Exception handling
While you wouldn’t know it from my job title, much of my professional life revolves around exceptions. Receiving, evaluating, advocating, justifying, petitioning, deciding. In this case, should rules or policies applicable to everyone else be changed?
Rules, policies, even laws are written for hypothetical generic people. Who don’t exist. Accommodations are routinely made for individual life and family situations, communication styles, computing environment preferences. But when it comes to milestones or metrics that matter within the organization, it’s a constant balance between what best supports each individual, and maintaining a sense of equity across all individuals.
By definition, you can’t codify exceptions. But I do have a rough flowchart of when I’ll advocate for a person to get one:
- If they’re having a life issue that precludes normal practice, yes. I don’t need to know details.
- If the rule requires resources that are unavailable to the person, yes. I do need to know details here, to ease the way for future people.
- If the rule itself is inconsistently applied due to previous exceptions, yes. I probably already know these details.
- If someone has ghosted their responsibilities, been unresponsive until at or beyond the last minute, no. Unless they tell me point #1 inhibited timely communication.
In these instances, I can use my position to listen to people and make their lives a little easier, or I can quote chapter and verse from the policy manual. The organization’s high-level values center people and relationships, but the low-level HR trainings and practices center rules. I see that as tacit permission to balance both. I wonder if that makes me an exception.