soft answer*

Proverbs 15:1 "A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grevious words stir up anger." I thought of this scripture as I sat in a small room with just my supervisor and one of the guys on my crew. The DE from my crew and I had a blowup the previous day. Our talk got loud and I am sure it bothered everyone around us. The senior lead called the manager and said you need to come down here. Being a lead has been the most difficult job I have ever had in my 32 years at Boeing. It started over such a small thing but after the meeting, I realized this had been under the surface for a long time. It happened quite innocently, an e-mail that is usually sent just to me to look into an incorrect date on a drawing PIRR was also sent to this man. He is one of the quickest on my crew to respond. I saw his answer, which was to ask a question: what PAR is this on? When I read this I knew the sender of the original e-mail would not even know how to find that out, but my guy would. I wrote back Jxx, you need to figure this out yourself, and not trouble Lxxxx. My original words may not have been much more than that. He took offense to that, probably because this issue with me has been boiling for a long time. I have been lead for 3 to 4 years now. He did not feel I had the right to tell him how to investigate. His method of investigating would be one question after another. This method of investigating may be necessary at some time, but not now. Just asking questions would require the other individual to do the leg work while Jxx could just sit back and wait. I believe Lxxxx was busy, he did not know our programs, and would not have been able to answer the first question. After the blowup, I did the investigation myself, it took me ten minutes, I was done before he was thru complaining to the manager about me. I took the two drawings Lxxxx had listed in his email. I looked them up in redars,  I looked at the last page of the drawing which would be the PIRR. On the PIRR I found the change number that was used to create the PIRR. With the change number I searched in the program we use almost every hour of every day in our job, that Lxxxx does not use and does not know how to use. I found the PAR, and looked at the PIRR page of that PAR. I found the errant date in both PIRR's and also could see the name of the person that put it there. This whole process took less than 10 minutes. I am the lead, when I see something like this happening, it is my job to speak up and say there is a better way to get to the answer that is needed. From the meeting, I learned that I had come off stronger than I had intended. I learned that Jxx has had an issue with me for a long time and had talked to the former manager and our senior lead several times before about me and nothing was done. He felt there needed to be some action taken against me, I should not be a lead. According to Jxx there was a history of abuse from me and he had documented it by taking it to the former manager and the senior lead but nothing was done about it. In fact I did not know he had ever talked to them about me, or if it was mentioned I had forgotten. I have never heard myself described in such a bad way. I was almost speechless as I listen to his description of me. I tried to understand his side and to see myself from his point of view. I could see where in this instance where I came off too strong and I do talk with my hands. What I see as a hand directed toward one individual as I asked a question what they were working on at the time,Jxx saw as an index finger pointed at one individual. I was standing as I walked back to this area. they all were seated at their desks. Volume had gone higher in me from the previous confrontation. So I could see how he would see this differently. I see this as Jxx has trouble with the authority of any kind. Jxx would like me to be demoted from my leadership position and I believe he would also like to see some disciplinary action taken against me. I have only a few days left. My replacement is already there. But Jxx was strong in his belief that immediate action needed to be taken. I tried to use the soft answer to diffuse the situation and to at least try to see his side. I do not in any way see myself as he described me. This too shall pass, I have only a few days left. God bless, LVZ.
The terms PIRR, PAR, change number are job-related items that may not mean anything to some readers.  I know who Jxx is but I do not remember who Lxxxx is, but from my description, Lxxxx was from another part of the company that did not use our systems. I do not remember all the details of this incident anymore, it makes sense to me from my explanation and as I said I had the question answered in ten minutes. I do remember being in the office with the manager and this man just days before I was to retire.  At the time I had 3 ex-leads working under me. I didn't ask for the job it was given to me for a reason. I thought about deleting this post but it seemed to fit with the scripture, so I opted to leave it with further explanation.