The Life and Times as a Lame Duck

The paraphrased definition of a lame duck, is one who is in a position of something- a general manager or a coach for example- and knows his tenure will be up soon, whether it's at the end of a calendar year or end of a regular season. When I think of the phrase, lame duck, I always think of Jim Bowden. I don't know why, but he tops my the list in my mind.

A while back, I wrote a piece on what it's like to have team chemistry. At the time, I was a supervisor and had over 20 employees. That grew to over 30 at one point. So I bring up the concept of lame duck status, because this too is something I have experienced and played out. Sure, I'm not a coach or General Manager of a professional team, but the ideals are similar. I will explain.

I made the decision to transfer to a better organized department, and for a position that does not require me to supervise employees or be on call. My transfer was accepted, but I had to wait nearly a month before I was officially no longer a supervisor. Almost an entire damn month, I had to come to work everyday to continue to be what I did not want to be and no longer would be in due time. So as a head coach, you know that you are retiring or being fired or going to a different team at the end of the season but you have one excruciating month to and you know there is no postseason to follow. How you approach the game drastically changes, and for the worse. You stop giving a damn, you become lazy, you stop fighting, basically there is no interest and you're a zombie walking down the hall, not phased by deadlines and upper management criticism. It's at that time you realize how much effort you once put into your job, only to get results that didn't meet a company's bizarre goal.

What happened to me, I had no desire to interview potential employees. I did not care about meeting my productive standard per day. I did not keep documentation up to date. I stopped attending supervisor meetings held every Thursday. I spent most of my day bullshitting with another supervisor who was also leaving, he was leaving the company altogether. But there was one thing that may or may not be different to a coach or GM being a lame duck. I never stopped fighting for more employees, I never stopped giving a damn for my clients. In fact, that is one aspect that I went out in a blaze of glory. Is that how it goes in sports? I'm not sure. So frequently do we see coaches jump for a bigger opportunity, and we should never criticize that aspect, but most often those coaches previously came out and stated they were not leaving their current team.

For me, I was upfront with my employees and clients. They knew I was leaving. They knew why I was leaving. They weren't thrilled about the situation, and worried what would happen next. I remember re-assuring them to continue to do their job as well as they have been and they will be fine. I also remember refusing to discipline an employee because I disagreed with the reason as to why I had to discipline the employee. That employee was never disciplined. I counseled an employee on what she had to do when other individuals in my department would call her and try to force her to work in a situation in which she was not comfortable with, I told her to fight it to the tee and they would back off.

I don't know if Jim Bowden ever did that for Washington or Cincinnati. I'm sure Rich Rodriguez, Brian Kelly, and Jim Calipari never did such a thing but to ensure they have a great recruiting class for the next year. But no matter. Being in a lame duck situation is one of the worst situations I have ever been in. Yet I had to trek through each day until my transfer was official. As of two weeks ago, I have been in my new position in a different department. While it has been boring with the training, it's by far more enjoyable than sitting at your desk everyday hating your job and counting down the days on the calendar till you are no longer in that office.