"You have to adapt"

This started out as a post about being frustrated.

I am working with a very intelligent person who admits that she doesn't know anything about computers, technology, data bases, webpages, etc. It just so happens that the task we are partnering on is about computers, technology, databases webpages, etc., and she is in charge.

I had a phone conversation with her that frustrated me because we were not communicating. I was trying to solve a design problem. She was unable to visualize it. At one point, when I spoke about our two different working styles, she told me "You have to adapt" - which really angered me. Why am I the one who has to adapt, especially when she's the one who can't seem to step into the 21st century?

We finally agreed on a few key elements, and hung up.

After I hung up, I was still angry. I flailed around some more, unhappy, and feeling even more frustrated about the project's limitations. I thought about just not even doing it at all. Finally I called up the guy in our company's IT department who deals with this stuff. And he was not only cool about helping me - he was DELIGHTED to help me. He kept saying things like, "and if you want to do THIS, let me show you a really easy way!"

Wow. Neat! Hey, is that cool, or what??? It changed my whole mood. I thanked him, and then spent a happy couple of hours working out the problem I was stumped by. I ended up having a great and creative afternoon, and feeling like I really accomplished something.

I'm showing my work to my partner tomorrow, and I don't know whether she will like - or even understand - what I did with the project. But the good thing is that I turned the day around for me, and even if my revisions are rejected, at least I learned some really cool stuff. And kept on going.