Oh My, I Hate My Job

Expectations and Behavior

Part II of our series on Unreal Expectations.

Now that we have a good definition… and let me remind you of it…

expectation: a belief (or mental picture) of the future.

So with that in hand, how do expectations effect behavior?  Do they?

Ever have friends who had parents who were real sticklers to the rules and proper behavior? Ever notice that when the parents were not around many of those kids stopped behaving in that appropriate manner? Maybe you were that kid.  I wasn’t, but I knew quite a few in junior high, high school, college, and at work…and they are parents now.

What seems to surround this blatantly controlling behavior is the assumption that simply having an expectation is enough to bring about appropriate behavior.

Does your boss do this with you or the team?  Do you do this to others?

Do you…do this to yourself?

“I hate my job because they didn’t give me the promotion I expected.”

Look at how we beat ourselves up about it. “I wanted to get the promotion, I wanted it bad!”

It reminds me of the famous SNL skit with Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton nonpartisan news conference on sexism in the campaign.  4:35 in, Tina Fey, playing Palin says, “All you have to do is want it.”  Hillary laughs maniacally, barely keeping herself together under sanity cracking frustration, “You know, looking back, if I could change one thing, I probably should have wanted it more.”

Wanting it, desire, expectation, and belief don’t often prove to be enough. You can make an argument that simply having a bright and shiny mental image in your head doesn’t by force of existence make you act appropriately, say the most effective things, nor does it make others bend their will, choices, perception, and decisions to your internal imagery.

I mean, knowing what you want means you’ll be better able to recognize opportunities and dangers from now to when you “expect” to get what you want, but knowledge and awareness does not equal inevitability.

But they seem to when you, your boss, your coworkers believe expectations do.