How would you respond to this one?

[Anonymous]

I had the pleasure of spending most of my day driving and waiting in lines today…and so, as usual I reflected on various things in the future and past. One thing occurred to me I would ask about. It was a convo with my Bishop a year ago…he asked me to take on a different calling.

I don’t remember the exact details, but I indicated I was reluctant as I had been working on extra degrees for several years, and spend most of my time at the computer. I didn’t want a Ward Website Specialist calling for that reason. I also mentioned I couldn’t go back to the days when I was doing so much that I didnt’ want to do that I was burned out, or something like that. I was working full-time, and doing a simultaneous Master’s Degree and PhD.

This was a veiled reference to the angst of my release from HPGL previously, before he was Bishop, without going into any detail. Almost hoping the response would be such that I could finally tell someone in authority of how I felt about that situation and get it off my chest once and for all.

[As many of you know, what brought me here was burn-out from accepting too much to the point I couldn’t handle it anymore, and then the aftermath of asking to be released.]

He responded “I’m working on a Master’s Degree now, myself, and I’m a Bishop. We’re ALL busy….”. He was basically saying that if he could do a Master’s degree and be a Bishop, I could at least be a Ward Website Specialist and do my other schooling.

This is the kind of response you get from managers in industry when you come out with reasons you can’t/won’t do things — at least, I found that early in my career before I learned to clear those obstacles out of my way in my work and be a producer.

Anyway, how would you respond to a comment like this from a Bishop? I chose to say nothing and told him I would get back to him, and then sent an email after a reasonable time telling him I just wasn’t ready for a calling right now.

But how would you respond to the “we’re all busy” and his apparent implications?

[Anonymous]

There are probably 50 ways to say no to a calling.

Paul Simon wrote:

You Just slip out the back, Jack

Make a new plan, Stan

You don’t need to be coy, Roy

Just get yourself free

Hop on the bus, Gus

You don’t need to discuss much

Just drop off the key, Lee

And get yourself free

I’d probably go with the following:

“Bishop, you’re a better man than me. I appreciate you thinking of me, but I really cannot handle another thing right now. I really need to take whatever little time I have available to preserve my own sanity, so I’m going to have to pass on any calling right now. I will let you know when that changes.”

When all else fails, there’s always the “Nancy Reagan”: “Just say no.”

[Anonymous]

My answer probably would be something like:

Quote:

“I have felt impressed / prompted that I need to spend more time with my family right now, and I just can’t go against what I feel is inspiration.”

[Anonymous]

Funny, the guy’s first name is one of the names in 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.

In retrospect, I thought it was pretty ego centric of the guy to assume that if he could be a Bishop and do a Master’s Degree, that ANYONE, regardless of personal circumstances, could take a Webmaster calling and do the same. He knew nothing about the depression, the commitment crisis, the apparent history I had in the Ward, the fact that my wife was an auxiliary leader, or my son’s emotional and physical problems. He just made the assumption from his own mypopic world.

And how he treated my concern as an excuse to be countered, rather than explored.

Anyway, not a big deal, I just “slipped out the back jack” and told him what I was willing to do. Don’t know what it’ll take to make me willing to put in big sacrifices again — probably a sense of personal ownership the I lost all those years I did whatever everyone asked, like I THOUGHT a good Mormon boy should.

I now see that as destructive unless crowned with a sense of personal commitment and revelation that the thing is the right thing to do. Funny how by insisting people follow the party-line to the tee, you can end up alienating them, doing more harm than good.

[Anonymous]

SD – you got “managed” all right. I think this is a classic for a bishop whose experience is in corporate America (where I spend my waking hours) vs. one who is accustomed to working with voluteers. I think bishops from education fields are generally more understanding, maybe because educators are paid little and always under-resourced so it’s practically like being a volunteer. The exasperation your bishop was expressing (very mildly, but the tone was there) is mixed up with 2 other motivating thoughts probably: 1) that we are paid in salvation or through benefits of membership, therefore we owe the church, and 2) the underlying awareness that he needs people to do what he needs them to do, and this is going to make his “job” harder if you don’t do it.

You’ve been given some great suggestions for answers, IMO.

[Anonymous]

hawkgrrrl wrote:

SD – you got “managed” all right. I think this is a classic for a bishop whose experience is in corporate America (where I spend my waking hours) vs. one who is accustomed to working with voluteers. I think bishops from education fields are generally more understanding, maybe because educators are paid little and always under-resourced so it’s practically like being a volunteer. The exasperation your bishop was expressing (very mildly, but the tone was there) is mixed up with 2 other motivating thoughts probably: 1) that we are paid in salvation or through benefits of membership, therefore we owe the church, and 2) the underlying awareness that he needs people to do what he needs them to do, and this is going to make his “job” harder if you don’t do it.

You’ve been given some great suggestions for answers, IMO.

I come from education, and frankly, I subscribed to the corporate American model in my heart, but the education model in my outward actions. It wasn’t a good combination.

This is something I still struggle with….one one hand, you have Stake people breathing down your neck about metrics (at least, we did, particularly with one High Counselor and a small-business owner/lawyer SP member, particularly on Home teaching). On the other hand, you have people who are at all different levels of commitment and spirituality you must lead in order to “get the job done”. And somehow, you are supposed to mediate between the two.

I had one quarter, when we did OK — I let home teaching be. It was an impossible program, not well-liked, and gave no deference to the fact that the agency of the families to be home taught was part of the problem. In fact, I did a best-efforts calculation of my home teaching stats, based on if “our quorum had made a solid attempt to meet the family at the level of contact they wanted”. It came out to 94%. The remaining 6% being new families that had moved into the Ward that we didn’t know about, and a couple families who we were slow in getting home teachers.

I felt proud of that, personally. To me, it was solid mediation. When I proposed this to our HC, he commented that the gold standard of a visit was the only metric allowed.

From then on, I reported BOTH stats. The impossible, demotivating way the CHI at the time prescribed, and the motivating, internal locus of control method I described two paragraphs above.

My mistake was in not INTERNALLY adopting my own way of reporting as my yardstick of administration success, relying on what the SP member and HC member thought was best.

So much of being happy, I realize, is found in NOT doing everything the so-called inspired leaders dream up. Not rejecting it, but seriously considering it and then doing what comes out of the synthesis.

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