The power of "No"

I recently read somewhere (if you know where, please remind me) that a measure of freedom is one's ability to say "No." "No" to bullies who would take your possessions. "No" to those who demand action from you. "No" to anyone who would ask anything of you you would not do on your own.

"No" is a powerful word.

I have a coworker who is extremely experienced. He immediately knows the best technical course of action, he knows all the little tricks that make network management a breeze, he always maintains a view of the big picture, he easily grasps the logic of new technical concepts, and can quickly speak broadly about them, and he's a fucking rocket surgeon.

He's about 20 years my senior, and he knows everything.

Unfortunately for everyone who must deal with him; he knows that he knows fucking everything. This means that he is an ass. No task too small will escape his influence (and subsequent complaint that things didn't go as he directed), and no fix will be too minor that he will not be able to insist a complete project to repair the numerous OTHER problems with the item to be fixed. He is very strong willed, and demands nothing short of ideal network perfection from our engineers, and will be very vocal about perceived shortcomings. This is the guy that won't let you create a user without insisting you clean up accounts, regroup OUs, and rebuild active directory to meet his perfect standards.

He's been with us for about a year, and in that time has managed to inject himself in pretty much everything, stepping on toes and entire people in the process. His tyranny was known throughout the company. (local AND remote offices!) The problem was, people could rarely argue with him with any substance, because his Ideal Network that he fought for at every opportunity, was just that; ideal. Anyone who knows networking knows networks are FAR from ideal. Ideal is what you read about in Cisco reference guides, and it it NOT always obtainable. Especially when you get customers involved in the decision making process. But no matter the occurrence, large or small, he could trace it back to weeks or months ago when he warned everybody this was going to happen, but they just didn't listen to him.

In the past year we'd gotten in a few actual arguments, always civil, but always about honest disagreements on company policy. I pick my battles, so I don't argue with him unless I really want to make a point. I knew I'd never "win" exactly, since he would settle for nothing less than a stalemate. In my altercations with him, some big arguments, some casual disagreements, I learned that even if he wasn't sure about his argument, he'd still argue it with 100% conviction; and when irrevocably disproved, he'd casually excuse his argument as bad info he must have read, and act as though nothing happened. We'd always part respectfully. All our big arguments could only end in stalemate since he wasn't my boss and he couldn't officially tell me what to do. While we were officially peers, he was far beyond my skill and experience level, and had earned the respect I willingly regarded him with.

Anyways, enough back-story!

I was having a particularly good day, having just finished a big project, and he asked me to open a ticket for an alert for a non 24-hour customer at 5:30pm. This particular site was a remote site in New Jersey, which meant it was 8:30pm at the site, and the only people there were the cleaners. I told him the site was very closed, and it didn't need a ticket. He asked if I was going to accept responsibility for not calling if the customer called. The NOC we were arguing in is one open room with 8 people in it. You can't have a private conversation in it, and you certainly can't have a private argument in it. At this point, I knew everyone was listening to some degree since the guy likes to make scenes, and belittle people for being wrong. I said I'd be happy to. This initiated smiles and thumbs-up from other engineers behind him. People respect him, but they don't like him. He scoffed and said, "Fine. Your ass, not mine. Just assign it to no_ticket then so it's not on the board." I thought for a second, and said I wasn't going to assign it to no ticket because it was after hours, and after hours tickets for non 24-hour customers should stay unassigned so the morning person can see them and call at 6 in the morning.

We then continued back and forth for a bit. I had the knowledge to back up my claim, I knew my way was simple, and effective, and I knew our superior would agree with me. He insisted that he was right, and refused to answer a question that would prove he did the same thing I did, so he asked me again, "Assign the alert to no_ticket so it's off my board!"

I thought about an answer that began "there's no reason to, because..." then realized I'd already said all I had to say, and that he was just going to continue the same arguments.

Then I knew exactly what to say.

No.

Two things happened simultaneously as I was saying that one word;
1. I felt uneasy to the point that I had to fight to keep the resolute look on my face. For a fraction of a second I thought my voice would crack, but it didn't. I was pushed forward by previous confidence, past forming doubts, to the word. I ignored my second thoughts, and pronounced the word solidly, and cleanly, without breaking direct eye contact.
2. I shuddered. But only on the inside. I didn't move, but something inside me did. I don't think I showed it outwardly. I don't know if it was fear, power, courage, or freedom; but something inside me changed.

There was a moment of silence before he said, "Whatever." and the mood in the NOC returned to normal. He worked late that night, so it was just he and I, but I sensed no animosity between us. Though the argument was significant to me, it was just another disagreement to him. Later I called a field engineer who was there at the time, and the first thing he said to me was a jovial, "Don't assign that ticket!" Clearly, there was significance to others as well.

Writing about it now, I think that this was the first time in my adult life that I stood up to an authority figure. I'm a respectful kind of guy, and if I have a disagreement with an authority figure, I'd rather explain my position clearly, and acquiesce. We had argued before, but never to such a hard conclusion. I knew I was right, I knew he was wrong, and I told him so with the most effective word I knew.