seems both main girl and other girl worked together to come up with my 'faults'. I showed husband the facts and proved them wrong. I confronted main girl today. She called husband at another office and threatened to quit. Husband said nothing. I have no idea what she will do but right now, I actually don't really care. I am upset with both girls. It really makes me angry that the one girl was what I would have termed a friend prior to this would even join in on this crap.
My solution was to write both girls up. Right now morale is crappy and both are upset I think because I caught them doing something I have already written both up on before so this technically is their second write-up. Then they tried to 'solve' and give their sides and consistently rang my cell phone off while I was at a doctor's appointment. I refused to answer the calls. By the time I got home, they were both gone from work. My feeling? Let them stew all weekend. Maybe I will have calmed down by then.
So can you work with your spouse?
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