The first week of Management!

I was looking forward to starting work on Opera.

On Tuesday I set my team to work on making samples and mixing colours to kill time whilst waiting for the set pieces to arrive. They all did a great job and were set to work on the bar as soon as it was ready. Gary did have to tell me a few times who I should be focusing on and spending most time with because of the tricky-ness of what they were working on but apart from that I think I managed to keep an eye on everyone and everyone seemed happy.
Lee and Rosie did work on the stencil for the gauze and I think because none of us have ever worked on it before and the model is so faint Lee had a bit of a hard time with it but Rosie managed to stick on and did a great job, even with Gary breathing down her neck every 5 minutes.

I did find a couple of times this week that Gary got a little too involved, I know he's managing me, but when I was telling Rosie what I wanted her to do, he came up and said quite loudly, so that everyone could hear, that I should be helping Sarah because I should be able to see she was struggling. I did see this but I was just giving Rosie a job then I was going to go and help Sarah. He also made a comment at the end of the day about the way Sarah was feeling and that I should appologise to her for making her feel like it was her fault the gauze had gone wrong (even though Sarah hadn't even mentioned anything about this) which I felt was really unnecessary and like he just wanted to create tension between Sarah and I.
He also butted in when I was explaining something to Gillian and took the sample out of my hand and just started explaining exactly what I had just said to her instead of letting me do it which I found a little rude.

We got quite a lot done and are I think currently on schedule as we got one of the angled walls which we weren't scheduled to get until the second week so that's good as it has all been wallpapered and painted and just needs to finish getting dirtied down.

On Friday morning I gave everyone their jobs then helped Sarah with the gauze colour as we had gone too dark. Gary had explained what he wanted us to do so we went ahead with it, he then told us we had gone too far and Im not actually sure what he wanted us to do but whatever it was he hadn't explained it well as Sarah and I were thinking the same thing but he was meaning another. He got a bit annoyed with us and was talking to me as if I should know better, even though none of us have ever worked with gauze before so we didnt know how it worked. Sarah and I tried to explain what we thought he had meant which made him more annoyed. I was getting upset and frustrated and he could see this but he just kept pushing and pushing until he made me break down into tears. I was really annoyed that he had done this as it was only my 4th day of managing and I feel this made me look weak and like I didn't know what I was doing to the rest of the team.

Later on that day he took Lee, Gillian and Iona off a job I had given them without consulting me and butted in again when I was explaining something to Jan. I feel that he is undermining my authority as a manager in front of people and is not giving me a chance to show him that I know what im doing, even though every time he asked me something about the set or the show I had already done it.

I know that it's his job to make sure we know what were doing, and I think the fact that I have this management under control at the moment and Im not stressing about it, made him think I needed to be pushed, but the only reason im not stressing about it is because im organised and I have seen how Sarah and Rose managed and have taken pointers from them. I think there's no point in stressing because then i'll get ill and I wont be able to focus properly and things wont get done right. I know how my body works and I know how I work best which is why I have organised myself and i'm feeling confident about managing.

I did talk to him at the end of the day on Friday and told him what he was doing and asked him if he could back off a bit and give me a chance, so hopefully next week will be better. And I will be stronger and not take everything so personally!