When will I learn?

My senior senior manager (two levels up) was asking the same question over and over about a process that I manage, so I offered to come up and answer any questions, help her to understand what the scoop is and to review the items that are under her.

I'm not one to finagle time with the high mucky-mucks. I want to get my job done, do it well and be rewarded at pay raise time (I want my 2.25% raise every year.) I tell you this so you know I went into this with the truest of intentions to clear up questions.

It was a train wreck. Instead of attempting to understand the purpose of the process and her role, she honed in on the report and a piece of data that I probably should have seen as the land mine of all land mines. She wouldn't get off it, and the meeting kept spiraling down and down and down. I didn't get defensive until she referenced someone else's process as a comparison. Frankly, the only good thing I would say about the referenced item is that the gal who botched it together is gone. She was MUCH better about selling herself than I am. Now, 6 hours later it occurs to me that perhaps both the senior manager and my new boss (the QB) don't know is that not only is the process I've developed the most robust at our company, but it may be one of the top in the industry. No company I've talked to can do the tracking, management or follow up that we can. There are books and books about all sorts of security management practices, but not for the process I've developed.

For her to be focused on the number of items vs. the content or the purpose is extremely deflating.

The end result... I get to go back in 2 months and report on my progress of making my process "better." Never mind the risk that we're managing, I for f*ck sake will make sure that my process lines up with what she THINKS is the right metric to capture.

AND... at one point she made some crack about how old one of the items were, "2004... NO ONE was here in 2004!" Um, be-Atch... I was.

Anyway, it was awful. I'm open to new ideas, but a total smack down out of left field over stuff management doesn't understand makes me want to hurl.