Constructive

[darkemeralds]

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has offered sympathy, solidarity, and constructive suggestions as I work through my trying new job situation. You have all been material to my peace of mind.

Answering comments and sharing difficult work stories has helped me bring particulars to my own conscious notice--something that always takes me a while--and a narrative is beginning to emerge.



Analysis:
Time it takes me to do my current job - 6 hours a day
Time it takes Norm to do his job - 10 hours a day
Total current time to do both jobs: 16 hours a day

Theories:

1. Management expects me to work 16 hours a day
2. Management believes Norm is even more inefficient than I think he is, and values his job at 2-3 hours a day
3. Management is willing to push deadlines on both jobs way, way out
4. Management expects to cancel some projects altogether
5. Management is guilty of that magical management thinking where all workers can always absorb more work, infinitely

Action Items:

1. Laugh at number 1, above. Not even theoretically possible. Not even if I were 25 years old. Stop thinking about that one.
2. Start streamlining. Present a list of bullshit-elimination action items to the boss.
3. Assess current projects and propose revised deadlines to the boss. Stand ground.
4. Figure out how much time sabotage would require to torpedo certain projects.
5. IDEK about the fifth thing--hope it's not true?

I've started on Action Items 1 and 2. Because what I needed was the project of fitting two jobs into one, in addition to all the projects actually required in both portfolios.

This work thing, I tell ya: it's hard work sometimes.

Comments

[cat63]

Theory number 6:- Management are a bunch of dunderheaded cock-wombles.

Although this is not entirely incompatible with any of the other theories on your list, especially number 5.

[darkemeralds]

I don't know what a cock-womble is, but I'm totally going to adopt the term into my vocabulary!

It's management's responsibility to get the most work out of staff--I have no problem with that concep. The difference is, I think they should be getting the most work feasible out of me, and they think they should be getting the most work possible.

I have yet to get a clear picture of where my boss stands on that issue.

[cat63]

I don't know what a cock-womble is, but I'm totally going to adopt the term into my vocabulary!

I stole it from somebody on Facebook :-) It does have a certain ring to it, I think :-)

It's management's responsibility to get the most work out of staff--I have no problem with that concep. The difference is, I think they should be getting the most work feasible out of me, and they think they should be getting the most work possible.

That's all very well, if they don't care about the quality of the work they get. If they do, they need to take into account that if they work people ridiculously hard, the work they do will be full of mistakes or just generally sub-par. There's no point in making someone work ten hours a day if everything they do in the last two hours will need to be redone the next day anyway.

I have yet to get a clear picture of where my boss stands on that issue.

Probably where his boss tells him to....

[darkemeralds]

Yeah, and his boss is the Chief Financial Officer of the public-sector organization whose budget has been hard-hit by the recession (like everyone else's).

I don't imagine "large numbers of uncompensated hours" sounds like a bad proposition to either of them.