Expectation Management

A couple of weekends ago, while I was sitting at home nursing my ill-health, an ex-colleague gave me a surprise visit. It had been a really long time since I had seen him, although we do occasionally keep in touch via the telephone.

After an hour or so of catching up, on old colleagues, past bosses and the happenings in each of our work places, the conversation had lulled when his cell phone rang.

“Hello”, he literally grimaced into the phone, as if he had forgotten something, and the call was a reminder. “I quite forgot,” he continued, “I am at a colleague’s place…” he replied, to what must have been an obvious question of his whereabouts. “I’ll call you in sometime, when I leave,” saying so he ended the call and sat in silence for a couple of minutes.

“Problems?” I asked him, assuming it had to be his girlfriend. He sighed, heavily, like the next world war was about to begin. Instead of answering my question, to my surprise he said… “Do you remember that training program we attended, on client servicing?” he recalled.

“Yes…” I replied slowly, completely at loss at the context of the conversation.

“Do you remember there was a session taken by that dragon looking lady on client expectations management? On how we should under promise and over deliver?” he asked again. This time I just nodded, clearly perplexed.

He sighed again, “Maybe, they should have some sort of tuitions for expectations management in relationships too!” he finished.

Finally I got the context, I think. I laughed… “So problems galore?”

“Well, you know I have been seeing J for a couple of years now?” he began and I just nodded again. “I really like her, I am serious about her, and I think I am going to marry her soon too… but…” he trailed off. “I sometimes feel overburdened by her expectations of me. It’s almost like our expectations out of each other just don’t match!” he finished, and I waited as I was sure, I wasn’t expected to comment on the information that was incomplete, and so he continued, “I mean, I don’t mind meeting her expectations of me, but at times I feel they are miniscule, ignorable… and well… I don’t really feel like doing them!”

“What kind of miniscule expectations are these?” I asked.

“You know the normal types, calling first thing in the morning, informing if I am late… remembering dates… and so on!” he trailed off… “I mean, I do it most of the times, but that’s not really the problem. The problem is what happens, if I don’t meet the expectation!” he shuddered.

“What’s the problem?” I prodded.

“The problem is, she gets upset, and goes off the handle! Each time!” he grimaced again. “I am fed up of these blow ups, on issues that are not life threatening and all that important. I mean, we all have enough pressures at work… the last thing you need is such pressures from your partner.” He finished.

It got me thinking… I didn’t say much to him, because honestly I didn’t know what to say. How many times have I regretted going off the handle on the most miniscule things, I have lost count of… only to realize a few hours, or may a few days later, as to what was the big deal about a missed phone call anyways! But it still got me thinking about this whole expectations thing.

At work you are always managing, almost juggling expectations of your boss, your colleagues, your clients, the vendors, the support functions… and most of the times, though grudgingly, we manage to manage, and handle their expectations.

I recalled at the number of times, I had bent backwards, bowed down to professional pressures and accepted impossible deadlines, because we were expected to stretch ourselves and deliver. Did we do it happily? Never! But we did it all the same… we didn’t hang up on our bosses when they called at obscene hours or weekends… even though we weren’t on call of duty… We never screened our bosses calls, we faced the music, instead of avoiding the confrontation of a missed expectation or deadline… We meet all our professional expectations, almost at the cost of personal setbacks!

I thought back at the number of times, I had ignored the call from my mother, because I didn’t have the time, a few minutes to spare from my hectic work day. The number of times I have growled at her, when she called me to ask what vegetable I would like for dinner! What’s this? Doesn’t she understand I am busy with more important things? Then I thought of the number of times, I have not returned my friends calls… because there was just no time to catch up with them. The number of times, I have told my loved ones, I am in between something, too busy to say a few words!

I asked myself this question for the 100th time! Why do we find it so simple to accept the fact that professional expectations are to be met… and personal ones can be missed…?

I don’t have an answer to this simple question… honestly… because, maybe there is no logical answer to this question. As I sat back with a book, later that night, I wondered, what’s the big deal making a phone for 5 minutes, because your girlfriend expects you too? But then again, I thought, what’s the big deal about the fact that your boyfriend forgot to make that call? After all, it’s not life threatening isn’t it? But then neither is missing a deadline at professionally once in a while! Maybe, it’s just that at times we are bad at expectations management… and like my colleague said… maybe, we all need some classes, lectures or tuitions on how to manage expectations in personal relationships as well!